5 SEO Strategies for Colleges
Studies have found that online searches are the top method used by college applicants to discover colleges and degree programs.
With 75% of Google searches not going past the first page, ranking among the top search results for colleges and universities is highly competitive and profitable.
An aggressive SEO strategy should be a part of any digital marketing plan for colleges.
SEO for colleges faces a unique set of challenges. Besides being a highly competitive niche, college websites are often segmented by department or program.
With so many departments contributing content, it can be difficult to execute an organized data driven SEO strategy.
Custom SEO Solutions for Your College
Addressing Institution-Specific Challenges
No digital marketing solution is one-size-fits-all. Every college faces different challenges each semester. Some need to attract new students.
Some need to retain students and decrease dropout rates. Other colleges are rolling out a new degree program or struggling with state legislation about funding.
Custom digital marketing solutions can help target each of these situations, and drive action and attention where you need it.
5 SEO Strategies for Colleges
Here are five strategies to keep in mind when forming a search engine optimization plan for colleges.
1. Local SEO for Colleges
Many colleges draw a significant portion of their student body from local high school students. This matters because they need consistently updated local SEO targeting in order to maintain effective outreach methods.
SEO takes a technical understanding of the priorities and algorithms of Google and other search giants. You need to gather data on the keywords people use when they are researching colleges.
Because many students target their college choice by location, so you’ll need expert guidance on the right way to optimize your search engine results.
2. Content Marketing
Graduating high school seniors have endless questions about their future, and the things college can offer them.
The key to attracting them to your school is to provide answers to the questions they search for most often.
These answers need to be thorough, engaging, informative and written to function within the algorithms of search engines.
Generating reliable content is one of the biggest challenges higher education facilities face. While any college can answer these questions, they may not know the most effective way to answer them.
That’s where SEO expertise comes in.
3. Developing Analytics Goals
Digital marketing always involves establishing a series of goals for your potential recruits and new students.
Mapping the new student’s journey means using analytics to see what content on your website is attracting traffic. Then it means testing solutions for turning your web traffic into students.
4. Website Speed Optimization
Google has named site speed as one of the ranking factors it takes into account.
Expert guidance can alert you to mistakes you might be making that are bogging down your site speed while offering solutions that will deliver speedier results.
For example, if your website has been created with cumbersome unnecessary code, you may be able to get the same result using far fewer data.
Some studies show that 40% of people will leave a website when it takes more than three seconds to load.
5. Mobile Optimization
People are only on their desktops some of the time, but their phones are in their pockets or nearby at all times. Statistics show that the younger your target audience is, the more often they will be on their mobile devices.
It’s not just about the amount of time your future students spend on their phones. It’s what they expect to be able to do. Many websites fail to make their mobile experience just as easy as their desktop. This will only be more important in the future.
What Our Customer Is Saying
Grizelle De Los Reyes, Florida International University
In order to reach a niche and international audience, content marketing is key.
The Optimum7 team has been able to use their expertise in this area effectively by providing expert advice for the successful implementation of SEO strategies.
The strategies have led them towards a steady pipeline of leads thanks largely due to its targeting the right customers with relevant information about programs available now or coming soon – something no other company can offer quite like us!
Why You Should Work With Optimum7?
As an expert SEO and digital marketing agency, we offer all SEO services you need. Here are the SEO services we offer.
Local SEO Strategy
Local SEO is the best way to get your business noticed in a specific area.
If you have products or services only available within that radius, Local Search optimization might just do it for you!
SEO Website Audits
As an experienced SEO company, we make it our priority to provide you with a high-quality website audit and deep dive into your site architecture.
Our team will explore opportunities for content optimization as well as increase organic search visibility on both short-tail keywords or long-tail keywords that are relevant in the marketplace.
Our experts use tools such as Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Moz, SEMRush, and etc to dive into your site architecture and provide high-quality college or university website audits.
Link Building
In order to rank highly in search engines, it’s important that you have links from other sites.
Links are one of the primary factors Google and other search engine take into account when determining rankings for a website or webpage on their site.
Link building campaigns can be difficult because there is no way around acquiring these backlinks.
Mobile SEO Optimization
50% of all web traffic is on mobile devices, and that number will only increase as people continue to use their phones more than ever before.
As a result, Google has announced its intention for university websites or online stores not optimized for these smaller screens that can hurt organic rankings in search results – so you might want to find out how soon it’s time to upgrade!
Technical SEO Services
Technical SEO is a vital part of any business because it will help your site be more visible and easy for search engines to find.
Technical SEO services include making sure all the metadata on your website works properly.
It can increase visibility as well as click-through rates by giving accurate information about what products are available in each category from an online store’s perspective.
Content Creation
With the right content, you can start ranking for your target keywords and be seen by customers.
Our digital marketing specialists do keyword research to identify what words should appear in our posts or social media campaigns. So that they rank on search engines like Google easily.
The days of keyword stuffing are long gone!
FAQ – SEO for Colleges
What does SEO stand for College?
When you want to show off your institution’s many offerings, it is important that prospective students and parents find what they are looking for.
You can guarantee this by making sure the right information appears at top of organic search results pages when people perform searches on their computer or mobile device!
Is studying SEO worth it?
SEO is a powerful and effective way to generate traffic. When done right, SEO can also help you increase your site’s ranking on search engines like Google.
In return, it generates more leads for marketing campaigns as well as sales conversions when people find out about what they’re looking for through organic searches rather than paid advertisements (which we all know isn’t always successful).
How can I optimize my website for SEO?
Partner with Optimum7, a top-rated SEO company that specializes in organic traffic and revenue growth.
Our team will create custom on-page strategies to optimize your category pages as well as brand names for higher positioning within Google search results!