Why do Educational Institutes need to Focus on SEO?

When it comes to educational institutes, the most important thing to do is to make them recognized online so more and more students can join and learn. At this age, the requirement for quality and a decent education is at its peak. If you are a university or college owner, you should definitely increase your presence on the internet. 

Why?

Because people rely on the internet. If your institute carries no online recognition, you would probably get zero to no recognition from students. Thus, it is necessary to use SEO to rank your institutes’ websites on the internet and make the admission process a few clicks away for students. 

Wondering what SEO is?

It is called search engine optimization in which we optimize the website to help them rank on Google. Let’s talk about how you can use SEO to rank your website and why it is important in this article. Read on.

Students and Effective SEO

While SEO is rising, it has unlocked many doors of opportunities for modern-day marketers. The effectiveness of SEO has been proven in almost all sectors, but the potential in the educational sector remains unexplored. Students today have become more tech-savvy and thus the educational institutes need to have a better digital presence. 

How to use SEO to increase organic traffic?

If we ask any of the university students about their first approach to getting information, they will probably say online search. This statement has been backed up by research where 726 high school students were surveyed by National Research Centre for College and University Admissions (NRCCUA). 

It proved that online searching was one of the most used methods to explore academic programs. Even when searching for a degree program online, parents tend to trust the websites of the universities more. Therefore, all educational institutes need to have a better online presence. 

There are 3 main pillars of following an SEO-based strategy:

Keyword Research

Keyword research is said to be the most important step in SEO for universities, colleges, or other educational institutes.

Here is a quick rundown on how students might be searching:

To optimize better, you will have to get in the shoes of the student searching online. They might search things like, ‘top university to offer media sciences’ or ‘universities offering media sciences’. Based on the location, relevance, and search history, Google will show the results. Start by asking yourself questions like:

1. What programs are offered by my institute?
2. What courses are included in the offered programs?
3. Do I have a well-known faculty that can be highlighted?

Knowing the answers to such questions will help you a lot. Then, brainstorm and search for both short and long-tail keywords.

Come up with Location-specific Keywords

Based on the information displayed on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs), students tend to click on the link that is closest to their queries. Therefore, by targeting location-specifically you will be able to get more audience. For instance, if your school or college is in Michigan, you can transform and add a keyword like ‘university for media sciences in Michigan’.

Have a Powerful Blog

One of the best places to adjust your keywords is on the blog page of your website. It works magically to improve your rankings. You can pick from a wide range of topics such as ‘how to find internships’ and so on.

Create an Interactive Website

To rank on the SERP, having an interactive website is also one of the key factors of SEO. There are millions of students who look for institutes’ websites on the internet. Nobody gets to see your campus in person as they belong to different corners of the world. Therefore, you should create a site that attracts the students and keep it as engaging as possible. Moreover, don’t forget that the website must be informative as well so students can easily enroll themselves without facing any hurdles. Other than this, the website should be highly responsive and there should also be chat support for students.

Focus on Content Strategy

Make sure that the website carries properly organized content so students can easily visit links and find information related to their interests. The content strategy must be based on providing value to the visitors (students) so they can fill out the application forms without a second thought. The more the content is engaging, the more the chances of enrollment. Lastly, don’t forget to update your website regularly so students can stay aware of the admission dates, etc. If your audience is finding value, they will keep coming back and get themselves enrolled. This is how you can make use of SEO and get multiple benefits. You can hire an SEO agency in Malaysia if you don’t know how to do the optimization. That is.