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SEO

Best Practices

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website to perform better on search engines. There are many things you can do to rank higher, or show up sooner, in Google and other search engine results. 

Why?

online survey results, search engines main way students discover university

Gil Rogers, a leader in higher education enrollment management and digital marketing, ran a survey of 746 students and found that  online searches are the most common way a student will discover a university, and one of the top ways they find information after deciding to apply and being accepted. (slide 27, or see image on right)1

There is no doubt that students are often using online search engines to find the information they need to make it through college. This makes SEO important for university websites.

How?

Following these best practices can help boost your chances of your site being listed on different search engines and increase viewer traffic.

1. Create SEO-friendly URLs

2. Incorporate mobile-responsive designs3

  • When designing a webpage, make sure that your design translates across devices and browsers. 

3. Utilize Google Analytics

  • This will give you the ability to view current data on your site including:
    • Page views
    • User demographics (browser, bounce rate, etc.) 
  • Perform regular maintenance 

4. Perform regular maintenance on your site

  • Review and fix broken links
  • Update content regularly
  • Remove irrelevant or outdated information

5. HTTP vs. HTTPS4

  • "HTTPS" signifies a secure connection and encrypts your information, whereas "HTTP" does not.

6. Assign HTML tags appropriately5

  • There should only be one item assigned as a Header 1 (h1) on each webpage. Most of the time, it will be the title of your page.
  • Subsequent HTML tags should be used in numerical order.  Beware of header nesting!

7. Be mindful of site load speed

  • The slower the load time, the faster you lose viewership
  • Reduce image sizes to be under 100kb

8. Identify relevant keywords

  • While search engines have largely started overlooking keywords due to overuse, that doesn't mean you should avoid adding relevant ones when creating new pages.
  • Be strategic and consider the use of long-tail keywords6

Resources

Search Engine Starter Guide
5 fundamentals that impact SEO
The only SEO checklist you will need in 2020: 41 best practices 
Hacking the College Search

Articles and References

1 Hacking The College Search: Key Influencers At key Phases of The College Search 

By Gil Rogers

Accessed: 03/05/2024

2 How To Create SEO-Friendly URLs

By Kendra Bassi

Accessed: 03/05/2024

3 A Beginner’s Guide to Mobile Responsive Design

By Josh Byers

Accessed: 03/05/2024

4 HTTP Vs. HTTPS: The Difference And Everything You Need to Know

By Webaim.org

Accessed: 03/05/2024

5 How To Create the Perfect H1 Tag for SEO

By Neil Patel

Accessed: 03/05/2024

6 How to Choose the Right Long-Tail Keywords

By Sergio Aicardi

Accessed: 03/05/2024

  
  
Last Updated: 3/14/24