SEO tools within HubSpot CRM, and why colleges should use them

What is search engine optimisation (SEO)?

Search engine optimisation ultimately increases the visibility of your website on results pages across search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others. The closer you can rank towards the top of page one, the more people, and therefore potential customers will see your page. An increase in traffic, and more specifically relevant traffic, should go hand in hand with an in increase in leads, continuing the momentum of your flywheel. It's important to note that SEO is focused on organic search, not paid search or ad placements on search engines, as this only requires your time, and some learning of the HubSpot tools to help you achieve SEO best practises.

what is search engine optimisation

Why should colleges be focused on SEO?

SEO should be part of a college's marketing strategy, especially if they are already using HubSpot (more on that later) which makes the somewhat daunting task a lot easier. Either way, there are a few great reasons to focus on:

1) SEO will of course increase your visibility/reach to prospective students. You will appear prominently in search results when students and parents are looking at educational institutions. You will be making it easier for these prospects to find information about programs, admissions, scholarships, campus life, and much more. This timely and relevant information can have an impact on decision-making. If you serve the right information, to the right people, at the right time, the chance they take action off the back of this increases. User experience also then becomes a factor, by improving the website's structure, speed, and usability on mobile devices, you create a positive impact on your SEO.

2) Create a competitive advantage with targeted traffic. Not only do you want to create more traffic, but you also want to improve the quality of that traffic. Being able to attract top students and those who are interested in, specifically, what programs you are offering. Using relevant keywords and offering content that answers prospects' questions or needs is key to a great marketing strategy. Have this in mind when optimising your content offering for search engines.

3) SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy, especially for improving local search presence. The investment is purely time and resources, compared to monetary costs with more traditional advertising. The long-term benefits are also substantial compared to advertising, as only small tweaks will be needed to stay competitive, compared to spending vast sums on advertising campaigns. This also leads to better local awareness, optimising for geographic areas or even those interested from international locations, both can be effectively targeted with great SEO.

4) Reporting and data. The data captured from a continually updating SEO strategy can shape decision-making for content creation, other marketing strategies, and website navigation or formatting improvements. The ability to gain this rich data is crucial in continually updating your SEO strategy and driving visits to your website.

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How can HubSpot help colleges succeed with SEO?

Whether you are a college already using HubSpot, or want to explore the solution for enhancing your SEO, here are some great tools to aid your SEO strategy.

Keyword research: This will aid in discovering the keywords that prospective students may use when researching information about courses. You can then create content that will best serve website visitors when searching for these keywords, while also improving rankings.
Content strategy: Create topic clusters and pillar pages so that your content is being organised around relevant themes both reflecting your college offering and what your customers want. The interlinking of these topics is key to expanding reach, but also visibility of the key pages (pillar page) on your website.
SEO recommendations are awesome! HubSpot will provide meaningful actions you can take to further optimise your web pages. Recommendations include page titles, meta descriptions, and headings. Following these suggestions will get your content in line with best practice SEO, making your content loved by search engines.
On-page SEO insight: Here is another huge win when used. This tool gives you SEO performance visibility by webpage, and shows what areas of each need improvement. This enables web pages to be tailored to the right prospect and gives you more valuable data on what content to serve across your website.
HubSpot can help build a competitor analysis: Using the above tools gives some visibility on how other colleges are performing. Knowing where you may be ranking relative to competitors, and on what keywords you may be losing out on, gives you some great ideas for how to improve relative to the competition. Especially useful in your local area.

Reap the Rewards of SEO for Your College

In conclusion, SEO is a powerful tool that can significantly benefit colleges by:

Increasing visibility to prospective students.
Attracting high-quality leads interested in your specific programs.
Offering a cost-effective marketing strategy with long-term returns.
Providing valuable data to optimise your website and content.

HubSpot acts as your SEO partner, offering a range of features to simplify and streamline the process. From keyword research to on-page optimisation and competitor analysis, HubSpot equips you with the tools and insights needed to achieve SEO success.

By investing in SEO and leveraging the power of HubSpot, your college can take control of its online presence, attract qualified students, and achieve its enrolment goals.

Ready to get started? Contact HubGem today to learn how we can help your college implement a winning SEO strategy using HubSpot.