How to Do SEO for Educational Websites?
The post-pandemic reality forced most of the education businesses to move from the offline to the online world. The competition on the web is constantly increasing. Every day, we can observe the emergence of new platforms, trainers, or coaches. Public and private universities advocate homeschooling and attract new online students. The current market situation makes it necessary for the education industry to invest in SEO. Keep reading to learn how to do SEO for educational websites!
Table of Contents:
- Education industry across the world
- Good SEO Practices For Educational Websites
- SEO for Educational Websites. Is It Worth Engaging in Cooperation with SEO Agency?
The fight for high Google positions still continues. How to outdo your market rivals and make your company reach top positions in the search results? Learn about SEO strategy for educational website.
What about SEO for education website?
Onsite training, conferences, and trade shows are definitely some of the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the education industry is still doing pretty well. The global online education market reached $107 billion in 2015 and is expected to grow to $325 billion by 2025. There are thousands of education players in the market, including:
- public and private schools and universities,
- language schools,
- micro training companies led by coaches, HR business partners, tutors, and freelance trainers,
- specialists organizing conferences and on-site training,
- publishers of educational books, guides, and manuals,
- providers of educational software, e.g. mobile applications or e-learning platforms.
Each of these entities needs good SEO to acquire potential customers – students or pupils – as part of the B2C or B2B activity. Of course, everything happens online. In this big educational melting pot, the recipient can choose from a wide variety of brands, universities, trainers, and service providers. So how to make your company stand out from the crowd and support SEO for your educational website?
Good SEO Practices For educational websites
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Get inspired by the actions of the finest market tycoons. The education industry is full of people, universities, and brands that are perfect at doing SEO, recruiting students, selling courses, training, and other online solutions. They do SEO, content marketing, and website optimization. What to keep in mind when devising an SEO strategy for an L&D (learning & development) company?
1. Landing page and content that sells
Unquestionably, content is king. Relevant content is the key to success when it comes to satisfactory sales, recruiting, and SEO.
In order to obtain organic Google traffic, maximize and extend web sessions or increase conversion, it’s crucial to create blog posts, ebooks, vlogs, and additional free materials that can educate your customer even before they enroll in your university or buy your product. Any piece of content is highly valuable for your SEO, domain, and branding.
When it comes to creating pro-sales content SEO for educational websites, make sure that your landing page and description contain information about the target group, type of offered services, and topics included in the curriculum. Social proof, meaning providing data such as the number of students or reviews, is also a good idea. A course described this way will definitely encourage potential customers to sign up.
2. Website optimization
Today, Google algorithms grant high positions only when websites are mobile, user, and SEO-friendly. Optimizing your interface, graphics, and videos, completing metadata, or providing an efficient sitemap are real must-haves in the third decade of the XXI century.
Approachable, convenient UX/UI should inspire conversions and encourage people to finalize transactions. Your company or school also needs this solution, believe us!
3. Product descriptions with long-tails
As customers, we’re willing to pay for things that meet our expectations and are fully understandable. That’s why descriptions of courses run by your school or university are particularly important website elements. Each description of a course, training, or software is a tradesman sent on a mission and taking care of the image and SEO of your educational company.
You probably don’t want your potential customers to meet the specialist who is wearing a torn shirt and is completely unprepared for the conversation. Attention to product descriptions is an absolute standard today unless you want to be ranked on distant Google positions.
Product descriptions with appropriate saturation of long-tail keywords generate valuable website traffic and reach users who are truly interested in your courses or software solutions. What about SEO strategy for educational website?
4. Keywords for the education industry
When creating Google ads, meta descriptions, and website content, it’s worth applying previously proven keywords. After all, you need to know which queries are typed on Google by your potential customers or students searching for products or services similar to the ones on your offer.
There are two types of keywords: short-tail (e.g. “university Chicago”, “online SEO classes”) and long-tail (e.g. “what postgraduate HR course to choose” or “best online cooking course”). Although short keywords give you a chance to reach more potential interested parties, they’re more competitive and make it harder to be ranked in satisfactory positions in the organic search results. Moreover, with short-tails, Google Ads also get more complex. On the other hand, long-tail keywords are less competitive and reach people truly interested in your offer which significantly improves conversion.
Learn more about Long Tail SEO approach in our article: Long Tail SEO – What Is It and How Doeas It Work?
Neil Patel’s tool, Ubersuggest, can help you choose the right keywords for your university or business. With its use, you can check which keywords are suitable for your organic SEO and which phrases require Google Ads. As you can see above, the app suggests that the phrase “online education” isn’t particularly demanding or expensive in terms of CPC for B2B.
SEMrush is an appealing and more advanced alternative to Ubersuggest. To learn more about finding the best keywords for your L&D business, go to our previous entry: Keywords – 10 useful tools supporting keyword research.
5. Local SEO
If your business is based on on-site training attended mainly by customers from your immediate vicinity or if you work at a university or school where students come from several nearby towns and cities, go for local SEO and Google Maps SEO. Show Google where your potential customers live and then prepare your SEO strategy and materials meeting their expectations.
6. Inspiration from your market rivals
It’s definitely worth spending a minute to analyze Udemy. When taking a look at SEMrush statistics, you can clearly state that they’re perfect at SEO. They brilliantly synchronize SEO strategy, Google and FB Ads activities, content marketing, and social media steps in order to create one big mechanism that generates sales.
7. Social media
Effective and impressive social media profiles are perfect solutions that support doing SEO for educational websites. Be active on platforms frequently chosen by your future students or customers – TikTok? Facebook? Instagram? LinkedIn?
SEO for Educational Websites. Is It Worth Engaging in Cooperation with SEO Agency?
Today, we’ve discussed only some of the elements of effective SEO. Implementing the above actions will help you make a noticeable difference in the turnover of your educational website or in the size of your university. Why don’t you try it? You’ve got nothing to lose!
If you don’t think that you’re able to face the task on your own, you can always benefit from the assistance of SEO experts working at Delante. Make up your mind and contact us, we’re waiting for you!
The educational industry is SO packed with offers right now. The competition is beyond fierce so if you have a unique product – well-suited keywords and SEO is I guess the only way to really reach your target group.