International schools face a set of unique challenges that makes them stand out from other businesses. Similar to large web shops, they are looking to sell to as many countries as possible. So, when onboarding prospective students, they need to adapt their offer to various cultures and languages.
For example, they will use brochures and other marketing materials to target specific audiences. Each offer has to be customized for that particular market, which makes their promotional efforts that much harder.
To overcome these issues, international schools need to rely on a flexible approach, such as SEO. With search engine optimization, they cater to users from various countries through website content customization. The potential of SEO for international schools is even greater when mixed with other marketing channels.
Benefits of Higher Education SEO
If you want to build a brand from the ground up, you should focus on search engine optimization (SEO). Climbing to the top of search engine results pages presents your business as one of the most reputable in its niche. Furthermore, this creates a basis for all other marketing efforts. We also have to consider local SEO, which helps you dominate a particular market.
By implementing the right SEO strategies, your international school can experience the following benefits:
Focused Traffic
Although SEO isn’t as effective as PPC at targeting users, it still allows you to focus on a particular marketing or demographics. By achieving high search engine rankings for relevant searches, you can cater to a target audience most that will most likely enroll into your school.
Increased Visibility
Through SEO, you can significantly boost a school’s visibility. The marketing tactic gives you a large influx of leads, many of which are interested in your higher education programs. To make things even better, ranking at the top of SERPs is an unassuming method of averting attention to your brand.
International Diversification
Implementing multilingual SEO strategies allows you to reach a global audience. By having web pages in various languages, you can focus on certain countries. This is especially important for higher education institutions that want to create a feeling of inclusivity and diversification on the premises.
Enhanced Credibility
Credibility is the strongest branding tool for international schools. People who enroll in your program want to know if they’ll have a bright future with your degree. Dominating search engines will give you just the credibility that will not only increase trust but also enrollment rates.
Increased Funding
Through better branding, educational institutions are able to accrue more funding from various organizations. When people notice your online visibility and traffic, they will be more willing to donate in the project.
Educational vs. Regular SEO
Search engine optimization presumes a similar process regardless of the industry. However, as you go from one niche to another, you’ll notice small differences in terms of positioning, content delivery network, and links. As someone who has provided SEO services for various niches, MiroMind has the right formula for this industry.
These are a few things that separate this type of SEO from the same marketing tactic you would perform for other brands:
Audience Targeting
The thing that’s unique for each niche is the audience. Selling cars is completely different from onboarding potential students to your school. On top of that, there are a few other factors that separate your specific organization from other colleges.
You have to think about the institution’s location, available programs, and demographics when targeting an ideal audience. Based on this data, your keyword research and content strategy will change. Your main goal at this point is not only to generate traffic but to generate traffic that will likely turn into leads.
Content Strategy
Unlike general blogs, your school website content will have to be much more professional. In most cases, articles posted on college sites are moderated by topical experts. Even if they accept guest posts, they have to be in accordance with their high standards. In other words, you need a veteran SEO team to help you create content.
Besides blog posts, you’ll need captivating content on landing pages. These web pages are crucial for conversion; they show why your school differentiates from similar ones. The articles not only should be of high quality, but they also need to revolve around relevant keywords for your business.
Academic Credibility
One thing that separates academic websites from others is their credibility. This is why getting a link from .EDU domain bears such a huge significance in the SEO world. Not only do these links pass a lot of link juice, but they also help build companies’ renown.
However, that credibility isn’t given; it is earned. An educational site has to be several notches above an average blog, whether we’re talking about design, content, or other SEO aspects. It has to serve as the first stopping point for other content creators, providing valuable, scientific information you can’t find anywhere else.
7. Best Educational SEO Tactics
If you want to dominate search results for relevant educational phrases, you need to focus on the following areas:
1. Targeting Global Readers
Your ability to lure and convert users will depend on your targeting. When you conduct keyword research, you have to focus on keywords used by prospective students. You can do so by using keyword research tools and learning more about the demographics.
Specifically, your management team has to figure out which countries you want to focus on. Most educational institutions nowadays create multilingual sites with an emphasis on North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. Depending on your overall business strategy, you might also prioritize developing countries lacking reputable higher education schools.
2. Creating Inclusive Pages
All content posted on your site has to be created for global audiences. You have to be mindful of different cultures, religions, and political views to maximize the site’s potential. That is if we presume you don’t have separate versions of the website in other languages.
Placing emphasis on diversity and inclusion is a good strategy. In the end, you don’t want prospective students to feel excluded. An excellent strategy is to create a multinational call center and share its number on the website.
3. Building the Right Links
Like any other business, school sites depend on links. The good news is that these institutions get links much faster than generic blogs, online shops, and business sites. The bad news is that you still have to perform good outreach and build content worth linking to.
One of the best global SEO strategies is engaging in wide-scale guest posting campaigns. With this tactic, you’ll build links from quality sites but also promote your brand and gain indirect traffic. Ideally, you should focus on backlinks from other educational schools, directories, and forums.
4. Implementing Local SEO
Although international schools are always trying to enroll students from other countries, they get the majority of their students from a home country. Because of that, you must implement the best local strategies to maximize leads in your closest vicinity.
The first step to doing that is introducing your institution to various relevant directories. More importantly, make sure your business information is the same across the board. You also need to claim Google My Business listing for the school.
5. Relying on Mobile Optimization
Like with any other website, people generally browse potential schools via their phones. So, you’ll have to improve the design of your site so it properly opens on various devices. We recommend you make critical buttons easy to tap on so that a person can access all information quickly and easily.
6. Using Multilingual Downloadable Content
Downloadable content is a very common format on educational and research websites. With it, institutions provide valuable information to their users that can be further shared within the community.
This content format is valuable for several reasons. First, it showcases your ability to cover certain areas, which is a valuable conversion tool. Second, we use downloadable content to increase the number of links to the site, which further improves your SEO efforts.
7. Marketing on Social Media
Social media represents an additional outlet for your campaigns. It allows you to spread your message with other companies and news sites and increase brand awareness. Although social media marketing isn’t necessarily a part of SEO, it is one of the integral tools for efficient campaigns.
These platforms shine for international schools as they allow your institutions to easily and quickly share current information with a large number of people.
Conclusion
If you wish to promote your international school, you should consider using search engine optimization. This meticulous marketing tactic increases your presence in search engines and, specifically, Google.
SEO assists brands in unlocking new international markets. Unlike paid advertising, this is an unobtrusive tactic that lures people to your institution, not the other way around. Hire MiroMind today and see your traffic explode in the upcoming months.