Some people attend a college or university as young adults, shortly after leaving school; others take this same path after spending a lengthy spell in a particular job role and deciding to retrain.
In any case, if you are in charge of marketing for a college or university, you should heed that many would-be students are picky about where they choose to enrol. So, you must strive to make sure your educational institution is getting noticed by the right people.
Go into useful detail about the courses on offer
We emphasise the word ‘useful’ here. Our web designers can help you to put together a website, but what information should you put on it?
When searching for the right place to study, a prospective student’s first priority is likely to be finding the right course. So, it would be wise to devote separate webpages to individual courses so that you have room to go into abundant detail about those programmes and what they entail.
Keep the on-page details easy to digest
People who visit the website are likely to have many questions, like: “What will I learn on the course? Will I be taught online or in person? Are there any course fees I will need to pay?” On the plus side, your website can provide easy-to-find answers to all of these questions.
So, course-specific FAQs could be reserved for individual course pages, while more general questions (e.g. those about the careers service or students’ union) could be put on a dedicated ‘FAQs’ page.
Don’t overlook the location factor
Of course, somebody tied to a specific part of the country (for example, because they have kids or are already in a full-time job but want to slowly pivot towards a different line of work) might opt to study online or at a college or university within easy travelling distance of where they already live.
In contrast, many people looking to attend uni in particular will see it as an exciting opportunity to ‘start afresh’ in a whole new town or city. So, remember to refer to it in keywords.
Insert ‘long-tail’ keywords into your web copy
It has long been traditional for webmasters to incorporate relatively short, punchy keywords along the lines of ‘sixth form college Durham’ or ‘journalism school Birmingham’.
Nonetheless, there are so many different courses to choose from that people can be inclined to make rather more targeted search queries, e.g. ‘part-time engineering degrees in Southampton’ or ‘introduction to web design distance learning’. These are examples of ‘long-tail’ keywords.
Have your ‘ideal’ student in mind
Of course, what would constitute the ‘ideal’ student can very much depend on the course. However, on your behalf, our copywriters can pen content geared towards attracting this student, such as by pointing out financial support options that would be available to parents struggling to make ends meet.
We can take on a wide array of other SEO responsibilities for you, too; please phone us on 01325 582112 for further details on this point.
