SEO strategies for schools: 7 steps to getting started
Why are educational institutions adopting SEO strategies?
Having an SEO strategy will improve your visibility and accessibility, helping you target prospective students and parents across your local, regional and potentially international markets.
If you are looking to capture prospective parents, drive your enrolment numbers and rank higher in this competitive educational market, then SEO is going to be a crucial tactic for your business growth.
So what exactly is an SEO strategy?
According to SEO extraordinaires, HubSpot, an SEO strategy is the process of organising a website's content by topic to improve the likelihood of appearing in search results. Essentially, it is the process you follow in order to maximise the opportunity to gain organic traffic from search engines.
If your marketing team (or person) is fairly green when it comes to SEO, then it can seem a little daunting, and a project that often gets pushed to the bottom of the list. If it feels like an endless list of tasks, alterations and moving goalposts, then it’s best to break it down, nail the basics, and build from there.
To get your strategy off to a flying start and open the door of possibilities, we’ve outlined some key introductory steps that Google… AND your users will love!
Step 1: Know your schools’ keywords
When parents are looking for a new school or nursery in your area, what words and phrases spring to mind? “Private school near me?” “Childcare voucher nursery in Guildford?” “Prep school for girls in Hampshire?”.
This is the stage you really need to get into your parents' brains. What are they looking for? How do they phrase it? And what language is trending?
If you have an existing Google My Business account, you can access their free Keyword Planner to discover new keywords related to your business, this can also help you in your paid campaigns!
Step 2: High quality, parent and user facing content
This tactic is also referred to as ‘on-site’ or ‘on-page’ SEO. This process involves optimising the content on your own website to earn more relevant traffic and provide a better experience for your users.
This means making sure your webpages are relevant, trustworthy (provides the information you say you’re going to provide), is user friendly and is full of those juicy keywords to help google identify your pages’ relevancy.
Some key things to check:
Page titles
Headings (H1, H2 and H3!)
Introductory paragraphs
Addresses and contact info
Image ALT text
Call to actions
Meta-tags and URLS
Your ‘About Us’ page is seen as a really big deal in the eyes of Google. Be sure to include addresses, contact information, opening hours, a clear summary information and obvious signposting to other information.
And why not check out some respected competitor schools for ideas!
Step 3: URLS/keep-them-clean
URL’s are important for SEO and they should definitely be optimised. What does this mean? Well, there are a couple of basic Do’s and Don’ts to be aware of:
👎 No underscores
👎 No capital letters
👎 No special characters
👍 Include the juicy keywords
👍 Be logical (make sense to read and relate to the page they are liked to)
👍 And they should WORK! We don’t want to see those ghastly 404 messages!
A couple of good examples would be:
https://www.stjohnsprepschool.co.uk/admissions/application-process
or
https://www.littletikesnursery.co.uk/prices/hmrc-childcare-funding
Step 4: User experience for prospective and current parents
Like many others, I’m sure your school website hosts a mammoth amount of information, from parent notices and school trips, to revision guides and lunch menus. It’s important that prospective, and current users (and the little Google bots!!) can navigate their way around easily.
This includes having a clear menu structure, logical call to actions and a smooth user journey from start to finish. It’s important to consider the end game of the user journey.
If it’s completing a contact form to the admissions team, then think about how easy it is to complete this task. Avoid any circular routes where possible – no one likes getting trapped in a mirror maze!
Need a little inspiration for your school's website? Have a little nosey at Green House School Websites best 2022 designs!
Step 5: A local SEO strategy for your local school
Local SEO is a search engine optimisation strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google. ANY business that has a physical location or serves a geographical area can benefit from a local SEO strategy – oh wait, that sounds just like you!
Having a local based strategy ensures that your business shows up when people search specifically within a local area.
This includes steps like completing your Google My Business profile and producing locally focussed content for your website. Check out our recent blog on Local SEO strategies!
Step 6: Look left, look right, look again!
The biggest tip we can give is to be extra vigilant when it comes to SEO tactics. Websites can be huge, with potentially hundreds of pages, links, images and words.
Google, consumer trends and your business are ever changing, so it’s important that you all move together. SEO isn’t a one time fix. You need to continue reviewing, refreshing and learning to give your parents and users the best experience possible.
There will always be opportunities to tweak and improve. Chip away, be vigilant and share your knowledge with anyone on the team that has editing permissions to your site.
Step 7: Seek some expert advice!
Once you think you’ve got the basics covered, it’s great to get a second pair of eyes on your site, especially if they belong to a pro!
There are also plenty of online tools that can help identify any pitfalls or new opportunities for development. We recommend getting up close and personal with Google Search Console to get you in the mood!
Or take a look at any well respected competitors… chances are you’re after the same fruit, so it can’t hurt to climb the same tree!
We can be your extra pair of eyes. Find out how Wild SEO supports businesses just like yours in the education sector.