Higher Education SEO Strategies for Your School | SEO for Colleges, Trade Schools, and More

Author: Steve DiMatteo
Updated on 5/24/2023

Looking to boost enrollment for the undergraduate or graduate programs at your college or university? Or even for your trade school or community college?

Search engine optimization is an incredibly valuable and effective tool that can help you reach these goals by allowing your higher education programs to thrive online.

Improve Your Enrollment Through an SEO Campaign

Higher education SEO can have powerful results for your institution, and our team will provide the tips and strategies you need to achieve the best possible results. Check out our guide to higher education SEO below, and be sure to contact our team to learn more about how we can help you increase enrollment for key programs at your school.

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“John and the Sixth City team are wonderful to work with. They are extremely knowledgeable about SEO, digital marketing and website optimization. The team goes above and beyond to help clients reach marketing goals and is accessible to answer questions via phone, email and in-person meetings. They are true professionals and I would highly recommend their services to anyone looking for a digital marketing firm that will help take their business to the next level.” – Joni Bowen, Kent State University

What Is Higher Education SEO?

SEO for higher education specifically includes implementing a diverse array of SEO best practices to increase search ranking, traffic, and leads on your school’s website. When applying these strategies to your college or university’s site, the goal is to attract prospective students to either inquire about a specific program or simply apply to the school right then and there.

Why does your college need SEO?

Opportunities to Draw Potential Students to Your Website Searching For and Researching Schools (Found Via Keyword Research)

One of the first things we look at when we talk to higher education organizations is where they rank for keywords related to their school and its specific programs. When we present our keyword findings, we’ll show them the search phrase, how many times its searched for nationally in a month, and where the school ranks for those terms (all available via the Google Ads keyword planner).

This often demonstrates the opportunities to draw relevant traffic to their website (depending upon how high or low they are currently ranking). We often add a variety of phrases, such as:

Programs offered (with or without a specific city name)
Classes/courses/certifications offered (with or without a city name)
The type of school (trade, community)
The type of programs offered (bachelor’s, master’s, etc.)
Location of school (city and state)
Adding in programs/classes offered with variants of online (e.g. online MBAs)

Limitations on Paid Digital Marketing Options to People 18 and Under

The landscape of digital marketing for higher education institutions has changed dramatically over the last few years. Paid social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have limited the ability to market to people under 18. Google has also adopted these same policies for its ad platform. One channel that hasn’t been limited is organic search engine listings via Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

When marketing to potential undergraduate students, organic search becomes an even more vital tool for your school. Prospective students still in high school will be searching for programs in a wide variety of ways, and you want to ensure your programs stand out from an organic perspective to ensure you’re capturing this audience.

Want to learn more about what higher education SEO is, and how it can benefit your college or program? Let our team help you by answering some frequently asked questions, as well as providing some tips on how to implement these strategies in your own higher education programs.

Frequently Asked Questions About Higher Education SEO Campaigns

Here are a few common questions our agency receives during our free strategy sessions:

What does SEO encompass?

There are various types of SEO that exist: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO. These all utilize different strategies and approaches that are then customized to a specific client to grow leads and see new results – in this case, an increase in qualified applications and enrollment in key programs.

Why does our school need SEO?

With the rise of digital marketing and all the advancements that come along with it, SEO is extremely important when it comes to growing an online presence for your school. Overall, SEO can help bring more prospective students to your website and entice them to fill out a form, call you, or contact you through a chatbot. Tactics such as writing new, optimized content helps target prospective students and can lead them to convert to becoming enrolled.

How long does it take to rank on Google?

When it comes to SEO, it’s more of a marathon than a sprint. Most SEO work is part of a long-term goal, but there are tactics that can show early results for your rankings, such as uploading new content, which helps keywords, or getting backlinks indexed. It might take time to get there, but SEO is long-lasting and can show results for many years to come.

10 Effective College SEO Strategies We Recommend

One of the best parts of SEO is that it includes a variety of strategic tactics that all work together in a unique formula to help your website rank better on search engines, increasing your ability to be found by users on the web.

With that in mind, here are some of the best SEO strategies that our team recommends for your school:

Keyword analysis – One of the key processes of good SEO is to first research the terms you wish to rank for. From a higher education perspective, students are looking for your programs in a wide variety of ways; they may not always be searching exactly how your programs are named, which presents many potential keyword and content opportunities moving forward. You can then determine which has the most search volume traffic and see what opportunities for improvement there are on your website to implement these terms. Down the line, be sure to examine long-tail keywords that are more niche and supplement those with unique blog content.
Content optimization – Through a mix of adding to your current website copy and incorporating new landing pages to help users find what they need, taking the time to thoroughly optimize your content is one of the strongest ways to quickly improve SEO.
Design for conversion – When people come to your site, if there is no easy and noticeable way to reach out for more information on the page, you could be losing out on potential students who leave your site out of confusion or frustration. Do research to understand the fundamentals of user experience, which will allow you to make strategic adjustments that go hand in hand with SEO tactics to improve the conversion rate on your site’s pages.
Metadata optimization – Ensuring that the metadata on your website is properly written to focus on your key terms, while also appealing to the user through captivating language, is no easy feat. Be sure to include key terms and important information in titles and descriptions to help not only rankings, but your click-through rate.
Blog writing – Not only does blog writing open the doors to targeting more niche, specific keywords, but it also can help you gain more overall site traffic through exposure on search engines and potential backlinks from external sites.

Competitor research – Examining competitors’ content, backlinks, website speed, and more can all provide valuable insights. You should regularly look at the sites of your main competitors in search engine results pages, and anyone else you consider competition, to see if there are opportunities for improving your site.
Link building – To help prove your site’s authority and further build its organic foundation (this is especially important when we start talking about specific internal departments and degree programs), the tactic of gaining more links from other authoritative sites can be tremendously beneficial to your SEO. As a school, one great way to get more links is to look for unlinked mentions of your college and its professors.
Guest posting – As a type of link building, guest posting includes a mix of content writing and PR, and involves dedicated time and effort to write quality content that other websites will want to share. This is a great way to gain additional exposure and control the narrative of your institution.
Local approach – Depending on your type of school, compared to other colleges and universities, you may be primarily focusing on getting more students from your local region. If this is the case, lean into local SEO strategies to help you improve your rank in those desired cities.
Technical adjustments – In some cases, the one major thing holding your website back from SEO success is how your website was built and is currently structured. From not being secure (HTTPS) to having a slow load time to lacking mobile-friendliness, there are numerous aspects to assess and address to make sure your site is in the best position possible to rank better on the web.

The Importance of Local SEO for Higher Education Campaigns

Local search engine optimization combines various strategies implemented for businesses that serve customers or other companies in a specific region, which are all designed to help them gain better visibility online and get more leads. We recommend implementing local SEO into your higher education strategy because it can help you connect to a local community by targeting a specific region to attend your institution.

For example, some of the things you can do to increase local SEO for higher education include the following:

Google Business Profile optimization
Local link building
Landing page creation
Local citation management
Google Maps monitoring
Review recommendations

Schema implementation
Page speed testing
Design for conversion
Mobile optimization
Internal linking
Metadata analysis

Need Someone to Do the SEO Work for You?

As an organization, our main goal is to help our clients with their SEO and digital marketing initiatives. So when it comes to SEO for higher education institutions, we want to share our vast and vetted knowledge with individuals looking to increase student enrollment and brand awareness through search engines.

We have extensive experience in marketing colleges and universities to prospective students, and through our 100% custom higher ed SEO strategies, we can help you achieve the following for your own school:

Gain more qualified leads from prospective students
Increase applications and enrollment through various channels
Improve your school’s overall online presence
Match leads (with a specific lead source) to enrollment for true ROI data
Boost your website strength and make it last for years to come

If you want to learn more about our specific strategies and tips to help boost enrollment for your college or university in 2023 through proven higher education SEO tactics, please contact our team directly. We are happy to help you start your SEO journey, as well as provide advice on the best approaches for your schoool.

Our Experience with Higher Education Institutions

The Results We’ve Delivered for Schools Around the Country

Since 2010, we’ve had years of experience in implementing higher education SEO strategies alongside additional services (such as pay-per-click) for numerous colleges and universities. In our work for them, we have been able to show worthwhile and ongoing results.

Here are some examples of the work we conducted for Kent State University’s College of Business back in 2017:

Spent time on an aggressive content marketing strategy
Implemented a custom strategy tailored toward their ideal audience
Increased presence on search engines by targeting relevant keywords
Refined site messaging and targeting
Adjusted the design on key pages to increase the rate of conversion
Created and uploaded custom landing pages

Through this effort, along with paid social media ads, compared to the previous year, we were able to improve SEO leads by 38% and increase overall leads by 135%.

The Sixth City Approach to Higher Ed SEO

The first thing our higher ed SEO agency does for clients is sit down and discuss their unique goals. We can design and implement a specific strategy tailored to your higher education program needs, and our in-house team has years of marketing experience in many different fields. We will work with you one-on-one to ensure your SEO campaign gets you the leads you need.

Some of the things that set us apart from our competitors include:

Unique strategy – We know that no two colleges are the same. Given that, we have the ability to create a tailored strategy that aligns directly with your goals. There are no cookie-cutter approaches from us!
Varied portfolio – At Sixth City, we provide many digital marketing services to ensure that your school is receiving the conversion rates you want, and we would love to expand your current agreement anytime throughout your campaign by introducing other marketing channels.
Long-term focus – SEO is a marathon, not a race, and you can be sure that there are no shady shortcuts with us. We’re dedicated to developing a steady, quantifiable improvement in your higher ed SEO.
Results-driven – Our team is data-driven and committed to seeing the numbers that will continue to make your higher education programs grow exponentially.

Why You Should Choose Us for Higher Education SEO Services

Our inspired team of digital marketing experts work hard to create a specialized marketing mix that will suit your school’s specific online marketing needs. At Sixth City, we are a higher education SEO company that is extremely concentrated on providing top-notch campaign insights that will yield actionable takeaways and outcomes for your institution. Not to mention, our services stand out and have been recognized by various establishments across the web.

When we first meet with our clients, we like to go over their top-line campaign goals and build out our recommended digital marketing tactics from there. We also leverage our client’s target audience and location data for their school.

Throughout the duration of our digital marketing campaigns, we keep in close contact with clients and the school’s internal marketing team to go over what tactics are working and what is not through ongoing data discussions. From there, our own savvy higher ed team can pivot to make campaign updates and modifications to ensure more success.

Other Ways We Can Help Colleges Outside of SEO

Not only is SEO important for higher education institutions, but a complete marketing campaign will help your school to be even more successful.

At Sixth City Marketing, our other higher ed marketing services include:

Pay-per-click marketing
Social media marketing
Website design and development
Email marketing
CRM consulting
Auditing and consulting

How Sixth City Produces Results for Higher Ed Institutions

The one essential thing we can provide to your higher education SEO efforts is traceable results. Anything in the digital marketing realm can be measured based on performance, and our emphasis is placed on measurement so we can guarantee effective marketing techniques.

How we show our results:

Improved keyword ranking for SEO campaigns
Changes in website traffic based on Google Analytics metrics
Overall lead increases both online and via phone tracking through Google Analytics
Matching leads obtained through SEO to students who have enrolled in your programs

At Sixth City, we curate monthly reports to summarize how well your higher education SEO campaign is working. The report will consist of the work that was completed during the month, traffic changes, and the success of our overall SEO efforts.

: “I am extremely pleased with Sixth City Marketing, the college’s website traffic has increased substantially along with a significant increase in the quality of our admission leads. Plus, within a short period of time Sixth City’s SEO efforts have catapulted our Google rankings taking us from a buried page to top listings on Google. Sixth City has made a significant difference in the business college’s rankings and admissions.” – Michelle Parrish Manning, Kent State University College of Business Administration

Get to Know Our Higher Education SEO Agency

There are a lot of things that make our agency stand out from the rest. And we think that getting to know our team a little bit better can help further illustrate the quality of work we do for our clients. Here are some facts about our company that may interest you:

We have 25+ years of collective experience within SEO, PPC, and web design
Our average increase in leads from SEO is around 39%
Traffic from SEO has an average increase of around 490%
Our entire team is in-house and collaborates on every project
Our team holds a variety of degrees in the fields of marketing, communications, business, creative writing, and design
Company culture is important to us, which helps our team grow stronger and produce better work
We’ve helped businesses in more than 15 different industries over the past 12+ years
Our experts’ knowledge has been featured on a variety of websites
Assisting our community is of high importance, and we have done our part to work with other businesses through various philanthropy efforts
We are headquartered in Cleveland, but also have offices in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Chicago, Houston, and Columbus

Need Effective Higher Education SEO? Let Us Help You!

We know the goal of your higher ed SEO investment is to improve online leads and inquiries from your website. Where we come in is designing a plan to make that happen for you!

Let us help you get started with a free website evaluation; our team can show you how we can boost your higher education marketing efforts. Contact us today to learn more about our services and all we can do for your school!

Higher Education SEO Strategies and Tips for 2023

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