Is your higher education institution a household name, recognizable across the nation? Does its name alone draw throngs of students to its doors? Although name recognition is something every educational institution strives for, most students search for their potential school based on broader search terms. According to Think Education with Google Report, 83% of potential students begin their online search through a non-branded term. This means, the majority of the students who reach your institution's website have done so by searching terms unrelated to its brand.
Is your school's website ready and optimized for the next generation of students?
Optimizing for Keywords Not Brands
Education Marketing Agency
Image courtesy of t0zz, freedigitalphotos.net
With the magnitude of majors, school programs, clubs, and other student activities available at each school, it's important to know how people are searching for your school. Each program will require different keywords and unique content written specifically to target those students interested in those programs.
One way to determine if people are searching for certain keyword phrases is to use Google Adwords Keyword Planner. This will provide you the monthly average search traffic for keywords and specific regions. Once you obtain these keywords, be sure to include them in your website's title tags, Meta description, and any copy written for your website.
Optimizing Your Website
When optimizing your website, it's critical to determine where potential and current students are landing and how they navigate your website. From local to international students, liberal arts to engineering degrees, it is important to make sure your website is easily navigable so you can lead potential students along a conversion path.
Begin by studying the behavior paths on Google Analytics. With this data, you can see where people are coming from, how they navigate the website, and where they are dropping off. See a page on your website where a large number of students are leaving? It could be that your content is either not clear enough or doesn't provide them with the answers they are looking for.
Next time you analyze the behavioral data of each webpage, try painting a picture of the types of students that are visiting. Ask questions such as:
Do these potential students have any distinguishing characteristics?
What is the purpose of their visit to your school's website?
What will that student notice most about your programs?
Will a new student be happy with the information they found?
It's important to be objectionable when asking these and other questions about your website. By doing this simple exercise, you will be able to tailor your website's content and user experience to potential students.
Getting Help from Your Student Body
Higher Education Marketing Agency
Image courtesy of breezy421, freedigitalphotos.net
Content is the big man on campus when it comes to SEO. Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages and obtain more leads because of it. While there is only so much that can be written on your campus' blog, there is another potential resource that you can tap into: student clubs.
Student clubs typically have their own webpage highlighting their activities, club members, and other resources. As an educational institute, you should encourage these clubs to create blogs and utilize social media. This will turn your students into official brand ambassadors who can showcase what your college has to offer. In addition, if they link back to your educational website, this provides great SEO benefits that can help your educational institute rank higher organically.
Optimizing your educational website is just like school. Research and planning is important, but in the end, you have to pass the test to graduate.
Need some extra tutoring? Chatter Buzz Media can help you pass that test. From SEO, social media, and PR, we're your campus store for everything involving digital marketing. Give us a call at (321) 732-8290 or fill out our quote form online and we'll be sure to see you after class.