I wanted to see what kind of condition we’re in with web design as far as obedience schools go. Sadly, as I looked around the web, the firstfew websites that came up on Google were definitely not up to par. Although informative the sites still looked unprofessional. So the next topic in pet services web design I’d like to take on is obedience schools. Every obedience school needs to have a few different pages. These include: home, instructors, classes/fees, boarding, schedules, location(s)/contact us, FAQ, and links.

On your home page there only needs to be a few things, just to welcome the visitor/potential customer. A nice greeting is ideal with some information about the school. You could also possibly  write new messages every week updating people on what specials are going on or if there is some type of special announcement you feel is necessary. This will help to convey the tight knit relationship that you should have with your current and future customers. Try to use more natural colors on the home page, a lot of bright areas or text will make your website look tacky and unprofessional. Instead of using blocks of bright colors, try to keep it more natural looking with better visualizations.

You should always have a page for your different instructors (unless you are a larger scale school and this would mean way to many people). This helps pet owners feel more comfortable with the instructors before they bring their dog in for training. This page should have some general information on each instructor. Things like: a small picture of him/her, how many years they’ve been training, what kind of dog they have, how long they’ve been with the school, and maybe some other fun facts. Keeping in mind to try to be professional at the same time.

Your classes section should have some of the most important information on the website. This section should list all the classes that your school offers. It should be listed by skill level, in most cases. Under or near each class title, you should have information about what that class teaches. There should also be information on how long the classes are; this being length in time per day and in total. For example, the beginners class is a six week class where the class meets 3 times a week for an hour at a time. Or something similar to that. The last piece of information should be pricing and fee information. This should include how much the class costs and any extra fees that someone is possibly going to have to pay. A customer is going to want to know everything they are paying up front with no hidden charges at the end to surprise them. Now most schools all the scheduling information in this area as well. I would advise against that because it is a lot of information to think about all at once. It should be split up so that the customer can choose what skill level they are going to train their dog at and then they can go to the schedules page and look at all the different times that are offered for that class. Which bring me to the scheduling page. Just as I said above, this page should just be all the times that all the classes are set at, including the start dates. This page needs to be updated regularly to change these dates.

There should be a page for boarding, if that is something your school offers. This page should be brief, but emphasizing how your boarding is superior to others. It should have fees and everything the customer is going to need to know on one page. This page needs to be straight to the point and somewhat short. A location(s)/contact us page is a must. This is how people find and call you! If you didn’t haven this page set up there would be almost no point to your website.

Lastly, an F.A.Q. section and a Links page should be included. This section should be an area where you can answer questions that frequently come your way. It will be an informative section for everyone who has questions ever after going through your whole website. The Links page is for you and your customers. You should have a few links here for similar websites and things of that nature. This will also help your page ranking on Google and boost you up in the search results. Don’t think that if you do a few you’ll automatically go to the top. Many companies have thousands of links to do just the same thing. This about cover what should go into your obedience school website. Feel free to add more pages with information you feel imperative to have on there. Just be sure to make it look like your serious about the service you provide. Want to learn more about other types of web design? Visit us at DreamCo Design – Web Design.