It recently occurred to me that the education industry has a rather love/hate relationship with search engine optimization and online marketing in general. Online Colleges such as Devry University and the University of Phoenix have picked up the importance of SEO quickly. However, very few brick and mortar schools seem to recognize the importance of the internet to their marketing campaigns.
Some of the most common reasons that post secondary schools give for not integrating SEO campaigns are that:
- None of their competitors are doing it
- Students will find their way to the school’s website anyway
- They’re already paying for a PPC campaign
- (rarely) They have enough leads already
Dispelling These Misguided SEO Notions
Let’s tackle these reasons one at a time:
None of the College’s Competitors are using SEO in their Campaigns.
This might be true from one point of view. It may be that no other universities in their area are using SEO. However, online competitors and actual industry competitors can differ greatly.
An online competitor is anyone who might be optimizing for the same set of keywords. That means that for the University of Pittsburgh, anyone optimizing for “Pittsburgh Universities” or “Pittsburgh Colleges” would be a potential online competitor.
Currently, a Google search for “Pennsylvania Colleges” yields results with 50states.com, Univsource.com, wikipeida.org, collegescolleges.com, and several more directory type sites. There is not an actual college on the first page of Google at all.
These directory sites are also called Lead Gen Sites because they generate traffic for competitive educational search terms and then resell the leads from interested searchers, usually at a premium. So instead of optimizing their own websites to bring students to an environment they can control, schools instead find themselves relying on these lead gen sites for the majority of their web traffic.
Students will find their way to the school’s website anyway
While this may be true, why wait and take a chance that they won’t? The rest of the school’s marketing budget is usually spent on making sure that prospective students will remember their school’s name and branding. So what happens when that student goes online and finds everything but the school’s site? What are the odds that they will actually make it to the school’s site without getting turned off by spammy looking lead gen sites? With a strong, optimized site, colleges and universities wouldn’t have to worry about these questions.
Schools are already paying for PPC campaigns
One of the biggest misconceptions in the industry is that PPC=SEO. Paid advertising is useful in certain areas, such as reaching for fringe keyphrases that are not at the center of one’s business. However, the ads that appear in the sidebar in Google only get a fraction of the attention that the first five organic results get. Additionally, it is now possible (not only legal, but allowed by Google) to bid on a competitor’s brand names. That means that anyone can bid for “University of Pittsburgh” and if they’re paying enough and have a good enough landing page, beat out Pitt for their own name!
Schools Have Enough Leads and Web Traffic Already.
Very rarely do we hear this particular excuse, but occasionally, there are smaller colleges that already have full admissions for the next several years. This does not mean that they should neglect their web presence. A first place or top five position on Google is vital to keeping their brand cohesive and maintaining a good online reputation. If a disgruntled student’s poor review on Yelp comes up first, the school is in a very bad way indeed.
Investing in Search Engine Optimization.
Search Engine Optimization is one of the most cost effective and successful means of marketing. For a relatively small investment (when compared to the cost of a PPC campaign or television advertisement) a strong, lasting web presence can be developed online. The education industry is right up there with real estate and pharmaceuticals when it comes to online interest. Almost every student searching for a college will try online at least once. By not optimizing their sites, Colleges and Universities are loosing a valuable chance to reach prospective students and maintain their good name online.
I really like this posting.
Online education is starting to become more and more reputable, but, as Christina points out, there are a lot of useless sites out there. If you don’t promote your online presence, your institution runs the risk of some degree of guilt by association.
Great article Christina! One of the other reasons I have heard in the education industry is that it takes too much time to see results. Companies are used to direct response advertising (TV, radio, mail) and SEM. They have a hard time understanding the justification of spending the money today and not measuring results for 3-4 months or more. The gap that needs to be closed for the SEO company, is the quantifiable ROI in terms of lead generation and cost per enrollment compared to the cost of SEM or pay per click campaigns. I have seen the effects of both the results of organic SEO are much higher and more effective. It just takes a little patience but the return is well worth it.
Thanks for the kind words Shelly and Nick. I think you both make excellent points. Shelly, I think that one of the hardest parts about explaining the merits of organic SEO is that the results aren’t always as easily quantifiable as other marketing strategies.
However, metrics like bounce rate, time on site and page views per visitor definitely give a good idea of the quality of the traffic generated by the SEO campaign.
Even with pay per click campaigns, the actual conversion may not happen right away. Thanks again for your comments!