Enrollment SEO Strategies Can Help Colleges, Universities, and Trade Schools Gain More Students

Looking to boost enrollment for your undergraduate or graduate programs? Search engine optimization can help you reach these goals by allowing your higher education programs to thrive online!

Sixth City Marketing is a dedicated digital marketing agency with extensive experience marking for colleges and universities. Through higher ed SEO, we can help you:

  • Gain more qualified leads from prospective students
  • Increase sales through various channels
  • Improve your school’s overall online presence
  • Match leads to enrollment for ROI data
  • Boost your website strength and make it last for years to come
“John and the Sixth City team are wonderful to work with. They are extremely knowledgeable about SEO, digital marketing and website optimization. The team goes above and beyond to help clients reach marketing goals and is accessible to answer questions via phone, email and in-person meetings. They are true professionals and I would highly recommend their services to anyone looking for a digital marketing firm that will help take their business to the next level.” – Joni Bowen, Kent State University

How We Help Schools Through Search Engine Optimization

One of the best parts of SEO is that it includes a variety of strategic tactics that all work together in a unique formula to help your website rank better on search engines, increasing your ability to be found by users on the web.

Here are some of the main tasks that we typically implement during SEO campaigns for colleges, universities, and alike:

  • Keyword analysis – One of the key processes of good SEO is to first research the terms you wish to rank for. You can then determine which have the most search volume traffic and see what opportunities for improvement there are on your website to implement these terms. Down the line, we will also examine long-tail keywords that are more niche and supplement those with unique blog content.
  • Content optimization – Through a mix of adding to your current website copy and incorporating new landing pages to help users find what they need, taking the time to thoroughly optimize your content is one of the strongest ways to improve SEO. We have an in-house team of writers and strategists to ensure you receive quality work.
  • Design for conversion – When people come to your site, if there is no easy and noticeable way to reach out for more information on the page, you could be losing out on potential students who leave your site out of confusion or frustration. Our design experts understand the fundamentals of user experience and can make strategic adjustments that go hand in hand with SEO tactics to improve the conversion rate on your site’s pages.
  • Metadata optimization – Ensuring that the metadata on your website is properly written to focus on your key terms, while also appealing to the user through captivating language, is no easy feat. Thankfully, through years of experience we have a formula that helps us deliver the results you want.
  • Blog writing – Not only does blog writing open the doors to targeting more niche and specific keywords, but it also can help you gain more overall site traffic through exposure on search engines and potential backlinks from external sites.
  • Competitor research – Examining competitors’ content, backlinks, website speed, and more can all provide valuable insights. We will regularly look at the sites of your main competitors in search engine results pages, and anyone else you consider competition, to see if there are opportunities to improve your site.
  • Link building – To help prove your site’s authority and further build its foundation, the tactic of gaining more links from other authoritative sites can be tremendously beneficial to your SEO. Our team has a unique process that gives us a creative edge in helping your site get more links from reputable sites.
  • Guest posting – As a type of link building, guest posting includes a mix of content writing and PR, and uses dedicated time and effort to write quality content that other websites will want to share. We handle every step of the process to allow you to focus on other important internal matters.
  • Local approach – Depending on your type of institution, compared to other colleges and universities, you may be primarily focusing on getting more students from your local area. If this is the case, we also have the ability to apply local SEO strategies to help you improve rank in your desired cities.
  • Technical adjustments – In some cases, the one major thing holding your website back from SEO success is how your website was built and is currently structured. From not being HTTPS to having a slow load time to lacking mobile friendliness, there are numerous aspects we are able to assess and address to make sure your site is in the best position possible to rank better on the web.

The Sixth City Approach

The first thing that our team does for clients is to sit down and discuss your unique goals. We can design and implement a specific strategy for your higher education program needs, and our in-house team has years of marketing experience in many different fields. We will work with you one-on-one to ensure your SEO for higher education gets you the leads you need.

Some of the things that set us apart from our competitors include:

  • Unique strategy– We know that no two colleges are the same. Given that, we have the ability to create a tailored strategy that aligns directly with your goals. There are no cookie-cutter approaches from us!
  • Varied portfolio– At Sixth City, we can provide many digital marketing services to ensure that your company is receiving the conversion rates you want and would love to expand your current agreement anytime throughout your campaign.
  • Industry Experience – We have helped various schools reach their enrollment goals through the help of SEO for over 10 years.
  • Long-term focus – SEO is a marathon, not a race, and you can be sure that there are no shady shortcuts with us. We’re dedicated to developing a steady improvement for your higher ed SEO services.
  • Results-driven– Our team is data-driven and committed to seeing the numbers that will continue to make your higher education programs grow exponentially.

Our Experience Doing SEO Marketing for Higher Education Providers

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Since 2010, we’ve had years of experience performing SEO and additional services for numerous colleges and universities. In our work for them, we have been able to show worthwhile and ongoing results.

Here are some examples of the work we conducted for Kent State University’s College of Business back in 2017:

  • Spent time on an aggressive content marketing strategy
  • Implemented a custom strategy tailored toward their ideal audience
  • Increased presence on search engines by targeting relevant keywords
  • Refined site messaging and targeting
  • Adjusted design on key pages to increase the rate of conversion
  • Created and uploaded custom landing pages

Through this effort, along with paid social media ads, compared to the previous year, we were able to improve SEO leads by 38% and increase overall leads by 135%.

Other Ways We Can Help Schools Outside of SEO

Not only is SEO for higher education important, but a complete marketing campaign will help you to be even more successful.

At Sixth City Marketing, our other services include:

How Sixth City Produces Results

The one essential thing that we can provide to your higher education SEO efforts is traceable results. Anything in the digital marketing realm can be measured based on performance, and our emphasis is placed on measurement so we can guarantee effective marketing techniques.

How we show our results:

  • Improved keyword ranking for SEO campaigns
  • Changes in website traffic based on Google Analytics metrics
  • Overall lead increases both online and via phone tracking through Google Analytics
  • Matching leads obtained through SEO to students who have enrolled in your programs

At Sixth City, we curate monthly reports to summarize how well your higher education SEO campaign is working. The report will consist of the work that was completed during the month, traffic changes, and the success of our SEO efforts.

: “I am extremely pleased with Sixth City Marketing, the college’s website traffic has increased substantially along with a significant increase in the quality of our admission leads. Plus, within a short period of time Sixth City’s SEO efforts have catapulted our Google rankings taking us from a buried page to top listings on Google. Sixth City has made a significant difference in the business college’s rankings and admissions.” – Michelle Parrish Manning, Kent State University College of Business Administration

Get to Know Our SEO Expert Team

There are a lot of things that make our agency stand out from the rest. And we think that getting to know our team a little bit better can help further illustrate the quality of work that we do for our clients. Here are some facts about our company that may interest you:

  1. We have 25+ years of collective experience with SEO, PPC, and web design
  2. Our average increase in leads from SEO is around 39%
  3. Traffic from SEO has an average increase of around 490%
  4. Our entire team is in-house and collaborates on every project
  5. Our team holds a variety of degrees including in the fields of marketing, communications, business, creative writing, and design
  6. Company culture is important to us, which helps our team grow stronger and produce better work
  7. We’ve helped businesses in more than 15 different industries over the past 9 years
  8. Our experts’ knowledge has been featured on a variety of websites
  9. Assisting our community is of high importance, and have done our part to work with other businesses through philanthropy and helping businesses grow
  10. We are headquartered in Cleveland, but also have offices in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Columbus

Need Effective Higher Education SEO Efforts? Let Us Help You!

We know the goal for your SEO for higher education efforts is to improve online leads and inquiries from your website. Where we come in is designing a plan to make that happen for you!

Let us help you get started with a free website evaluation. Our team can show you how we can boost your marketing efforts! Contact us today to learn more about our services and all we can do for you!

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