7 Ways to Apply College Marketing Strategies with SEO

There are many colleges or campuses spread throughout Indonesia. Therefore, an effective college marketing strategy needs to be implemented to support online institutional performance.

In 2022, there will be 3,107 colleges, with 2,982 of them being private universities (PTS).

This number is equivalent to 95.97% of the total tertiary institutions in Indonesia in 2022.

The number of collegs in Indonesia is proof that the community's need for higher education is increasing.

This makes competition in the educational institution sector even more fierce and leaves many prospective students confused and having difficulty making choices.

To answer their questions, online searches are often the solution chosen by prospective students who are interested in study programs, tuition fees, accreditation, or the reputation of a particular college.

Given this, college marketing strategies to optimize online search are increasingly needed to outperform the competition.

In this article, we will discuss how to promote college digitally, its goals, and its implementation through SEO strategies.

The Importance of College Marketing Strategy in the Digital Age

Campuses or colleges are high-level learning places that many potential students want to go to.

In Indonesia, higher education levels are divided into five, namely D3, D4, S1, S2, and S3. Each has its own unique criteria for enthusiasts.

Even though they are different, each of these levels has one main attraction, which is to provide greater opportunities to find work in the future.

Even those who are interested in studying on college have many choices. The following is the distribution of higher education institutions in Indonesia in 2022:

• 1,477 units in Java
• 768 units in Sumatra
• 365 units in Sulawesi
• 187 units in Kalimantan
• 180 units in Bali and Nusa Tenggara
• 130 units in Maluku and Papua

That amount is a combination of State Universities (PTN) and Private Universities (PTS).The many choices open up great opportunities for those interested in studying at a higher level.

However, not all tertiary institutions get optimal student admission results every year.

With more options comes increased market competition. Therefore, it is important to apply the right college marketing strategy in this digital era.

Currently, online presence is a crucial factor that determines the brand value of institutions in various sectors.

This is not limited to business either. The education sector can also take advantage of the increasing online habits of the Indonesian people.

As an illustration, internet users in Indonesia in 2023 will reach 212.9 million. That means 77% of the current Indonesian population.

The data shows that most Indonesians are familiar with the use of the internet when searching for online information.

Therefore, it is very important for universities to have a credible online presence in order to win market competition through increasing brand awareness.

Achieving Marketing Goals: How to Promote College Digitally

The implementation of marketing college digitally is inseparable from the graph of active internet users, which continues to increase.

Prospective students who are interested in continuing their studies at a particular campus or study program will search on search engines such as Google.

Here, you can see whether a college's website will appear or not on the first page of search results.

The right college marketing strategy will ensure the website appears on the top search pages.

This aims to increase awareness and recognition opportunities among prospective students.

To attract the best students to study at your college, you need a marketing strategy that really shows the quality of the institution organically.

In other words, a quality college website will be automatically recognized by the target audience and gain a positive reputation.

7 College Marketing Strategies with SEO

One way of online college promotion that can be used to boost credibility is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO can be the right college marketing strategy to convince potential students of the existence of your college.

This method involves creating a website that is operational, easy to access, and well optimized.

Some college marketing strategies with SEO can be summarized by the following points:

1. Perform a Competitor Analysis

Intense competition with other educational institutions requires you to monitor their performance on search results pages (SERPs).

From this analysis, you can see how well your competitors are performing compared to your college.

The results of this analysis will later give you an idea for determining Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to plan a college marketing strategy with SEO.

Here, you can find keywords that match your promotional needs to increase organic traffic, which can push college website rankings to the top of search results.

2. Start Researching for Keywords

To conduct effective keyword research when implementing a college marketing strategy, you can follow these steps:

• Define goals and target audience: define marketing goals for a certain period. Do you want to increase the number of new applicants, promote a particular course of study, or raise awareness about campus facilities?
• Determine seed keywords: Make a list of common keywords related to college marketing. Use keywords that are the focus of a topic. That way, you will be able to find other specific keywords to strengthen your content strategy.
• Using keyword research tools: Many keyword research tools can be used, such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ubersuggest, or Sequence, to get relevant keywords and see search volume and keyword difficulty.

3. Reach Potential Audiences

In the planning stage of this college marketing strategy, you can look for potential audiences that you want to reach.

Categorize these audiences as prospective students, parents, or high school students. Do comprehensive research to find out their preferences and needs.

Use keywords that are relevant to your target audience in marketing content, online advertising, and social media.

Also consider using location-based or demographic-based marketing strategies with local SEO to expand your reach.

4. Plan Optimization Activities

Do SEO optimization on your college website using relevant keywords.

Create a content strategy that integrates keywords in page titles, descriptions, and content.

In addition, make sure to optimize meta tags, URL structure, and internal linking to increase the visibility and ranking of your college website pages on the SERP.

5. Create High-Quality Content

Website quality is measured by how relevant, informative, and interesting the content is for your target audience.

For that, create blogs, articles, or guides that discuss campus-related topics, study programs, student activities, achievements, research publications, registration tips, or campus experiences.

Make sure to use relevant keywords in your content to optimally increase online visibility.

For the record, consider visual content formats such as videos, infographics, or images that can add value and attract the attention of the audience.

6. Prepare a Mobile-Friendly Website

Make sure to create a college website that is responsive and optimized for mobile devices.

This is because many prospective students use mobile devices to find information about the college, including study programs and the registration process.

Therefore, make sure your website is easy to navigate, has fast loading times, and appears responsive on various devices.

7. Optimize Featured Snippets

Featured snippets are summary blocks that appear above organic search results in SERPs.

To get it, make sure your content can answer questions that are frequently asked by your target audience.

If you manage to get this feature, your website pages will also get better visibility with the college website's authority increasing on search results pages.

So, that’s the discussion about the college marketing strategy with SEO that can be applied to get more online visibility in today's digital competition.

To deal with online promotion for college easily, you can use SEO services from cmlabs.

cmlabs provides comprehensive website optimization services with strategies compiled by SEO specialists.

The website optimization will be assisted by a team of writers and developers. Their roles are to support optimization on the content writing and technical sides in a measurable manner.

That way, your college website can achieve optimal online visibility without having to use paid advertisements.