According to a study from Group M UK & Nielsen, about 94% of traffic that comes in is organic, which leaves only 6% of traffic from paid search ads. With so much traffic coming in from organic clicks, you can see just how important it would be to do everything you can to bring in organic traffic.

Which is what we’re going to touch on today. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the number one way to help any website bring in organic traffic to their site.

However, SEO can be a complicated, long, and daunting process and technique, as there are lots of strategies to SEO. Which is why where going to go over the top 10 most effective SEO strategies that you can use to increase student enrollment.

Let’s take a look!

What Is SEO and How Can It Help With Student Enrollment

SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to rank higher in SERPS (search engine results). The ultimate goal of SEO is to get more people to visit your website organically, which can help increase student enrollment.

To do this, you need to make sure that your website appears as high as possible in search engine results when people are searching for certain keywords related to your school or what you are offering to students. This can be achieved by optimizing your website’s content, structure, and on-page elements such as the titles and metatags on your site.

You should also make sure to create backlinks from high-quality websites to yours. This will show search engines that your site is popular and trustworthy, which will help improve your ranking. But we’ll get to that in just a bit.

To recap, by following many different SEO tactics on and off your website, you can show search engines that you’re website should show up in search results higher than your competitors. Which will allow you to capture more and more of that organic traffic and help you enroll more students every single year!

Now that we have a good grasp of that, let’s talk about the most effective strategies for new student enrollment.

1) Keyword Research

A search engine result all starts with a keyword. Something someone is typing into find an answer for, so if you want to show up as a result, you’ll need to have certain keywords on your site to tell search engines such as Google to show you in those SERPs.

To do this you’ll need to start with a keyword research tool. You can use this to help with student generating keywords, keywords to use on your website, and blog posts. Once you have a good list of keywords, you can start blending them into your site’s content.

Make sure to use these keywords throughout your site in a natural way, as stuffing too many keywords onto a page will not only turn off potential students but also search engines as well. A couple of places you’ll want to use keywords are in your site’s titles, metatags, headings, and in the body of your content.

2) Local Search

Local search is a great way to help increase student enrollment from your immediate area. When parents or students are looking for schools in their area, they’ll most likely use phrases like “schools near me” or “best schools in (city name).

To make sure you’re website appears in these types of searches, be sure to include your location in your titles, metatags, and throughout the content on your site. You should also create local landing pages that are specifically designed for people searching for schools in your area. These pages should include relevant information about your school as well as your contact information and address.

Lastly, it’s important to effectively manage your Google My Business Page! This is going to be important for local searches.

3) Content Marketing

One of the most effective SEO strategies for student enrollment is content marketing. Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and engaging content in order to start attracting a clearly defined audience, with the goal of driving profitable customer action.

When it comes to student enrollment, your goal should be to create content that will attract students and parents who are looking for schools. This could be in the form of blog posts, infographics, eBooks, or even video content.

Your content should be designed to educate and inform your target audience about your school. It should also be shareable so that people can spread the word about your school to their friends and family.

4) Backlinking

Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They help improve your website’s ranking in search results by showing search engines that your site is popular and trusted. It builds authority.

To get backlinks, you can start by reaching out to other school websites and asking if they would be interested in linking to your site. You can also submit your site to directories and create blog posts or infographics that other people can share on their own websites.

There are many different strategies to building backlinks for a website, just make sure that you do it naturally and don’t go buy spamming links from websites selling them.

5) Regular Audits and Updates

Another important SEO strategy for student enrollment is to regularly audit and update your website. This includes making sure that all of your content is up-to-date, relevant, and engaging. It also means ensuring that your site’s design is modern and responsive.

You should also regularly check your site for broken links and errors. These can hurt your ranking in search results and turn off potential students or their parents.

Lastly, having regular audits and updates will help to prevent issues from arising on your website. Issues such as pages or elements not loading can not only hurt your user engagement, but also your SEO.

6) Local Directories and Review Sites

Another way to increase student enrollment is to list your school on local SEO strategies such as using directories and review sites. This will help ensure that people in your area can find your school when they’re searching for schools online.

Some popular directories and review sites include Google My Business and Yelp for example. Be sure to claim your listing on each of these sites and fill out all of the relevant information about your school. You should also encourage parents and students to leave reviews on these sites to help improve your school’s reputation.

This not only helps other people find and review your school, but it also helps with your SEO. NAPs and good reviews on review sites can help boost up your SEO.

Pro tip: Just make sure all listings have all of the EXACT information.

7) Social Listing

When it comes to student recruitment SEO, you have to consider social listing. This is because social media plays a big role in the decision-making process for potential students.

Make sure your school is listed on all of the relevant social media platforms, such as Facebook, Tiktok, and Instagram. You should also encourage parents and students to leave reviews and ratings on your social media pages. This will help improve your school’s reputation and make it more likely that people will choose your school over others.

But it’s not just about posting, it’s about paying attention to social cues.

8) Long Form Content

Next, let’s talk about long form content. This is a type of content that is typically over 1,500 words. It’s in-depth and covers a topic in great detail.

Long form content is great for higher education SEO because it allows you to really show off your school’s expertise on a particular subject. This type of content can help you attract students who are looking for a specific program or course that your school offers.

Some examples of long form content include blog posts, guides, and eBooks. These pieces of content can be really valuable to potential students and their parents, so be sure to create some and promote them on your website and social media platforms.

Not only does it provide value to your readers, but search engines now prefer long form content. After a bunch of research, it was found that Google preferred to show content in SERPs that were at least 1,400 words long. So this can help to boost your SEO ranking, SEO traffic, and keyword rankings.

9) Understand and Research Your Competitors

Another important student recruitment SEO strategy is to understand and research your competitors. This will help you to see what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong, and where there are opportunities for you to improve.

To research your competitors, start by searching for keywords that are relevant to your school. Then, take a look at the schools that are ranking on the first page of Google. Study their websites and see what they’re doing well. You can also use tools to see what kind of content is popular in your industry.

It doesn’t just stop there either though, you can research the type of keywords they are using and even where they are getting backlinks from. It’s a good idea to take ideas from those keywords, backlinks, and anything else you can find that can help you improve your SEO traffic and rankings.

Once you’ve done your research, you can start to implement some of the same strategies that your competitors are using. But don’t stop there! Try to find ways to improve upon what they’re doing so that you can stand out from the rest.

10) Optimize Your Website for Speed

Last but not least, you need to optimize your website for speed. This is important because potential students and their parents are likely to be looking at your school’s website on their mobile devices. And if your website is slow, they’re likely to get frustrated and leave.

There are a few ways that you can optimize your website for speed.

First, you need to make sure that your website is responsive. This means that it will adjust to fit any screen size. Second, you should compress your images so that they load faster. And third, you should remove any unnecessary plugins or code from your website.

There are many other techniques to use to improve your websites speed, but those are some of the most common.

In addition to people getting frustrated by a slow-loading website, Google also does. This means if your website isn’t up to par, then it can actually hurt your SEO ranking. Google and other search engines like a fast-loading website. Google itself has came out and said that website speed does in fact have an effect on your SEO.

Improving Student Enrollment Through SEO Tactics

Utilizing SEO tactics can be extremely beneficial in increasing student enrollment numbers. This is because potential students and their parents will use search engines to research schools they are interested in and if you’re not showing up in SERPs, you’re missing out on those possible students.

If your school’s website is properly optimized and ranks high on SERPs, then you’re more likely to attract these individuals! There are many different SEO strategies that help a website ranking better in SERPs, these are some of the most effective strategies.

If your school is ready to take the leap and start ranking in SERPs to help increase your student enrollment, then you’ll need an SEO expert. Here at Local Finder, we pride ourselves in being the experts in SEO for schools. Schedule an appointment with us today so we can start helping you rank tomorrow!