SEO for Higher Education: Guide for Universities & Colleges

With student enrollment constantly shifting, colleges need every advantage to attract applicants. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective ways to do that. Over 33% of website traffic comes from organic search, making SEO a powerful tool for increasing visibility and attracting prospective students.

If you’re not using SEO to optimize your pages, you’re giving away traffic to your competition!

In this guide, we’ll explore the importance of SEO for higher education, including universities, colleges, and trade schools. We’ll cover best practices for improving rankings, structuring content, and leveraging technical SEO to enhance user experience. We’ll also highlight a real-world success story from one institution that effectively used SEO to boost its online presence and increase enrollment.

Key Takeaways

• Over 33 percent of website traffic comes from organic search, making SEO essential for your institution’s student recruitment efforts.
• Keyword research that includes long-tail keywords and program-specific terms is the foundation of higher education SEO. 
• Local SEO—like optimizing Google Business Profiles and creating city-specific content—boosts rankings and will put your institution on the map (literally and figuratively).
• A real-world case study showed a 75% increase in campus page traffic and an 18% boost in inquiries through local SEO improvements.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• Why SEO For Higher Education Matters
• What Makes Higher Education SEO Unique?
• SEO Best Practices for Higher Education
  • Find The Right Keyword For Your Institution’s Goals
  • Create Effective Higher Education Content
  • Focus on Local SEO
  • Keep to Technical SEO Best Practices
  • How To Measure Your Institution’s SEO Performance
  • Increase Authority Through Backlinking
• A Real-Life Higher Education SEO Case Study
  • The Problem
  • The Solution
  • The Results
• FAQs
• Conclusion

Why SEO For Higher Education Matters

SEO for higher education is crucial as it directly impacts online visibility, brand reputation, and student recruitment efforts. In an era where prospective students predominantly use search engines to gather information, universities and colleges must ensure their websites rank high in search results. With frequent updates on search engine results pages (SERPs), standing out in organic search is more challenging than ever. Institutions must adapt their SEO strategies to remain competitive by optimizing for AI-driven search experiences and rich media results.

Just look at the monthly search volume of a few college-related searches:

If you’re not optimizing your content to include search terms relevant to your college’s programs and offerings, then you’re missing out on potential traffic from those searches. This is especially important for local search terms where you likely have improved odds of ranking highly.

What Makes Higher Education SEO Unique?

Higher education SEO differs from general education SEO due to the diverse nature of institutions, target audiences, and search intent. Universities, community colleges, trade schools, and private institutions each serve distinct student populations, requiring tailored SEO strategies. 

For example, universities often target national and international audiences, whereas community colleges focus on local search optimization to attract nearby students.

Trade schools and vocational institutions must emphasize program-specific keywords, highlighting hands-on training and job placement opportunities. Private universities, on the other hand, may focus on prestige, faculty expertise, and exclusive programs to differentiate themselves.

Another critical distinction in higher education SEO is the complexity of website structures. Higher education websites often feature thousands of pages, including academic programs, admissions information, faculty profiles, and research publications. Effective SEO for these institutions requires robust site architecture, strategic internal linking, and optimized content that enhances discoverability.

Additionally, search trends in higher education are influenced by seasonal factors such as application deadlines and enrollment periods. SEO strategies must account for these fluctuations, ensuring that institutions rank prominently when prospective students are actively searching for information.

A strong SEO strategy helps institutions boost visibility, attract the right students, and stay competitive.

SEO Best Practices for Higher Education

Now that you’ve seen what higher education SEO can do for an institution, how can you replicate it? The answer is content but, more importantly, highly relevant and targeted content. Let’s dig in.

Find The Right Keyword For Your Institution’s Goals

Choosing the right keywords is crucial for universities aiming to optimize their SEO and attract prospective students.

So where do you begin?

Firstly, institutions should conduct keyword research to identify relevant terms and phrases potential students might use during their search. Use tools like Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner, and Ahrefs to find the best keywords for your school.

These can be used to evaluate keyword rankings for your domain as well as competitor domains. You can also use these tools to find new keyword ideas.

For Ubersuggest, head to the Keyword Ideas tool and search by website.

It will produce a list of keyword ideas, including monthly search volume and SEO Difficulty (SD). You can even narrow by page 1 ranking potential!

You can then incorporate these keywords naturally into website content, including program pages, blog posts, and landing pages. This enhances visibility on search engine results pages.

Start by focusing on program-specific terms tailored to your institution’s offerings. For example, “business administration degree” or “computer science major.” Include location-based keywords like “universities in [city]” to capture local search traffic.

Be sure to take search intent into account while building out your keyword strategy. There are many people who may be looking for informational content as opposed to buy something right away. Consider creating content around helpful keywords like “prepare for college entrance exams” or “how to choose the right college”

Also consider terms related to admission requirements, scholarships, and campus life, ensuring a comprehensive approach.

Long-tail keywords like “best affordable engineering colleges” or “top-ranked medical schools with research opportunities” address specific search queries, enhancing visibility for niche interests. Stay apprised of trending industry keywords, incorporating terms related to emerging fields of study or innovative programs.

Of course, regularly review and update keyword strategies to align with evolving educational trends and student preferences. This ensures your institution remains competitive in the ever-changing landscape.

Create Effective Higher Education Content

Creating high-quality content for higher education SEO requires a focus on authority, expertise, and value. Universities must establish themselves as trusted sources of information, ensuring that content reflects academic credibility and provides real value to prospective students, parents, and educators. Search engines prioritize well-researched, authoritative content, making it essential to showcase institutional knowledge and expertise.

The types of content that perform best in the higher education space include: 

• long-form guides
• faculty research highlights
• student success stories
• program-specific landing pages. 

Additionally, interactive tools such as tuition calculators, career outlook assessments, and virtual campus tours enhance user engagement and keep visitors on the site longer.

Universities can also leverage various content formats, such as videos, infographics, and interactive elements. For example, short-form videos featuring faculty insights or student testimonials can be highly effective on social media and embedded within program pages.

Once you’ve created the content, it doesn’t stop there. Regularly updating content ensures continued relevance and signals to search engines that the website is active and trustworthy. Track performance and adjust your strategy to attract more students and improve rankings.

Focus on Local SEO

Local SEO helps colleges rank higher in search results and attract students in specific regions. By optimizing online content with location-based keywords, institutions can rank higher in local search results. This ensures that when students search for educational opportunities in a particular area, the university’s offerings appear prominently.

To maximize local SEO, institutions should claim and optimize their Google Business Profile, ensuring accurate information on location, contact details, and operating hours. Additionally, universities should encourage student and alumni reviews, as positive feedback can boost credibility and search rankings.

Content should also be structured to reflect location-specific intent. Creating dedicated pages for different campuses, nearby cities, and regional partnerships helps institutions rank for a broader set of local search queries. By leveraging localized keywords within program pages and blog content, you ensure relevance to prospective students searching within their area.

Technical factors like local schema markup, mobile optimization, and fast-loading pages also improve rankings. Institutions that effectively implement these local SEO strategies can increase visibility in their target regions and drive higher engagement with prospective students.

Keep to Technical SEO Best Practices

Technical SEO plays a role in both user experience and search rankings. A well-optimized website ensures that prospective students can easily navigate your site, find relevant information, and stay engaged. Search engines favor fast, secure, and mobile-friendly websites, making these elements crucial for higher education institutions.

To improve technical SEO, focus on optimizing site speed, ensuring mobile responsiveness, using structured data markup, and creating an intuitive site architecture. Implementing proper redirects, fixing broken links, and optimizing images can also enhance site performance. Additionally, ensuring your website is accessible and follows web accessibility guidelines will not only improve usability but also help with SEO rankings.

By maintaining strong technical SEO, higher education institutions can provide a seamless online experience, improve dwell time, and boost overall search visibility.

How To Measure Your Institution’s SEO Performance

Start by collecting baseline data before making any SEO changes. As changes are made, you can then look back to see what’s working and what’s not.

So where can you get this data?

That’s where tools like Ubersuggest come in!

You can utilize Ubersuggest’s various reports, including Rank Tracking, Site Audit, and Traffic Overview to gain an understanding of where your site currently stands:

For more keyword-specific performance metrics, check out the Keywords by Traffic report which breaks down your top keywords by volume, SERP position, and more:

After you make changes to your content, return to these reports to gauge your progress. You’ll want to be sure to determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) to track. These will depend on your overall goals, though position and visits are some obvious ones here. 

Ask yourself the following questions as you build out your comparisons:

• How many keywords did we rank for initially, and how many keywords do we rank for now?
• How much organic monthly traffic are we receiving now versus when we started?
• What percentage of keywords ranking position increased from 11+ to within the top 10?
• What is the breakdown of organic traffic driven from local versus national keywords?

As you continue to adjust and see progress, you’ll find it easier to draw insights from the patterns you’re seeing in your data.

Increase Authority Through Backlinking

High-quality backlinks help colleges rank higher and build credibility.

Backlinking is a practice that builds credibility and improves search rankings. For higher education institutions, backlinks from authoritative sources signal to search engines that your website is a trusted and valuable resource. The more high-quality backlinks your site earns, the higher it can rank in search engine results.

To establish strong backlinks, focus on creating shareable, high-value content like research papers, blog posts, and student success stories. Collaborating with reputable academic institutions, government sites, and industry leaders can also generate authoritative links. Additionally, secure backlinks from news articles, education directories, and alumni sites to boost authority

A well-planned backlink strategy improves SEO and helps universities, colleges, and trade schools strengthen their online presence and attract more prospective students.

A Real-Life Higher Education SEO Case Study

At my digital marketing agency, NP Digital, we help websites refine and revamp their digital marketing strategy. That’s why Universal Technical Institute (UTI), a technical college with campuses across the country, came to NP Digital when its organic rankings dropped seemingly overnight.

The Problem

In Q2 of 2023, Google started prioritizing local “map-pack” results above UTI’s campus pages, similar to the screenshot below:

This pushed national organic rankings for UTI down the results page and often below the fold (i.e. only visible when you scroll down the page). As a result, the college saw major decreases in organic sessions and a significant decline in new student inquiries from organic traffic sources.

The Solution

At NPD, we always take a multi-pronged approach. Here’s what we did with UTI:

• A content audit to optimize existing content. This included on-page SEO efforts, technical SEO optimizations, and local link building.
• The use of generative AI to identify target cities surrounding UTI’s campuses. The goal was to create local content targeting major cities that were previously not included in the client’s content. This led to the creation of more than 200 new local pages.
• The claiming of UTI’s Google Business Profiles for each of their campuses. This allowed us to gain control of the content, update inaccurate or outdated information, and add new information where necessary.

The underlying thread here was content localization. With local SEO becoming more of a focus for Google, businesses must prioritize content localization. This is critical for capturing local intent and making up for any organic traffic losses seen from national search queries.

The Results

In under three months, total organic sessions and inquiries bounced back above pre-Google update levels.

Our focus on local SEO results and their dedicated pages increased organic search inquiries by more than 18 percent year-over-year. 

When looking at the campus location and program pages that were hit the hardest, we saw session increases of more than 75 percent from their lowest levels in April of 2023.

Our holistic approach to local strategy also increased the number of non-brand position number one rankings—that is, ranking in the top spot of SERPs for non-branded queries—on Google by 20 percent.

Don’t forget that UTI also asked us to target new program expansion efforts! The locally-focused strategy outlined above did the trick. Despite a lack of awareness in the market, organic search sessions increased by 411 percent year-over-year.

FAQs

How can SEO benefit your university’s online visibility?

When Google favors your website, you rank higher on SERPs. So how do you become favored by Google? SEO is the only intentional way to do that. By implementing SEO best practices for universities, you increase your SERP rankings and improve your university’s online visibility.

What are the key SEO strategies for higher education institutions?

The key SEO strategies for higher education institutions include meticulous keyword research, relevant and diverse content creation with a primary focus on local SEO, regular content updates, and building authoritative backlinks.

How does SEO impact student recruitment efforts?

Successful college recruitment involves meeting your prospective students where they are. This includes holding positions on search results pages for students Googling “forensic science degree” or queries related to your programs. An effective SEO strategy will increase your visibility for a variety of keywords. This should include recruitment-specific keywords that target academic offerings, social life, scholarship opportunities, and the like.

Conclusion

There are many higher education recruiting and enrollment factors that are simply out of your control. By controlling what you can, though, you greatly increase your chances of hitting your targets.

One of those factors within your control is SEO for higher education. With the best practices outlined above, your college can be well on its way to ranking favorably on SERPs.
You don’t need to hire an SEO agency for higher education. By performing keyword research and building the best content for SEO, you can be well on your way to improving your SERP rankings. However, if you feel like the extra support would be beneficial, there are many higher education SEO firms to choose from, including NP Digital.