Increase Enrollment with the Right SEO Strategy for Higher Education
Enhance Visibility, Increase Website Traffic, and Expand Your Recruitment Efforts
Rank Higher In The Search Results, Increase Visibility, And Establish Your Trust and Authority
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Why Do Education Providers Need SEO?
The increased use of the internet and digital media is a major influence in the field of education today because your target market (students) is online constantly. Recent studies suggest that parents and students judge a school or college based on its website and online presence. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great way to enhance visibility.
When done right, SEO for higher education can help schools enhance their website performance and strengthen the impact of their content strategy—enabling them to rank even higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Each SEO campaign requires research, competitor analysis, initial and ongoing monitoring audits, maintenance, and optimization, but once you’ve reached Page 1 for your target keywords you’re getting more leads and relevant visitors to your website on a daily basis–but that is not the end, just reaching Page 1 isn’t enough, you have to work to stay there.
What is SEO for Education?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for education is a powerful and strategic digital marketing campaign used to enhance the online visibility of your services. It is designed to attract new and prospective students, parents of students, administrative candidates, and faculty by working to improve and optimize the online content posted by and about your institution or education program. SEO for education serves to optimize online content to outrank your competitors on Google and other search engines.
It is crucial your educational organization shows up in searches – especially locally. If potential students are receiving a referral from a friend or another education professional, they need to have a clear path to find you online.
SEO helps put your business in front of potential students with a clear path from search results to website visit, followed up by a call or consultation.
67%
of education seekers
use search engines as their first source of information for higher education institutions
78%
of higher education applicants
are influenced by search engine results (SERPs)
70%-80%
search engine users
only focus on the organic results
With SEO, You Can Assure That Students Are Finding Your Higher Education Institution
Our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies for education are crafted to boost up online visibility of your institution by increasing targeted traffic, achieving top rankings on agreed upon keywords, and generating more calls, inquiries, and confirmed education services.
And if you think you don’t need SEO for your education platform, you’re wrong.
SEO marketing has continued to become increasingly competitive for higher education. By having an appealing online & mobile presence and staying up-to-date with digital marketing tools needed, you’re likely to gain more trust and business from prospective students..
By specifying and differentiating yourself from the competition in your area, you can ensure that your firm won’t be left at the back of the pack!
GET YOUR CONTENT TO THE TOP OF PAGE 1
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION:
What is it and How Does it Work?
We don’t guess, or throw darts at the wall with the SEO for your higher education institution. At Reputation Rhino our proven SEO strategies are backed by thorough research and scientifically-tested data—guaranteeing you results every time.
SEO works to improve and optimize online content to rank higher on different search engines through:
- Keyword research and optimization
- On-site optimization
- Technical SEO
- Off-site optimization
- Monitoring and measurement
On page Optimization to Convert More Leads
Keyword Research and Targeting To Reach The Right Audience
Offsite Brand Building Techniques to Raise Awareness
Offsite Brand Building Techniques to Raise Awareness
Establishes Trust and Authority
Enhance Online Visibility to Leads and Clients
Our award-winning SEO company offers every solution you need to grow your organic online reach to online traffic in turn, building your revenue.
7 Tips For Tertiary Education SEO Strategy
Improve your educational services SEO with a straightforward, strategic process
1. Add Relevant Keywords
You have to determine the keywords you need to rank for, but how? Start by thinking about your main services and then determine what subtopics people might be looking for answers to. If you are a school trying to rank in a competitive market like Philadelphia, your keywords might be “medical school in philadelphia” and some related keywords might be “philadelphia medical school online classes,” and “best medical school philadelphia.”
Long-tail keywords could also be used for expanding content and optimizing your blog with questions and answers to common queries like “financial aid for medical school” or “how much does tuition cost for medical school?”
2. Start Blogging
Blogging allows you to accrue authority and rankings by displaying your knowledge on a variety of topics related to your business or brand. Using content, you’ll be able to rank for additional keywords and long-tail keywords that will get more visitors to your website. Companies that blog get 55% more website visitors and 97% more links to their websites than businesses that don't.
3. Earn High Quality Backlinks
Create high-quality content that gets shared and reposted. As part of off-page SEO, this will result in your website getting backlinks, which are a valuable ranking signal for Google. Backlinks are a vote of confidence in the eyes of Google and are important when building a brand and getting new pages to rank faster and higher.
4. Go Mobile
Google favors websites that prioritize the user experience on mobile devices than websites that are not optimized for mobile. According to a recent study, the average American spends 5.4 hours a day on their phone. 13% of millennials and 5% of boomers spend over 12 hours every day on their phones. Educational SEO experts understand that your target audience is researching and engaging with your school on mobile.
If you don’t know whether your website is mobile-friendly, Google offers a free Mobile Friendly Test that allows you to see how well your site runs on a mobile device.
5. Know Your Voice
The world is rapidly moving to voice-based search, and your future students, Generation Z and soon Generation Alpha are already there. Your future students are increasingly talking (rather than typing) their queries. PWC reports that 71% of respondents would prefer to use voice-activated search than physically typing their queries.
A voice strategy for education SEO involves optimizing for featured snippets, understanding how user intent drives visitors to your website, and thinking about long-tail keywords and questions (and answers) that will generate interest in your educational website.
6. Understand Your Audience
One of the challenges of SEO for colleges and universities is how to best engage their diverse audiences. For a typical college, marketing professionals must consider current and prospective undergraduate and graduate students, parents and family members of current and prospective undergraduate and graduate students, current and prospective staff and faculty, alumni and donors. Local media and state and local political figures are also a critical audience. There is no “one size fits all” for higher education SEO, and it all starts with getting to know your audience.
7. Using Schema for Education
If you are wondering how to increase SEO for higher education, structured data is the way to go. You can even test how things will look once implemented using the Google Structured Data Testing Tool.
Google and other search engines use Schema.org as a preferred structured markup to make it easier for its crawlers to scan pages and deliver relevant search results for users. We recommend using the JSON-LD format, Google also recommends this, which is included as a block of script in the head of your page. If you don’t have this format, there are other options available to align your current content structure.
For Education Institutions, the official designation for colleges/universities is advisable to follow for optimal SEO. You can markup courses offered by your college or university to allow prospective students to easily find you via search. Providing details that include the course name, who is offering the class, a short description are most helpful.
How is SEO for Education Providers Different from Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing relies on the idea, “let the student come to you” and is very hard to measure, whereas SEO puts your educational institution in front of your prospective students when they are actively searching for the programs you offer.
As marketing trends have changed and evolved over the years, so too have the tactics and tools modern education institutions must use to stay top-of-mind to their prospective students, administrators, and faculty.
Today, organic search is the number one driver of website traffic, particularly in higher education. If your school is buried on page 5 or 6 of Google, it resonates much the same way being in the middle or the back of the phone book would–you’re lost. SEO is the modern method of getting to Page 1 and influences the path prospects take from website visit, to lead, to appointment, to enrollment or employment.
Reputation Rhino's Approach To SEO
To improve the organic presence of your education institution website on Google and other search engines, our award-winning SEO company offers a range of services including the following:
On-Page Optimization
The highest search engine rankings are achieved through a combination of on-page and off-page activities on an ongoing basis. On-page optimization refers to improvements our top-rated education SEO experts will make to your educational institution website to help Google and other search engines recognize your website for the most important keywords for your business.
Examples of on-page activities include:
- HTML code repair
- Improve internal linking
- Quote and underline keywords in content area
- Review of content on page with proximity and prominence factors.
- Incorporate title, description, and keywords to each important page.
- Sitemap creation and submission (ROR, XML, TXT)
- Check and repair broken links
- Web page and image Optimization
- Meta tags analysis and keyword density
- Integrate customer and user feedback form on website, etc.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-page optimization is how our renowned SEO company will improve the authority of your website through external activities to help Google and other search engines recognize your site as high quality and authoritative.
Examples of off-page optimization activities include:
- Local Submission
- Business Listings
- Search Engine submissions
- Directory Submissions
- Article submissions
- Blog post submissions
- Press release submissions
- Link building – one way, two way, three way
- Creation and Submission of RSS Feeds
- Bookmarking and tagging
- Create profile pages
SEO Analytics and Measurement
The team at Reputation Rhino uses Google Analytics for monitoring website traffic and ranking position for construction and building SEO services.
Google Analytics can track anything dealing with referring source and keyword through lead conversion.
By using Google Analytics, we can determine the following:
- Total number of unique visitors to the website
- The number of enquiries or leads generated by our activities
- Referring source for site visitors along with keyword identification
- User demographics
- Goal setting and tracking drilling down to conversion ratio.
- Average page views per unique user
- Cost Per Click against organic search generated visitor conversions
We evaluate conversion ratios and SEO effectiveness using these metrics:
- Total number of inquiries and inbound emails originating from organic search
- Total number of unique visitors generated through organic search
The Importance of Local SEO for Higher and Tertiary Education
Local SEO has never been more vital to education. According to recent studies, 90% of internet users choose a provider from the first page of search results. Online SEO has never been more critical to the success of an educational institution with the emphasis on search engine results.
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. 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.
Unlike other industries, users looking for higher education information don’t just stop at the homepage, but also navigate through sites and social media to find admission and course information, student associations, and even details on what life is like on campus.
Local SEO requires more than verifying a Google Maps listing. Community colleges, state schools, regional colleges and even elite private schools require local SEO efforts since many initial searches will use geography as a modifier, such as “best law school in Florida” or “nursing schools in NJ” or “colleges near me.” In addition to simply being found, you need to have a review generation strategy in place so you can acquire positive reviews and remain at the top of Google’s local map pack.
Choose Reputation Rhino As the Best SEO Company to Increase Your Higher Education Applicants
By increasing your search rankings, you can increase visibility and reach more individuals seeking college/university educational programs or employment. The more students, and satisfied alumni that tell their friends and keep coming back for more. Of course, landing on Page 1 for the keywords that matter may seem impossible, but it’s a lot easier when you have an experienced SEO company on your side.
Before we start implementing a new SEO campaign for tertiary and higher education clients, we complete a SEO audit in order to understand your current performance and the gap between your school or program and your top competitors. We use the results of this audit to create a roadmap of your SEO strategy, helping inform exactly what we need to focus on to increase the amount of leads you generate online.
By using detailed analytics and goal tracking, we’ll measure the effectiveness of your SEO campaign on a daily basis. You will see phone calls increase, more web leads come through and more appointments made as your local rankings improve.
Are You Ready To Apply An SEO Strategy That Launches Past Your Competition Putting You At the
Top of Page 1 On Google?
Reputation Rhino is a New York based SEO company that will help you increase leads, outrank & stand out from the competition, create a winning strategy, and provide expert reputation management to boost your online presence.
Yes! I want my higher education institution to rank on Page 1!
Reputation Rhino's Team of Award-Winning SEO Experts will help you stay relevant and in your targeted audience’s searches, promote a positive online image, and produce more high-quality leads that drive sales.
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FAQ's
What are the fundamentals of online reputation management?
The fundamentals of online reputation management (ORM) involve monitoring your brand’s online presence, addressing negative feedback, and promoting positive content to build trust and credibility. This includes tracking mentions of your brand on social media, review sites, and search engines, engaging with your audience, and using SEO strategies to ensure positive content ranks higher in search results. By consistently managing these elements, you can protect and enhance your brand’s reputation in the digital space.
Why is online reputation management important?
Online reputation management is essential because your digital presence often serves as the first impression for potential customers, clients, or employers. A positive reputation can build trust, attract new opportunities, and drive business growth, while a negative reputation can lead to lost customers and damage your brand’s credibility. ORM helps you control the narrative around your brand and ensures that your online image aligns with your goals and values.
How can I monitor and improve my online reputation?
Monitoring your online reputation involves using tools like Google Alerts, Mention, or Brand24 to track mentions of your brand across websites, social media, and review platforms. To improve your reputation, respond to feedback promptly and professionally, encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews, and create high-quality content that highlights your brand’s strengths. Regularly analyzing search engine results and addressing any negative content is also crucial for maintaining a positive online image.
What role does SEO play in online reputation management?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plays a critical role in ORM by ensuring that positive content about your brand ranks higher in search engine results. This includes optimizing your website, blog posts, and social media profiles with relevant keywords and creating content that showcases your expertise and values. By improving your search rankings, you can push down negative content and ensure that users see the most favorable information about your brand when they search for you online.
How do I handle negative reviews or feedback effectively?
Handling negative reviews or feedback requires a proactive and professional approach. Start by responding promptly and acknowledging the issue, even if you don’t agree with the criticism. Apologize if necessary and offer a solution to resolve the matter. Avoid getting defensive or engaging in arguments online. Instead, focus on turning a negative experience into a positive one by demonstrating your commitment to customer satisfaction. Additionally, encourage happy customers to leave positive reviews to balance out any negative feedback.