There are more opportunities for your school’s content to show up on search engines today than ever before, such as “structured snippets”, “people also ask", and the list goes on. The problem is that the SEO needed to win those spots has become incredibly complex and technical. But if you’re not optimizing your content with the right SEO, you’re losing critical opportunities to reach prospects when they’re searching for you and letting your competitors attract those users and build relationships with them. Winning the SEO Game for Schools: How to Dominate Organic Search and Get in Front of the Right Students in 2023, a fast-paced executive briefing for schools on what you need to know about SEO in 2023 and how to ensure you “steals” every opportunity to show up on search engines for relevant searches entered by your potential students.

1. Winning the SEO Game for
Schools: How to Dominate
Organic Search and Get in
Front of the Right Students
in 2023

2. 2

3. Your Presenter
Philippe Taza
CEO
Higher Education Marketing

4. A Little Housekeeping
➜ Use the Questions function for questions
➜ Use the chat for comments
➜ The sessions is being recorded. The slides and
recording will be sent to you within 24 hours.

5. What We’re Covering Today
➜ Understanding SEO
➜ How search engines determine your content’s rankings
➜ What is high-intent traffic and how to capitalize on it
➜ The 18 opportunities to show up on search
➜ How to Measure SEO

6. Poll #1
Does your school have a documented SEO Strategy?
Yes No Not sure

7. 7
What Is SEO And
Why Is It Important?

8. What Is SEO?
Search engines exist to discover,
understand, and organize the
internet's content in order to offer
the most relevant results to the
questions searchers are asking.
SEO is much more than keywords,
meta tags and back links…

9. Why Is SEO So Important?
➜ Provides answers to what users are already looking for,
unlike traditional advertising. People are looking to search
engines for information, to learn about every subject
➜ Creates an opportunity to reach your prospects throughout
the different stages of the customer journey
➜ Develops a bond of trust by creating content that answers
potential student questions, which can eventually convert
them into customers
➜ Builds Credibility: SEO is perceived as more credible than
paid advertising

10. 10
How Does Google Work?

11. The 2 Sides of SEO
➜ Winning at SEO requires both optimal user experience
(UX) and robot experience (RX)

12. How Does Google Work?
Google’s 3 Basic Steps to Rank a Website
1. Crawling (discovery): finding and scanning the web page
2. Indexing (relevance): understanding what’s on the web page
3. Ranking (authority): deciding where to position your page in the
search results

13. How Does Google Work?
Crawling: Spiders (or Google
bots) follow links across the
Internet and report what they
find to Google's servers.

14. How Does Google Work?
Indexing (relevance): If
Google considers a page to
be useful, it will be stored in a
vast index, ready to be served
whenever someone searches
for a relevant topic.

15. How Does Google Work?
Ranking (authority): Using
over 200 (more or less secret)
factors, Google determines the
order in which web pages
appear in the SERP, in order
to provide the best experience
to their users.
Search Engine Results Page

16. SEO Ranking Factors

17. 17
What Opportunities Are There to
Show Up on Google?

18. 1. Featured Snippet
2. Local Pack
3. Reviews
4. Sitelinks
5. Videos
6. Top Stories
7. Images
8. Twitter
9. Knowledge Panel
10. FAQs
11. People Also Ask
12. Related Searches
13. Google Flights Block
14. Hotel Pack
15. Job Listings
16. Google Ads
17. Shopping Ads (Product Listing Ads)
18. Rich Snippets
https://www.semrush.com/blog/serp-features-guide/
Most Common SERP Features Seen on Google

19. https://www.semrush.com/blog/serp-features-guide/
Search Engine Results
1
1. Featured snippet
2. Sitelinks
3. People also ask

20. 1. Places
2. Events
3. People also ask
Search Engine Results

21. Rich Results?
https://search.google.com/test/rich-results
4.

22. 22
How Do You Create
An SEO Strategy?

23. SEO Strategy
➜ Define keywords through research
➜ Develop content clusters
➜ Write quality content (answering
user questions)
➜ User Experience (UX)
➜ Internal Linking
➜ Link Building
➜ Technical SEO
➜ Mobile friendliness (mobile first)
➜ Secure and accessible website
TECHNICAL
LINKS CONTENT
USER ENGAGEMENT
& EXPERIENCE
ECOSYSTEM

24. 6 Steps to Keyword Research
Research Competitors Identify your competitors and study their keywords
Non-branded Keywords Establish a list of non-branded keywords your domain ranks for
Untapped Keywords
Establish a list of untapped keyword “gaps” between your
domain and your competitors
High-volume, focused
Keywords
Define a high-volume and focused keyword list that lines up
with your educational offerings
Develop a keyword deployment plan to optimize your website
Keyword Deployment Plan
Produce initial keyword ranking report vs. competitors;
Repeat measurement reports monthly to track progress.
Measure Progress in
Keyword Rank

25. Keyword Search Intent
How to learn french quickly
E
n
r
o
l
l
m
e
n
t
F
u
n
n
e
l
Informational
Navigational
Commercial
Transactional
Searching for information or
advice around a subject
Searching for a brand
or destination
Searching with focus
around a product or
service
Searching to
complete a
transaction
ESPOL Fall Calendar
Masters in public relations
Mcgill bachelors registration
https://yoast.com/search-intent/

26. Short-Tail vs. Long-Tail Keywords
Single-word phrases
e.g. “schools”
2-3 word phrases
e.g. “culinary schools”
4+ word phrases
e.g. “where to study culinary arts
in Vancouver”

27. Keyword Research Tools

28. What Are Topic Clusters?
➜ Content clusters are an SEO content
strategy
➜ They are designed to position your
website as an authority for one or many
subjects
➜ Build your content clusters around the
various courses and programs your
organization offers and link with
internal links

29. 1. Create contextual links between pages
2. Improves user experience
3. Improve topical authority in Google
4. Improve organic search rankings
5. Drive qualified traffic and leads to your website
Why Content SEO Clusters Important?

30. Topic Clusters: 3 Important Elements
1. Pillar page → a page that covers a broad topic and usually targets a
high search volume keyword
2. Subtopic pages → related content which targets less competitive,
longer keywords with less volume.
3. Internal links → Passing from the content of the pillar page and
back to the related pages in the cluster

31. Easy ukulele
songs for
beginners
Ukulele
strumming
patterns
Easy ukulele
songs for kids
Easy
ukulele
chords
Topic Clusters: Examples
Pillar Page: umbrella term
Subtopics: an aspect of the main idea
How to
play
ukulele
11k monthly searches
1.5k monthly searches 4k monthly searches
6.2k monthly searches
4.3k monthly searches

32. 32
How Do You Measure
Your SEO Efforts?

33. 5 Measurement Dimensions
1. Keyword Rankings: Do your pages rank on the first page? In the top 3?
2. Organic Traffic: Which pages are receiving organic traffic? How many users per
month visit your site from search engines?
3. Bounce Rate & Engagement Rate (quality measures): Do users spend time and
engage with your content?
4. Click-Through-Rate (CTR): The ratio of users who view vs. click on your SERP
listings.
5. Domain Rating/URL Rating: A measure on a 100 point scale.

34. Google Search Console - Search Results

35. Google Search Console - Position by Query

36. Google Search Console - Country Avg. Positions

37. SEMRush - Positions, Intent & Search Features
https://www.semrush.com/blog/analyze-search-intent-instantly/
1. Keyword
2. Intent 3. Search Feature

38. GA4 - Traffic Acquisition Report

39. GA4 - Traffic Acquisition Report

40. GA4 - Organic Search Traffic Users / Views

41. GA4 - Bounce Rate & Engagement time

42. Impact of Page Load Speed on Bounce Rate
➜ Pages that load within 2 seconds:
average bounce rate of 9%
➜ Pages that load in 5: bounce rates
skyrockets to 38%.
➜ The BBC loses an additional 10%
of users for every extra second it
takes for its site to load.
➜ When Yahoo! reduced its page
load time by just 0.4 seconds,
traffic increased by 9%.
https://www.pingdom.com/blog/page-load-time-really-affect-bounce-rate/
https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/building-websites/website-load-time-statistics/

43. Tips to Improve Bounce Rate & Engagement time
■ Add video to your content
■ Add images
■ Add contextual links to your pages
■ Improve readability: use headers, write short paragraphs, use
easy words
■ Double check that your page is a 1:1 match for search intent

44. Google Search Console - Click Through Rate (CTR)

45. Measurement: Click Through Rate (CTR)
How to improve CTR?
■ Improve search rankings
■ Make your search results stand out in SERP: write compelling Meta Titles & Descriptions
SmartInsights.com

46. Measurement: Authority Score
■ Estimation of Google’s Pagerank Score on a 100 point scale
■ Ahrefs uses the Domain Rating (DR), Moz uses Domain Authority (DA),
SEMrush uses Authority Score
■ Backlinks are one of the most important factors in determining this score
■ Take into account how this score compares to your main competitors
■ Can be used to determine whether to pursue a target keyword or not

47. Measurement: Authority Score
How to increase Authority?
■ Acquire High-Quality Backlinks from Authority Sites
■ Create link worthy content: *pages will build links
naturally if their content ranks well
■ Improve your internal linking structure (link juice)
■ Increase search traffic, and keyword rankings

48. 48
Social = Search
● While the web is still the #1 place to search something,
people are starting to use social platforms like Instagram
and TikTok for searches.
● To get found on social in the future will require social SEO

49. Poll #2
How often do you or your team perform an
SEO audit of your school's website?
Weekly Monthly Yearly Not sure

50. Request a Free SEO/Website Assessment
Start now at www.HEM.agency/assessment
See what you are
doing well and
uncover
opportunities for
improvement when
it comes to your
website and SEO.

51. Request A Free SEO/Website Assessment
Scott Cross
Regional Manager
514-312-3968 x 117
scross@higher-education-marketing.com
Philippe Taza
CEO
514-312-3968 x 104
ptaza@higher-education-marketing.com
Lara Chuang
Client Representative
514-312-3968 x 115
lara@higher-education-marketing.com

52. 52 higher-education-marketing.com