SEO for Higher Education: How to Attract Students, Costs + More

SEO for universities involves building landing pages for each academic program and leaning on student and alumni voices for social proof, along with standard SEO best practices to improve online visibility. Here are our expert tips to bring in more prospective students.

When you’re in higher education marketing, how do you connect with the right prospective students?

With a comprehensive SEO strategy, your university website can rank at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) for the keywords your target audience most likely uses.

This guide to SEO for higher education institutions offers expert tips to boost your online presence and bring in more prospects.

What is higher education SEO?

SEO for higher education is the process of improving a university or college’s website to help it rank higher in the organic search results and attract more prospective students.

This includes using the right keywords, making your website more user-friendly, and creating valuable content to draw traffic and increase engagement.

Here’s an example of the sites that appear at the top of Google for “business degree arizona.”

Why SEO matters for colleges and universities

Implementing an SEO plan for universities increases the chances of ranking highly in the search engine results. In fact, sites that appear in the top spot receive 28% of all clicks.

In a highly competitive industry like higher education, SEO is essential. Other benefits of search engine optimization for universities include:

• Targeted traffic. Using SEO means you can appeal to the students most likely to enroll, meaning higher conversion rates.
• Trust in your university. Trust is imperative to all universities and higher learning establishments. A high ranking shows prospective students that you’re a reliable and credible place to study.
• Longer-lasting results. While SEO can take a while to implement, it provides long-lasting results. A well-optimized page can rank highly in the search engines for months, even years, after the changes are made.
• Measurable results. SEO is trackable, meaning you can see how effective your campaigns are and make further changes if needed.
• Cost effectiveness. While your exact return on investment (ROI) will vary, SEO produces the highest return compared to other digital marketing methods and lays the foundation for success in other strategies like PPC advertising or social media marketing.

How SEO works for universities

Search engines like Google use a set of rules known as a search algorithm to understand how to rank web pages it indexes for certain words and phrases.

When someone types a search query, the search engine ranks these pages in the order it thinks searchers will find most relevant.

When it comes to higher education websites, top-level domains (TLDs) like .edu and ac.uk are known as “sponsored top-level domains,” which are considered more credible.

And because trustworthiness is a ranking factor, your university website gets a boost in the search engine rankings for education-related searches.

However, it’s still important to have a solid higher education SEO strategy, since your top competitors will be other university websites aiming for the top spot.

The three different types of SEO

There are three main components of an effective SEO strategy for higher education institutions. Focusing on them all will increase your odds of getting the results you want on the SERP.

1. On-page SEO
2. Off-page SEO
3. Technical SEO

On-page SEO

On-page SEO focuses on how your individual web pages are optimized for the search engines.

On-page optimization works in two ways: First, it provides context to search engine crawlers so they understand what a page is about and how it can help with specific search queries.

Second, it makes your page more engaging, enhancing the user experience. Search engines reward pages that provide a positive user experience, meaning they’re more likely to rank highly.

Here’s an example of good on-page SEO:

The content is easy to read and understand, there are links guiding visitors to other parts of the website, and a video that clearly explains the undergraduate application process.

Elements of on-page SEO include:

• Conducting keyword research and adding relevant keywords to your pages
• Using headings to break up text and make it easy to read
• Writing high-quality, accurate copy
• Making title tags and meta descriptions as relevant as possible
• Using external and internal linking to aid navigation
• Adding images and videos and optimizing them (for example, adding contextual alt text to images)

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO (also known as off-site SEO) concerns any search engine optimization that takes place away from your website.

This type of SEO can be harder to manage, since you have less control over what happens outside of your website. However, it can be a powerful way to boost your search rankings.

Take, for example, backlinks from other websites. This Wikipedia entry for Yale has a link to the university website, highlighted in red:

This link acts as an “endorsement” that the Yale University website is trustworthy and credible. The more high-quality and relevant backlinks a website receives, the bigger the boost in the organic search results.

Other off-page SEO tactics include:

• Local SEO, like citations on online directories
• Optimizing your Google Business Profile
• Guest posting on other websites
• Regularly reviewing your presence on third-party platforms like social media and review aggregator sites
• Backlinks from reputable, relevant websites

Technical SEO

Technical SEO concerns how you optimize the code and elements on your web pages to improve the overall user experience on your site. This can often be the things behind the scenes that your page visitors don’t see.

For example, let’s say a landing page takes too long to load. Rather than wait around, prospective students may get frustrated and leave your site, potentially to check out a rival university.

According to Lucky Orange, one second saved can increase mobile conversions by 3% on average.

A slow-loading webpage doesn’t just affect your conversion rates, but your SEO rankings too.

While Google has said a high bounce rate isn’t an SEO ranking factor, it can indicate that your site isn’t trustworthy or reliable, which is an SEO ranking factor.

If you have Google Search Console, you can use the Core Web Vitals report to check your page load speed and get recommendations to make your pages faster.

Other technical SEO tactics include:

• Ensuring your web pages are mobile-friendly
• Using structured data (like schema) to give the search engines extra context
• Making sure your site is indexable
• Removing broken links and creating relevant redirects

Prajwal Manglekar, senior SEO specialist at Hexanovate, confirmed the benefits of technical SEO.

“We optimized the entire website of a university client for technical SEO. We prioritized mobile responsiveness, trimmed heavy images for faster load times, and revamped the URL structure to enhance navigation,” says Manglekar.

“As a result, organic traffic increased by 30% in just six months.”

Expert SEO tips for universities and colleges

Here’s how to optimize your site, provide quality content to visitors, and improve your search engine ranking.

1. Consider search intent
2. Set up a Google Business Profile
3. Use link outreach
4. Create a landing page for each program offered
5. Make sure the site is mobile-optimized
6. Lean on student and alumni voices
7. Create a blog for news and updates
8. Ensure your site is accessible
9. Consider SEO agencies with higher ed experience

1. Consider search intent

Your web visitors will have different goals when visiting your website. Some will be researching the best universities to attend, while others will be ready to enroll.

Search intent can be divided into four different categories: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional. Here’s how the categories might apply to your university website:

Understanding the search intent behind a specific query makes it easier to meet the expectations of web visitors and tailor your content strategy’s messaging.

2. Set up a Google Business Profile

While some prospective students may be coming to your university from another state or even another country, others might be a little closer to home.

As an example, around 47% of transfer students at the University of California live within 50 miles of campus.

Local SEO, or local search, makes it easier to rank for search queries like “university courses near me.”

One of the most effective ways to enhance your local SEO is by creating a free Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business).

A Google Business Profile lets you claim ownership of your university in the Google search results.

A Google Business Profile has three key advantages when it comes to local SEO:

• It provides your university with additional real estate in the SERPs when people search for you by name. They can find out more about you, visit your website, and even call you.
• GBP provides Google with additional context about you. For example, if you offer a specific degree program and mention this in your profile, Google knows to rank you higher if a user asks the relevant query.
• It increases the chance of your university appearing in the “Google Map Pack” at the top of the search engine results. This is a fantastic way to get additional visibility in local search.

Make sure your Google Business Profile is regularly updated and that you fill in as many fields as possible.

Further reading: Local SEO Guide: Cost, Case Studies + Expert Tips

3. Use link outreach

Link outreach is the process of reaching out to relevant organizations and asking them to link to your content. The more high-quality backlinks you get, the more trustworthy and authoritative you appear in the search engine results.

Getting backlinks is one of the harder aspects of SEO for universities. This is because you not only have to create high-quality content marketing, but you also have to find prospective websites willing to link to it.

However, when done right, it can give you the edge in the SERPs. According to Backlinko, the number one result in Google has nearly four times more backlinks than the rest of the results on the first page.

Here are some of our top tips for managing your link outreach campaigns:

• Use management tools like Semrush’s link-building tool to find prospective sites and track your emails.
• Look at your competitor’s sites to see where they are getting backlinks from. If a website is willing to link to a competing university, they may be willing to link to you too.
• Quality is better than quantity when it comes to backlinks. Links from irrelevant and spammy websites may hinder rather than help your SEO efforts.

4. Create a landing page for each program offered

To rank for relevant keywords, fulfill the search intent of prospective students, and guide users toward taking action, create standalone landing pages dedicated to each specific program or offering.

These program pages should include:

A keyword-optimized headline, including the program name, degree, and location.

Detailed information on the program, outlining who it’s geared toward, what’s included, and curriculum details.

Benefits (career outcomes): jobs, industries, average placement for graduates, success stories, and salary ranges.

Next steps and CTAs: requirements, deadlines, application steps, along with a clear and consistent CTA (“Apply Now” or “Schedule a Tour,” for example) at the top, middle, and bottom of the page.

Media, like videos (student testimonials and virtual tours), infographics, program brochures, and photos of students on campus.

FAQs to help with long-tail keywords, voice search optimization, and to address common questions of prospective students.

5. Make sure the site is mobile-optimized

Most prospective students and parents start their research on phones and tablets. If your site is too slow, hard to navigate, or just unappealing, they are likely to bounce.

What’s more, Google uses mobile-first indexing — meaning it ranks your site based on how it performs on mobile.

To make sure your university’s site is mobile-friendly:

• Use simple navigation, like hamburger menus and sticky headers
• Use a flexible grid layout that adapts to all screen sizes (not a separate mobile site)
• Avoid pop-ups
• Compress images, enable browser caching, and minimize JavaScript/CSS to improve load times (and use PageSpeed Insights to check speed)
• Use legible font sizes
• Make sure buttons and links are large enough to tap easily
• Place key information like program names, CTAs, and deadlines high up on the page

• Collapse or accordion secondary content like FAQs or course lists
• Keep forms short and simple with autofill and mobile-friendly input types

6. Lean on student and alumni voices

Prospective students want to hear from current or past students before making a decision.

Leverage user-generated content from students and alumni, testimonials, and first-hand experiences to boost your institution’s credibility, authenticity, and SEO rankings.

Pro tip: Use schema markup for reviews and testimonials to boost search visibility.

7. Create a blog for news and updates

Maintaining a blog can help increase organic traffic and SEO by targeting valuable keywords. It’s also important for showcasing student life, answering common questions, promoting events, and sharing updates.

Be sure to maintain a regular posting schedule and promote content on social media and newsletters for further visibility.

8. Ensure your site is accessible

All users should be able to fully navigate and interact with your university’s online content.

Accessible websites include:

• ALT text for images
• Keyboard-navigable menus
• Descriptive link text
• Accessible PDFs
• Color contrast
• Captions or transcripts for video and audio materials

Conduct regular accessibility audits (tools like Google Lighthouse can help with this), along with user testing to improve the user experience and help maintain compliance.

9. Consider SEO agencies with higher ed experience

If you don’t have the time or resources to manage your university’s SEO, a digital marketing agency can help.

There are many agencies out there, so it’s important to do your research. Here’s what to consider when looking for the right SEO agency:

• Understand what you want to achieve from your SEO efforts – For example, do you want to increase enrollments, increase brand awareness, or launch in a new international market?
• Read reviews, case studies, and testimonials to see what results an agency has provided in the higher education sector. It’s always best to work alongside agencies with previous experience of working with universities, as they’ll understand the unique challenges you experience
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions. A good SEO company will answer any questions you have honestly and transparently

The benefit of working with a university SEO agency is that you can take advantage of the enterprise-level SEO tools they use to give your SEO strategy the edge. says:

“We use our own bespoke tool, ConversionIQ, to granularly track every step of the customer journey,” explains Sam Yadegar, co-founder and CEO of HawkSEM.

“This helps us understand what aspects of an SEO campaign are working well and what needs additional optimization.”

Another advantage?

“CIQ provides valuable insight about the university’s target audience. We can take that data and use it on another marketing channel (such as PPC) to scale and drive conversions.”

University website SEO: Common mistakes to avoid

At HawkSEM, we work with a wide range of higher education websites, helping them to improve SEO. For example, we helped California State University – Northridge (CSUN) with its search engine marketing, doubling the university’s conversion rate.

As a result of our digital marketing services, we’ve seen many mistakes that are frequently made by university websites.

Here are three of the most common errors, and how to avoid them.

Not understanding your target audience

Misunderstanding who your target audience is doesn’t just lead to a loss of conversions, it can also mean your SEO rankings take a hit.

For example, if your university department offers both on-campus and online courses, it’s crucial to determine which experience your audience prefers so you can prioritize your SEO efforts.

If prospective students overwhelmingly prefer an online course, but you put all your attention on on-campus content creation:

• You won’t rank well for terms that are relevant to your actual target audience, for example, “online University courses.”
• People who visit your site will realize that your content doesn’t meet their needs. This will lead to a high bounce rate and lower search engine rankings.

Before planning your SEO strategy, create a target audience profile. This will help you understand who your ideal student is and how you can optimize your pages to encourage them to enroll.

Using keywords that are too broad

Broad keywords are generally more competitive, making it harder to rank on the first page of the search engine results.

Long-tail keywords are more specific keywords that attract more niche audiences. By focusing on long-tail keywords, you’re more likely to rank, and the people who use them are more likely to convert on your university site.

Here’s an example: “Forensic science courses” has 310,000,000 results in Google, meaning it’s a very broad and competitive keyword.

Alternatively, the more specific “Best forensic science degree courses in Texas” has 19,400,000 results, meaning you’re more likely to hit that all-important top spot.

We spoke with Magee Clegg, CEO of Cleartail Marketing, who helped increase website traffic on behalf of a university client by over 14,000%.

“Diligent keyword research and content optimization were integral to our strategy. It’s all about understanding what prospective students are looking for and aligning your website with those search terms,” explains Clegg.

“Tools like Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends are great for identifying high volume, low competition keywords.”

Duplicate website content

Academic websites typically contain thousands of web pages, from course details and information for students to alumni pages and blogs.

This increases the chances of duplicate content, as many departments need to display identical (or very similar) information.

Take the Harvard website. When you take subdomains into account, there are nearly nine million pages indexed in Google.

The biggest risk of duplicate content is that it confuses the search engines. Let’s say you have ten identical pages on your university website. The search engine isn’t sure which page is the original one, so it takes an educated guess. And there’s the chance it could guess wrong, meaning it directs potential students to an incorrect page.

The easiest way to avoid this issue when duplicate content on your web pages is unavoidable is through canonicalization.

This is when you specify which page is the original one using a canonical tag, telling the search engines which page you want to display in the results.

How much does SEO for universities cost?

Generally, SEO agency pricing costs between:

• $3,000-$10,000 a month for fixed rates
• $500-$1,000 a month for local SEO
• $5,000-$30,000 for one-off projects

The exact cost of SEO for universities depends on a number of factors, including the tools you use and whether you do the work in-house.

There are free tools available to manage your SEO marketing strategy if you’re on a budget. For example, Ahrefs and Semrush offer basic keyword research and tools to analyze your competitors.

If you want to manage your technical SEO, Screaming Frog lets you track up to 500 URLs on your university website.

If you use an SEO consultant or digital marketing agency, the cost will depend on your goals and how much work needs to be done.

For example, if you just need a company to create an SEO audit for you to follow in-house, this will cost less than a digital marketing agency creating an audit and implementing the recommendations on your behalf.

The takeaway

Getting university enrollments can be challenging. Using SEO to increase your chances of getting on the first page of Google can make the difference between landing new students and losing out to your nearest rivals.

At Hawksem, we specialize in SEO marketing, meaning we can create, implement, and manage a university SEO strategy unique to your specific needs and goals.

Want to know more about how we can help? Get in touch for your free, no-obligation consultation today.

This article has been updated and was originally published in January 2024.