October 2026 The Story Starter Reader, You’ve finished writing your school blog post. Congrats! Now, remove your finger from the “Publish” button. I know; it’s tempting. But before you press it, take a moment. Ask yourself: “Is there anything I can do to improve this post – even the smallest bit?” You know the answer to that question is almost always yes. But don’t worry; there are fixes you can make that won’t take long – or involve lots of work. Here are five quick edits you can make right...
17 days ago • 1 min read
September 2026 The Story Starter Reader, Congrats! Something big is happening at your school. Maybe you’re launching a new program. Or you have a new website. Or you hired an accomplished new head of school. So what do you want to do? You want to shout it to the world, right? You want to put out a press release and let everyone know that you’re doing great things, because surely they’ll be impressed. Except they probably won’t. And the reason is not because they shouldn’t be impressed...
24 days ago • 1 min read
September 2026 The Story Starter Reader, What truly sets your school apart? In a world where families have more choices than ever, it’s not enough to just say your school offers a great education or a caring community. To stand out, your school needs a bold, unifying Big Promise — a powerful declaration that defines what you deliver and why it matters. Your Big Promise isn’t just a tagline or a flashy marketing concept. It’s the heartbeat of your school’s story. It drives your messaging,...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
September 2026 The Story Starter Reader, Quick question: who's the byline on your school's blog right now? If it's "School Staff," or nothing at all, you're missing out on a storytelling opportunity — AI search tools are reported to cite named, credentialed authors about 40% more often than anonymous ones. This isn't about hiring writers. It's about crediting the right person — your admissions director, your learning specialist, your head of school — for the knowledge that's actually theirs,...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
September 2026 The Story Starter Reader, Here it is, the promised checklist post — 10 specific things independent schools should be doing right now for AI search, in the order I'd tackle them. A few are five-minute fixes (rewriting a subhead as a real question). A few need your web developer (schema markup). All 10 are pretty important. Read the full checklist→ and forward it to whoever owns your website. Most of this doesn't require a big budget, just some focused attention. Your...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
August 2026 The Story Starter Reader, Sure, ChatGPT or Claude can help schools work faster in theory—but without the right foundation, it will make you sound just like everyone else. So today, let's review that foundation: your school story platform. Because before you rely on AI, you need to define the four core components that make your story unique and repeatable: Your Big Promise Your Positioning Statement Your Story Pillars Your Reasons to Believe In this post, I break down each of these...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
August 2026 The Story Starter Reader, Last week, I wrote about how AI reads your website (short version: in pieces, not top to bottom, and your Google ranking doesn't guarantee it likes what it finds). This week answers the question: does this mean we have to write differently? Yes. Just not the way people assume. You don't need to start writing like a spec sheet. What needs to change is where the specific facts — dates, numbers, formats — live on the page. This week's post walks through...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
August 2026 The Story Starter Reader, If you've been here a while, you know that I've been sharing school website copywriting best practices for ... quite some time. (Decades, actually.) Which is why this week's topic is so important. It's about AI search — and specifically, how AI reads your website and determines what (and if) it will share. I spent the last few weeks down a research rabbit hole, and I'll be sharing my findings, thoughts, and tips in a series of blog posts. This week's is...
2 months ago • 2 min read
August 2026 The Story Starter Reader, "Yes, that's definitely on our list ... we just need time to focus on it." Sound familiar? The idea of putting a new marketing endeavor (like digital advertising) "on our list" is both comforting and dangerous. Comforting because we acknowledge that it is important -- but dangerous because it's SO EASY to keep pushing it off until next week, next semester, or next school year. This is why I'm incredibly excited to share something exclusively with Cursive...
2 months ago • 1 min read