4 Best Digital Marketing Strategies for Online Education
Boost your online school’s visibility with digital marketing strategies like SEO, PPC, email marketing, and social media marketing. Contact WebFX for expert help!
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insights from 61,900+ hours of higher education marketing experience
Online education is one of the best options for students who want to earn a degree.
It lets students learn and test from the comfort of their own home, with the flexibility required to manage their daily lives.
As online courses become more popular, it’s crucial that your online education’s marketing efforts are strong in order to attract your target audience.
On this page, we’ll talk about the term digital marketing and what it means, along with four of the best strategies you can use to attract students to your online school. Keep reading if you want to learn more, and give us a call at 888-601-5359.
What does digital marketing mean?
The term digital marketing covers a variety of strategies that let you promote your business online.
Digital marketing is also known as “inbound marketing,” because it meets customers where they’re already looking – online.
Digital marketing strategies allow you to spend your marketing budget on targeted individuals, rather than a general audience. That makes digital marketing a more cost-efficient way of advertising your online education.
Digital marketing strategies include SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media marketing, and more.
We’ll talk about these four strategies specifically and why they’re important to your online school.
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4 digital marketing strategies for online education
The goal of digital marketing is to get users to visit your website, learn more about your services, and eventually become a student.
The strategies that we talk about can all have a direct impact on how many users complete those actions.
1. SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of improving your website to attract more visitors. It helps you improve your ranking in search engine results pages, or SERPs, which makes you more visible to potential students online.
SEO includes tactics like improving your HTML code, writing content based on keywords, and building a strong backlink profile to prove your site’s authority.
You should always start with keyword research.
Using a tool like KeywordsFX, you’ll be able to find keywords people use to research the online education industry. You should look for keywords that have a high search volume and low competition, and then write content around those keywords.
Some beneficial keywords for online education might be “online education in [your city],” “do you need books for online education?”, or “tuition for online education.”
Every page you write about one of your keywords is another opportunity for you to rank in SERPs – not to mention help your potential students.
You should focus on keywords that mean the most to your target audience and thoroughly explain them with your content.
Google’s main goal is to provide the best information to its users, so you want to be sure that you’re writing for your potential students (not a ranking algorithm).
Content can take the form of informational articles about what you need to start an online education, blog posts giving advice about enrolling, or even infographics on some online education statistics.
No matter what content you use, it should have at least 1000 words, helpful images, and custom graphics to boost page engagement.
Another important part of SEO is building a backlink profile.
Backlinks are links from other sites to yours. These are especially useful when a website is well-known and trusted because they act as proof to Google that you offer high-quality and helpful information.
Clean HTML code is another part of SEO. Clean HTML means making every single tag count on your page – including meta tags, alt tags, and title tags – so Google can read your site more easily and improve your SERP ranking.
2. PPC
PPC refers to pay-per-click ads, which work on a bidding system. You can create PPC ads in search engines like Google or on social networks like Facebook.
These ads let you target potential students by targeting keywords that they frequently search. For example, you could create an ad that will show up in Google if users search “online schools in Texas.”
You can also target recipients based on their demographic information, such as age, location, gender, and more.
This hyper-targeted way of reaching your audience means that PPC is extremely cost-effective because your ads only show to people interested in online education.
The best part of PPC is, like its name implies, you only pay for an ad when it’s clicked – not when it’s seen. You choose how much you want to pay for each click based on the keyword, and you can almost always earn that money back from just one sale.
3. Email marketing
Email marketing is another great way to reach your target audience because it allows you to reach individuals who have shown interest in your school.
First, you have to create a list of subscribers.
This list can only include people who have given you their contact information. You should never pay for contact information because that’s spam.
Besides, you don’t know if people on purchased lists are interested in becoming students. When you create your own lists, you know that you’re reaching out to qualified prospects who want to know more about your institution.
Your emails can contain links to your latest blog, information about applications, and any other calls-to-action that will entice readers to click to your website.
4. Social media marketing
Another successful way to advertise your online school is social media. Combined, social media platforms have billions of users every month – so you’re missing out if you aren’t using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for your business.
Each platform has its own benefits, but they all engage a dedicated following of users to build relationships with them.
You can share updates about your online classes, links to your blog, your latest infographic, and more.
No matter what you share, all of your friends and followers will see it, giving you the chance to reach an even larger audience if any of your friends share your content.
Want to speak with an expert? Call us at 888-601-5359
WebFX is a full-service digital marketing agency
If you want to reap the benefits of the digital marketing strategies that we mentioned, but aren’t sure how to get started, WebFX can help.
We have a full team of SEO, PPC, email, and social specialists who can help take your online school to the next level.
Contact us today for a free quote!
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