How to Increase Higher Education Enrollment with SEO

With 67% of prospective students using search engines as their first source of information for higher education institutions and 9 in 10 not knowing which school they wish to attend during their initial research stages, it’s more important than ever to make sure that your website looks and operates to a high standard to show up within the top search results.

Unlike other industries, users looking for higher education information don’t just stop at the homepage, but also navigate through sites to find admission and course information, student associations, and even details on what life is like on campus.

The choice of which higher education establishment to attend is one of the biggest that someone will make in their lifetime, so it’s vital that these aspects are covered in detail to allow prospective students to make informed decisions. But 80% of education search queries end without conversion, so how can your website fight this trend? This is where an SEO for higher education campaign could really benefit your institution.

Keep reading if you want to learn more, and give us a call at 888-601-5359.

What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization, otherwise known as SEO, refers to the processes by which search engines such as Google and Bing determine website rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why is SEO important for higher education?

If your website is not up to the standard that the search engines expect, you may not show up within the first few pages of search results, meaning that your site is less likely to be clicked on by the right visitors. In fact, it may not even be seen by potential students at all!

This is why it is so important to have a strong SEO for your higher education campaign: it ensures that your site receives the most exposure possible to the right audience.

Conversion results for higher education are often slower than many industries. Such an important life decision needs careful consideration, with 44% of prospective students converting between 60 and 120 days after first looking on a higher education website, and many continuing to visit the site multiple times during this period to find out further information.

This is why it is crucial for a higher education SEO campaign to be ongoing, as the timescale that individual users spend on the site may range from a number of weeks to a few months.

How to use SEO to increase enrollment

In order to engage with prospective students and generate a greater number of applications, it’s important to have a broad SEO campaign that encompasses a variety of features. Here are a few ideas.

Long-form content

Long-form content and blog posts, for example, are a great way to inform prospective students on various attributes of your school. Whether this is in the form of student testimonials, interviews with professors or even advice on how to survive your first semester, increasing the amount of content on your website is a fundamental part of an SEO campaign.

This content is highly shareable, often generating natural links across social media, which enables the search engines to recognize that your institution is both relevant and authoritative in SERPs. With 78% of applicants being influenced by these results, using SEO really can increase your enrollment figures and help you get the edge above your competitors!

Social media

Alongside this, maximizing visibility across social media networks is an ideal way to engage with potential students. Social media enables you to talk to prospective students in real time, answering their questions and directing them to your site.

Not only will this increase traffic to your site, but it will also enhance the user experience, allowing them to view your higher education institution as helpful and student-focused. Social media also gives you the opportunity to connect with other educational associations, whether this be governing bodies, academics, or schools that are encouraging their students to enroll at your institution.

Responsive web design

Having a mobile-responsive site is also particularly important with the growth of smartphone and tablet use, particularly amongst young adults, with a Google study finding that over half of prospective students used a mobile device to research higher education institutions.

Keyword targeting

Location keyword targeting may be another aspect that you should consider as part of your SEO campaign. Often, prospective students are looking at institutions outside their state, sometimes even their own country, so attempting to rank for keywords that are specific to your location can be beneficial in generating the most qualified leads, the students who will actually enroll, and also help your institution to rank highly even in the initial stages of an SEO campaign.

For example, “liberal arts school in Michigan” will be easier to rank for in comparison to just “liberal arts school.” There is usually less competition for these longer phrases, known as long-tail keywords. Taking advantage of these terms will be increasingly beneficial throughout the course of your campaign.

6 SEO tips for colleges and universities

Learn how to get better results from SEO for colleges and universities with this compilation of the most effective tips for growing enrollment, donations, and more via search engine optimization.

1. Create unique content and pages

Google ranks websites based on many factors, including number of unique pages and time spent on the site. The higher these numbers are, the higher the site can potentially rank. Create as many useful pages as you can to not only expand the size of your school’s website, but to keep visitors on the site longer.

Of course, the operative word here is useful. Don’t create pages just for the sake of creating pages. That will just make your site look cluttered and spammy. Instead, aim to create informative and relevant pages about topics like:

1. Individual degrees and programs
2. Faculty and staff
3. Financial aid
4. Admissions and application requirements
5. Campus and nearby cities

The amount of pages you can create ultimately depends on the breadth of your offerings. Page length is also a factor, so pages with only one or two paragraphs aren’t really worth the effort. Instead, aim to put no fewer than 800 words on each page.

2. Optimize page URLs

If your page URLs are comprised of random numbers and letters, search engines can’t understand them. As a result, those pages don’t rank very high, if at all.

Your page URLs should explain exactly what the pages contain. For example, if you are creating a page about financial aid, a logical URL would be, “www.yourcollege.edu/financial-aid.” As an added bonus, this will be easy for site visitors to remember and come back to later.

If possible, try to add page keywords. If a URL contains the terms that students are searching for, that can be a signal to search engines that it is relevant. That being said, avoid “keyword stuffing,” or using as many keywords as possible in the hopes of ranking well. Google views this as spam, and will penalize your pages accordingly.

If possible, try to add page keywords. If a URL contains the terms that students are searching for, that can be a signal to search engines that it is relevant. That being said, avoid “keyword stuffing,” or using as many keywords as possible in the hopes of ranking well. Google views this as spam, and will penalize your pages accordingly.

3. Build keywords and content around your ideal student

Who is your ideal student? A high school senior looking for a business degree? A full-time professional hoping to advance in his or her career? Or someone else entirely?

Build your content around your target audience, and choose the right keywords to go with it. If, for example, you want to attract more military and veterans, concentrate on VA benefits, CLEP credits and other things that would be relevant to this population. If you want to enroll more students in online programs, focus on phrases like “distance learning” and “online programs.”

4. Highlight individual programs

Prospective students look for a lot of things when choosing a college, but one of the most important is the quality of academic programs. Because of this, many prospective students perform searches specific to their intended majors. Assuming that you already have unique pages for each of your programs (and you should!), you should optimize them for relevant keywords.

When optimizing your pages, consider the different terms and phrases people may search for. This will likely require keyword research. For example, don’t just optimize the page about your business program for “MBA”—optimize it for “masters in business administration” and “graduate business degree.” By including multiple keywords that people may be looking for, you increase the chances that the right ones will find you.

5. Consider optimizing for local SEO

Location can play a huge role in where a prospective student applies. Adult learners, for instance, typically prefer to attend classes close to home, while high school seniors may see college as an opportunity to experience a new region or city. Both groups research based on location, so consider optimizing your website for location-based searches.

If your school is located in a large city, include that city in your web copy, emails and other content. For example, a search for “colleges in Philadelphia” returns results for schools like Temple, Drexel, and University of Pennsylvania. Interestingly enough, La Salle University isn’t even on the first page. Care to take a guess at which one did not optimize for local search terms?

Local SEO can help you rank in local searches for your university.

6. Optimize non-text elements

Many site owners make the mistake of only optimizing the text on their pages, and while that’s certainly important, there are a few other elements to consider. Make sure to optimize your title tags, headers, and meta descriptions, as well as the alt text of your images.

These things may not be a big deal to you (or your visitors), but they certainly matter to search engines. Because of that, you should pay close attention to them on all of your pages. They won’t affect readability or user experience, but they can make all the difference in whether a prospective student finds your site—and your school.

SEO: The most cost-effective way to reach potential students

An SEO for higher education campaign is the most cost-effective way to ensure that your institution is being shown to the most relevant searchers possible: those who are likely to apply for enrollment and become your future students.

SEO offers you the flexibility to determine which terms you’d like to go after in SERPs rankings, gives you the opportunity to see what your competitors are doing and generate unique, shareable content that will boost the authority of both your website and your higher education establishment.

How WebFX can help you

As a full-service Internet marketing company, WebFX can provide you with an SEO campaign that can help you to rank above your competitors for higher education phrases, as well as increase the authority of your institution within the industry, whether for certain degree programs or location.

In addition to our SEO services, we offer everything from a full website redesign to reputation management and more. We are here to help you make your business as successful as possible online.

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