Going to a four-year university after high school is becoming more and more popular within the United States. The variety of options of higher education offered for high school graduates is immense, and finding which one is right for them can be difficult. Students tend to complete their research using search engines such as Google, but with so many options, how do you make your institution stand out? A good place to start is making sure your website has all of the key components for a positive SEO search. This way, you are ensured that your webpage is ranking, and your institution is getting the attention it deserves to gain the ultimate admissions list. How to do this may be tricky, but here are a few tips to follow:

Research

One of the first steps to understanding and optimizing your SEO for higher education is to conduct thorough research. This research should include analyzing your site and competitors to see how you and others are performing in a generalized search. Looking into what are others doing to attract potential students and staff, keyword research to understand what words or phrases applicants are using to look up potential colleges online, and user intent which is ultimately what is bringing users to your website. Focusing on these three categories while conducting your research will not only gain you valuable insight into your institution’s webpage but also your admitted students, applicants, and other website visitors.

SEO for Higher Education

Google is very specific and technical behind the scenes of searches. When applicants are looking for potential schools, they don’t typically stray away from the first page on their search, meaning it is very important to show up somewhere on page one of a search. Anything and everything on your website can be used to benefit your SEO for higher education in some way to boost your placement in searches. After conducting your research, or allowing Red Shark Digital, an agency for marketing Raleigh NC to do it for you, use the findings to build a faster and more user-friendly site to not only attract visitors but to retain the website traffic, rather than having them click off immediately. Page titles, page layout, meta descriptions, image alt-text, linked pages, and more are all easy areas to focus on when enhancing your SEO for higher education tactics.

Content Analysis

After adding in all of the SEO tools to your website, it’s time to dig through your actual content. Does your content build interest, inform users, persuade your audience, and extend engagement? Content is supposed to ultimately spark interest to then continue to build a foundation for lifelong relationships. We are getting into the age where information is expected to be reached quickly and easily. Ensuring your website is speedy and laid out well can make all the difference in your SEO for higher education abilities. Duplicate content is another no-no in SEO for higher education. One would think that having information listed in multiple places can make it easier for the students to find, but this is a big red flag when conducting content analysis. This confuses search engines on what to make most relevant in searches, meaning that your pages could be confused on which should be ranked first. Locating webpages with the same text, similar URL variations, and keywords and eliminating them will benefit your overall Webflow SEO.

Data and Analytics

Once you have accomplished the steps above, and your website is gaining views and clicks, it is essential to continue to build your site and improve its technical side. The key to making any marketing decisions is accumulating data and analyzing it. There are many data aggregators that can collect and provide extensive information about your website and its traffic. This can be done weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly by a team in house or by digital marketing agencies such as Red Shark Digital marketing Raleigh NC. Monitoring keyword rankings, webpage rankings, platform interaction, and other areas are the easiest and most effective ways to maintain SEO for higher education platforms.