Morehead State University’s revamped website won gold at the 11th annual Education Digital Marketing Awards. In 2021 the MSU communications and marketing team were tasked with updating the university website to improve user experience and accessibility for current and potential students.
Officials said the team partnered with the marketing company Stamats to install new hardware and software to completely change the website.
Rick Hesterberg is Vice President of University Advancement. He said the website needs to be easily navigated.
“And you hear that term a lot but it’s really your number one priority. To make the process and the reason why they’re coming to your website as easy as possible and to try to get some quick results and try to answer any questions that they might have along the way for the various different reasons why they may be visiting the website,” said Heseterberg.
The project cost around half a million dollars. Hesterberg added the website hadn’t been updated in years and this overhaul will make it easier to keep it current.
“What we have now is not only a fresh new look, but we have a system built to where we won’t have to go through such a large project the next time we want to do a so-called refresher or revamp,” said Hesterberg.
Hesterberg said most of the glitches that follow such an overhaul have been worked out, although a website like MSU’s requires daily maintenance.
Communications and Marketing officials said one of the most prominent features of the website is an academic program search on the homepage.
MSU also won a silver award for their social media outreach on Facebook and a merit award for a digital campaign video.