New Madinah College

How a Strategic Web Overhaul Helped a Regional Faith-Based School Attract Teachers from Beyond the Local Map

Located in the rural town of Young, New South Wales, New Madinah College had long been committed to providing faith-based, values-driven education to its growing community. However, like many regional schools, the College faced one persistent challenge: attracting qualified teachers to relocate to the area.

With few local applicants and growing student numbers, the school needed a recruitment strategy that extended far beyond Young. They needed to connect with teachers across Australia—and even overseas. But their existing digital presence wasn’t helping. The school’s website was outdated, unstructured, and failed to represent the dynamic, welcoming, and professional environment it had to offer.

That’s when New Madinah College turned to Mulwaree Online for a full-scale digital transformation.

The Challenge: A Good School Struggling to Be Seen

New Madinah College had strong foundations: purpose-built facilities, a supportive leadership team, and an inclusive learning environment. Yet online, none of that came through. Their website was difficult to navigate, lacked key information for prospective staff or families, and didn’t reflect the modernisation happening inside the school itself.

The leadership team recognised that their site was no longer fit for purpose, particularly when it came to:

• Recruiting teachers from outside the region
• Appealing to overseas applicants
• Showcasing their academic programs and Islamic values
• Communicating professionalism to potential parents and government partners

Without a clear, informative, and visually engaging web presence, the school struggled to compete against larger metropolitan schools or better-funded institutions with polished digital identities.

They didn’t just need a website—they needed a reputation shift, and a strategy for recruitment and engagement.

The Brief to Mulwaree Online: Make Us Competitive—Visibly and Professionally

Mulwaree Online was approached with a direct goal:

“We need a website that attracts teachers to move to Young—and makes our school feel like a place they’d be proud to work.”

This meant building a digital platform that achieved the following:

• Represented the school’s faith-based identity in a professional, inclusive way
• Offered dedicated space to promote job openings
• Appealed to Australian and international educators
• Showcased teaching facilities and leadership vision
• Included a blog to demonstrate ongoing activity and educational values
• Improved search engine visibility
• Integrated easily with the school’s internal operations and communication systems

The Website: A Purpose-Driven Platform for Growth

Mulwaree Online delivered a complete redesign of newmadinah.nsw.edu.au, with a focus on usability, clarity, and professional appeal.

Key Features Included:

• A clean, modern layout optimised for mobile and desktop
• Quick-access menus for Parents, Staff, Students, and Careers
• A dedicated “Work With Us” section with downloadable job descriptions and application forms
• A Gallery showcasing school events, excursions, classroom activities, and facility highlights
• An interactive blog, regularly updated with school news, student achievements, and thought pieces on teaching
• Embedded Google Maps, contact forms, and direct enquiry links for overseas applicants
• Multi-language translation options to accommodate international viewers
• Easy backend access for admin staff to update content without needing a developer

The site now loads quickly, meets all core web standards, and gives visitors a professional first impression of the school.

The Teacher Recruitment Strategy: Attracting Talent from Beyond the Region

New Madinah College knew that finding qualified teachers in a small town was an ongoing challenge. That’s why Mulwaree Online embedded a recruitment-first approach into every part of the website and blog.

Career Portal Highlights:

• Clear and inviting language describing what it’s like to live and work in Young, NSW
• Details about salary packaging, housing options, and local amenities
• High-quality photos of classrooms, technology labs, staff lounges, and playgrounds
• Testimonials from current staff about the supportive work environment
• Application pathways for both domestic and overseas candidates
• Links to relevant visa sponsorship information for qualified teachers abroad
• SEO-optimised content targeting keywords such as:
  • “Teaching jobs rural NSW”
  • “Faith-based school careers Australia”
  • “Islamic school teacher jobs Australia”
  • “Relocate for teaching NSW regional”

International Reach: A Website Designed to Cross Borders

Part of the brief was to help the school attract qualified Muslim teachers from overseas who shared the school’s values and educational mission.

To support this, the site was built with:

• Compatibility for international search engines and Google indexing
• Clarity around Australian teaching standards and how to apply from overseas
• A step-by-step relocation guide available as a downloadable PDF
• Content structured to build trust with foreign applicants unfamiliar with the region
• Blog articles explaining Young’s community, the school calendar, and NSW Department of Education expectations

By aligning with migration-focused SEO and showcasing the school’s professionalism and student success stories, the site has begun receiving traffic from the UK, Malaysia, South Africa, and parts of the Middle East—exactly the kind of outreach the leadership team hoped for.

Blogging: Building a Living Narrative of School Culture

To avoid becoming a “set and forget” website, Mulwaree Online developed a blogging strategy to:

• Promote school events
• Showcase student work and excursions
• Publish educational reflections from staff
• Highlight community initiatives
• Answer FAQs from prospective parents and teachers

The blog became a living window into school culture, helping interested applicants and curious parents alike understand what makes New Madinah College unique.

It also played a vital role in SEO by targeting long-tail search terms like:

• “Best Islamic schools in country NSW”
• “Teaching and living in Young Australia”
• “Rural schools with ICT programs”
• “Inclusive Islamic education for students with additional needs”

Facilities Showcase: Letting the Infrastructure Speak for Itself

Unlike many small regional schools, New Madinah College has invested heavily in modern facilities—including upgraded IT labs, multipurpose halls, a school canteen, and classroom technologies.

These features weren’t being communicated at all before the website rebuild.

Mulwaree Online created a visual showcase of the facilities using:

• A full gallery of high-resolution photography
• Optional 360° walk-through video content (planned for future integration)
• Site plans and classroom layouts for reference
• Dedicated blog posts highlighting facility improvements and upgrades
• A downloadable School Profile PDF for government and overseas partners

This helped reposition the school from “small-town basic” to “rural, well-equipped, and forward-looking.”

SEO and Search Visibility: Putting New Madinah on the Digital Map

With rural schools often buried under larger city-based institutions in search results, Mulwaree Online crafted a local and thematic SEO strategy that included:

• Keyword research on teacher recruitment, Islamic education, and regional schooling
• Meta descriptions optimised for Google Snippets
• Structured headings and alt-text for accessibility and ranking
• Geolocation tags to connect with users in Australia and abroad
• Schema markup for “educational institution”

The results were swift. Within six weeks:

• The school appeared on page one for multiple combinations of “Islamic school + NSW + teacher”
• The “Work With Us” page became one of the top-performing pages on the site
• Overseas traffic increased by over 250%, with direct enquiries coming in from qualified applicants

A Platform for the Future

The website now serves as more than just a recruitment tool—it has become the central communication hub for the school’s community.

Staff and leadership use the platform for:

• Internal announcements
• Sharing student accomplishments
• Event promotion
• Parent engagement
• Ongoing outreach to prospective hires and new families

With a content management system that’s easy to use, the site can evolve with the school—accommodating future enrolment campaigns, multilingual content, or remote learning access if needed.

Client Summary

Client: New Madinah College
Website: newmadinah.nsw.edu.au
Location: Young, NSW
Sector: Faith-based Primary & Secondary Education
Challenge: Low visibility, outdated web presence, difficulty recruiting teachers to a regional location
Solution: Full website rebuild, teacher recruitment content strategy, international SEO, facility showcase, ongoing blogging
Result: Increased visibility, rising overseas traffic, successful outreach to prospective teachers, and enhanced community perception

What the School Says

“We had everything we needed inside the school—but we couldn’t show it properly to the outside world. Mulwaree Online helped us look as professional online as we are in person. Now when teachers apply, they already know who we are—and they’re excited to join.”

Your school could be next.

Whether you’re in a rural town, an outer suburb, or an independent faith-based institution looking to grow, Mulwaree Online can help you build a digital presence that works—locally and globally.