SEO for Higher Education: Strategies To Boost ROI

On any given day, people are searching online for your school’s programs and offerings. They might be high school students interested in post-secondary degrees, adult learners wanting to improve career mobility, or parents looking for colleges close to home for their children. With a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for higher education in place, you can bring prospective students to your website and turn their interest into admission inquiries, campus visits, and program registrations.

In this post, I’ll explain what higher education search engine optimization looks like in practice and give you a framework for creating a vibrant online presence for your school. Using data-driven insights, you can create a website that meets the needs of search engines and students and supports your institution’s long-term growth. 

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Why SEO Matters for Higher Education Institutions

Higher ed institutions around the world are experiencing declining enrollment, largely due to changing demographics and a smaller college-aged population. As competition increases, focusing on SEO for education providers can increase your brand awareness and drive more potential students to your website.

Schools are also changing how they deliver education, which makes recruitment complex. More programs are available online, and students are no longer limited to selecting institutions based on location. While this means students have more schools to choose from, it’s also an opportunity to expand your target audience if your institution offers flexible learning models.

When you implement search engine optimization, you improve awareness of your online and campus-based programs. An SEO-friendly website is tailored to your audience, which inspires visitors to stay and explore your content. If you can answer their queries with interesting, helpful pages, they’re more likely to interact with your site, learn how your institution supports their goals, and take the next step in their education journey with your school.

Demonstrating the ROI of Higher Education SEO

You have many options for reaching prospective students — social media, paid ads, and email marketing, to name a few. These channels can send visitors to your website, but only as long as the campaign is active. Your web traffic inevitably drops when your ad stops running or your social post fades from a user’s feed.

With SEO for education websites, your web pages display on search engine results pages (SERPs) whenever your audience uses your target keywords, creating sustainable growth. You’ll bolster your site with optimized content that supports interaction and conversions, improving the impact of other marketing channels.

How To Implement an Effective SEO Strategy

SEO for higher education requires a cohesive approach for best results. The components are interconnected and work best when implemented together. It takes in-depth keyword research to produce effective content, for example, while an inventory of great content makes it easier to build backlinks. 

Instead of focusing on one or two elements of SEO, take a holistic approach to build a strong foundation for sustained growth. The following framework gives you a good start.

Conduct Keyword Research With a Purpose

SEO success hinges in large part on the search terms you rank for. Your target keywords should be based on audience research and cover a variety of user queries. To create a comprehensive strategy, compile a list of search terms used by different audience segments, such as local prospects, international students, adult learners, and parents.

Think about a typical student journey: finding a school with relevant programs, assessing if the programs suit their needs and career paths, evaluating costs, exploring student support systems, and taking into account campus services, amenities, and experience. A thorough SEO keyword strategy for higher education should consider each stage of a student’s journey and target relevant keywords.

Your keywords should relate directly to your academic programs as well as broader but related queries. For example, you might target “nursing programs” to capture students who know what they want to pursue, in addition to “earning potential of nurses” to help those who are still considering their career path. Round out your keyword strategy by highlighting attractive program features, such as “affordable business programs,” “one-year IT programs,” “online data science certificates,” and “business programs with co-ops.”

Optimize On-Page and Technical Elements

An SEO-friendly website serves a couple of purposes. It helps search engines crawl and index your content while letting students explore your site without getting frustrated by slow-loading pages or difficult navigation.

Start by optimizing core pages that are critical to a student’s journey, such as admissions information, financial aid guides, degree requirements, course descriptions, and faculty biographies. 

Review each page and ensure it’s well-organized and aligned with higher ed SEO best practices. Your site should also be technically sound and error-free. I recommend tools such as Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights to find areas that need improvement.

When implementing on-page and technical SEO for higher education, focus on:

• Creating a logical website structure.
• Writing compelling page titles and descriptions.
• Organizing page content into sections with header tags for readability.
• Compressing image file size and using image alt text.
• Improving internal linking and navigation to guide students to relevant content.
• Creating descriptive URLs.
• Ensuring pages load quickly and are mobile friendly.
• Fixing broken links and removing duplicate pages.
• Making sure the site is secure.

Build Backlinks To Strengthen Authority

Search engines use backlinks to assess your website’s authority. If reputable sites are sending readers your way, your site is more likely to be seen as useful and trusted, leading to better search performance. Aim to grow the number of quality links to your web pages, as well as the diversity of referring domains.

You can build backlinks in a few ways. Here are some examples:

• Find newsworthy stories to promote to media outlets. You might highlight unique programs, invite journalists for a behind-the-scenes look at new facilities, or spotlight innovative teaching techniques.
• Highlight faculty research. Showcase the exciting work taking place at your institution by summarizing findings in articles or interviewing researchers in shareable video stories.
• Publish helpful content that other sites want to reference. Offer career guides, tips for first-year students, scholarship guides, and articles such as “Top Health Science Programs in the U.S.” You can also publish thought leadership from faculty and executives.
• Collaborate with other educational organizations. Promote upcoming open houses, campus tours, application deadlines, and guest speakers on external websites.
• Contribute to guest blogs. Provide helpful content and articles to industry websites with backlinks to your site.
• Hire a link building agency. As a higher education SEO agency, Victorious can help you build quality backlinks to your website.

Create High-Quality Content That Engages and Converts

Your content gives prospective students a reason to visit your site, putting key information at their fingertips and guiding them to logical next steps. It also enriches user experience — students have a lot to consider when choosing a school, and clearly presented information simplifies their decision-making process. 

Keep in mind that your content isn’t limited to text. You can use images, videos, and interactive quizzes or tools to create a more dynamic experience.

Here are some ways to use content to engage your audience and support your marketing goals:

• Anticipate your audience’s questions and pain points and present the information in an appealing way.
• Create helpful FAQs and guides that make information easily accessible and less intimidating. For example, summarize application processes, financial aid options, and available support services.
• Use visuals and infographics to make processes easier to understand, such as what happens after a prospective student submits an application or how to apply for campus housing.
• Help students decide if a program suits their needs by walking them through sample courses and outlining career paths.
• Showcase your institution’s value and reputation by focusing on faculty research and awards.
• Film a video tour of the campus to bring your institution to life and help students envision themselves studying there.
• Use alumni success stories to encourage visitors to take a closer look at the benefits of your institution.

Integrate keywords naturally throughout your content to help your web pages rank for relevant searches. Remember to optimize images with alt-text and publish video transcripts to help search engines interpret multimedia formats.

Leverage Local SEO

Some students search for colleges based on geographic location, which requires a local SEO strategy on top of traditional higher ed SEO. This gives your institution prominence when students search for schools or programs along with the term “near me” or a specific city, state, or region. For example, you might target keywords such as “campus tours in San Jose,” “computer science programs in California,” or “best universities in the Pacific Northwest.”

To improve your chances of ranking for local searches:

• Claim your Google Business Profile. Optimize your profile and add photos and regular updates to show your institution is active.
• Standardize your NAP. Your school’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) should be consistent on websites and online platforms to build trust with search engines.
• Create local citations. List your institution on directories, resource pages, and education websites to build backlinks and help search engines cross-reference your NAP.
• Add maps and directions. Confirm your school’s location by adding maps and driving directions to your site.
• Include local references on your website. Mention your city, state, and region naturally throughout your site and include mentions of local landmarks. You might write an article about campus life and note your proximity to downtown amenities or outdoor recreation.
• Use structured data. Schema markup provides search engines with key details to populate rich snippets and knowledge panels. Use LocalBusiness schema to mark up content such as address, location, area served, geo coordinates, logo, and number of employees. While you’re at it, implement CollegeOrUniversity, Course, and EducationEvent schema, too.
• Implement local SEO for different campuses. If your institution has more than one location, repeat these tactics for each campus.

Have multiple campuses? Multilocation SEO is key!

How Partnering With an SEO Agency Supports Your Goals

Higher ed marketing departments are often tasked with competing priorities and lack the time, resources, and specialized knowledge to implement SEO tactics at scale. Bringing an agency partner into the fold can fill in the gaps, easing your internal workload and accelerating results. With years of hands-on expertise, established SEO agencies understand what tactics work best in different situations, and have the tools and processes to launch campaigns efficiently.

An SEO partner can also step back and look at your challenges from a broader perspective, creating strategies with your overarching goals in mind. Search engine marketing for higher education isn’t just about ranking well and driving traffic, for example. The objective is to translate this visibility and traffic into real value for your organization by making the most of those site visits. An effective SEO strategy connects you to prospective students, supports engagement, and motivates them to act. Depending on your goals, this could take the form of campus tour registrations, advising appointment bookings, application submissions, and program enrollment.

To achieve tangible results for your institution, our team at Victorious uses in-depth analytics to understand how your website is performing and its ability to meet your audience’s needs. These findings help us zero in on potential improvements and customized solutions. You can also leverage these insights to better understand your target audience, which helps you refine campaigns through other marketing channels. No matter where your traffic comes from, visitors will land on a website that’s optimized for conversions, helping generate revenue.

Driving Sustainable Growth With SEO

Help your audience find their future alma mater with a powerful higher education SEO strategy. Schedule a free consultation with our experts at Victorious and learn how our data-driven approach can bring you reliable, consistent traffic, drive conversions, and lay the foundation for your school’s future revenue and growth.