In this post
Part One: The Search Behavior of Prospective Students
September 17, 2024
Sarah Gilbert
Does SEO Work?
This is part one of the SEO for Enrollment Growth Series.
I recently attended a higher education conference mainly focused on marketing, and I heard very little about SEO. Like, very little. Coming from a world where all the super-large schools and higher ed websites are doing a ton of SEO, I wanted to break it down and find out why.
If the term ‘SEO’ already has you ready to quit reading, I will venture a guess that you feel like SEO doesn’t ‘work’ for getting more applications in, more enrollments, more graduates. I think this is because people don’t associate SEO with growth. Search Engine Optimization is so you show up well in search engines – for more and more competitive queries, for terms with more and more search volume. If that is not what is happening with your SEO, then you need to reevaluate.
Every large institution and those experiencing growth over the last decade plus are doing SEO, getting leads off aggregators doing SEO – trust me, there is SEO involved. So, if it hasn’t worked for you – yet – I am going to be blunt. You’re not doing it right. (Can I add a smiley face to seem less mean?). 🙂
Here – see for yourself – SNHU getting about 2 million monthly organic visitors.
Why Should You Care?
Everyone is worried about declining enrollments and the looming ‘enrollment cliff.’ However, I didn’t hear enough about how universities have a strategic plan to use SEO for growth, and this is hard for me to understand, because I have the data. And the data tells me that there are literally MILLIONS of prospective students program-hunting and researching online. Why wouldn’t you want access to those prospects?
Some universities have a paid strategy, where they are paying per click for the very same terms they could rank for. I get this – the data is clearer with paid; you can see exactly what you are getting. It’s not that I think you shouldn’t do this. It’s just I think you should do both. SOMEONE is getting those SEO inquiries. Why shouldn’t it be you?
Why Aren’t You Doing Something About This?
Here are some reasons why I think universities are not maximizing their SEO potential (and you have a lot of potential! More on that later).
- You don’t understand the search behavior of a prospective student
- You don’t know what you have
- You have done SEO before and it didn’t ‘work’
- You are currently doing SEO and it is ‘not doing anything’
- You are not SNHU – meaning – everyone else needs work and NO ONE is maximizing the market
Ok, let me explain..
Many prospective students (millions each month) begin their higher education journey long before they step foot on campus. In fact, their first interaction with your institution likely happens through a search engine. Don’t believe that Google is still a viable source of traffic? They are still, by far, the largest traffic-generating vehicle out there, generating 8.5 BILLION searches every day and 97 billion searches a month.
So, when I tell you that SEO and meeting your enrollment goals is a critical connection, this is what I mean.
SEO for Growth Means Understanding Your Target Student
To grow SEO traffic, you need to understand the target student beyond demographics, beyond the visuals of your website. You need to get them TO your website; this is the objective.
To do this, you must understand how they search. What words do they use? I would make you a bet that they do not search in academic language. Why would they? They are not in academia.
Herein lies the problem with most website content. It’s not designed for the person who knows nothing of your brand but finds you because of what you offer. It’s a brochure – beautiful, but probably needs an admissions officer or marketing rep on hand to explain.
With the web, you don’t have that luxury. Not if you want to grow your site visitors beyond people who have already heard of you.
Persona Marketing for SEO
You can start by developing detailed student personas. These should include information such as:
- Academic interests and career goals
- Preferred learning styles (online, on-campus, hybrid)
- Key factors in their decision-making process (location, program offerings, financial aid)
You may have more detail in your personas, but this is what you need to start to determine search behavior.
Once you have these personas, you can begin to identify the search behaviors of prospective students. What questions are they asking? What terms are they using?
Let’s do some examples:
Student | Program | Concerns | Questions |
Betty Business | MBA | Time, Money, Testing | How much is an MBA? How long does an MBA take? Do I need a GMAT for an MBA? |
Harry Helper | Social Work | Accreditation, Time, Money | Is a master’s in social work from xx school accredited? |
Now you need to make sure that people are looking for these things, and how they are looking. For this, you would use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs can provide insights into search volumes and related queries.
Check the SERPs
As a rule, I always check the search results when making a keyword plan to ensure that I have a chance of showing up. Now that Google uses AI Overviews, they may answer direct questions right at the top of search and never send anyone to your website.
Also, make sure you check volume (how many are searching) and find keywords with good volume and high intent that match your personas.
Question | Keyword | Monthly Search Volume |
How much is an MBA? | Affordable MBA | 9.4K |
Do I need a GMAT for an MBA? | Online MBA with No GMAT | 4.8K |
Is a master’s in social work from xx school accredited? | Accredited Social Work Programs | 3.8K |
Real SEO for Growth
Now, instead of ‘Optimizing’ existing program content on your website and thinking you are doing SEO, you are creating new content around queries that have volume and optimizing those pages so they can be found in search.
This is SEO for growth.
Stay tuned for part two of our SEO for Enrollment Growth Series – ‘You Don’t Know What You Have.’