A school's website is essential for student recruitment and enrollment. In this presentation, PlattForm reveals the secrets to making your website accessible to the right people searching for it.

1. Secrets to Website
Marketing Success
Tylor Hermanson
SEO Account Supervisor

2. Treating Your Website Like Your School

3. Your Website Marketing Strategy
• Help Them Find You
• Help Them Like You

4. Help Them FIND You
• Importance of inbound marketing
– More cost-effective - 62% lower cost-per-
inquiry
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• PPC (Pay-Per-Click Advertising)
• Traditional media integration
HubSpot 2011 State of Inbound Marketing Report

5. How Do You Find a School Online?
Top three answers:
• Google or other search engine to find schools
by name – 44%
• Use a site to match me, like My College Options
or The College Board – 30%
• Enter words or phrases into Google – 20%
Noel-Levitz, Inc. E-Expectations Report 2010

6. SEO and PPC
Paid Listings
Organic Results

7. SEO
• Objective: Maximize relevant, organic search
traffic to your website
• Strategy
– Give target market what they want
– Make search engines aware
• Why?
– Slow, but effective
– Lowest cost-per-enrollment, highest inquiry-to-
enrollment, greatest return on investment
– Test your site
– This isn‟t peer pressure, but everyone‟s doing it…

8. SEO strategy
On-site optimization Off-site optimization

9. On-Site SEO
• Crawlable Architecture
• Keyword Research
• Content
• Title Tags
• Meta Data
• URL Structure
• Interlinking
• Image Optimization

10. Off-Site SEO
• Linkbuilding
– A vote for your site
– Relevant, authoritative &
diverse
– Anchor text
– Time intensive
• Local Optimization
– Google Maps
– Bing Local
– Yahoo! Local
– Yelp
– And more…

11. Off-Site SEO: Linkbuilding
• Local websites • Social bookmarking
• Blogs articles websites
• Blog comments – Linkbait articles
• Directories – Linkbait videos
• Government websites • Widgets
• Social media • Niche sites
• Press releases • Alumni linkbuilding
• Widgets • Be a sponsor

12. PPC
PPC – 30%
SEO – 70%

13. PPC Strategy
• Objective: Maximize cost-effective paid search
traffic to your website
• Strategy
– Keyword research and refinement
– Keep high quality score
– Geo-target by radius or DMA when applicable
– Use mini-sites
• Why?
– Immediate results
– Broad/specific in keywords and location
– Low cost-per-enrollment
– Pay-per-click

14. PPC Mini-Site

15. Traditional Media Integration
• Over 40% of smartphone and Tablet
users use them while watching tv*
• It‟s not one or the other, it‟s a
perfect harmony
• QR Codes
– 72% of smartphone users would
likely recall ad**
• Social Media
– Understand your goals
• Tracking
– Unique URLs/Phone Numbers
– Branded search correlation
testing
*Nielsen, October 2011
**MGH, February 2011

16. Tracking: Video

17. Help Them LIKE You
• Your website
• Mobile
• Social
• Reputation management

18. Imagine if a Student Visited Your
Campus and…
• They were swarmed by several faculty and staff
telling them to do different things

19. Imagine if a Student Visited Your
Campus and…
• They couldn‟t find anyone to answer their
questions

20. Imagine if a Student Visited Your
Campus and…
• They got lost

21. Imagine if a Student Visited Your
Campus and…
• They were handicapped, but the school didn‟t
have wheelchair access

22. Your Website
• 92% of college bound high school students said they
would be disappointed with a school or remove it
entirely from their lists if they didn‟t find the information
they needed on the school‟s website*
• 1 in 5 students removed a school from their list because
of a bad experience on the school‟s website**
*Noel-Levitz, Inc. E-Expectations Report 2010
**Noel-Levitz, Inc. E-Expectations Report 2011

23. Your Website
• It starts with the homepage
– The facts: 55% of prospective students land
on your homepage
– The catch: It needs to work for everyone
• Usability
• Aesthetics
• Content
• SEO–friendliness
• Call-to-action

24. Your Website: Usability
• What is most important to prospective students?
– List of programs (38%)
– Enrollment and admissions information (21%)
– Cost (8%)
• What pages are most important on your
school‟s website?
– What pages do search engines find most valuable?
Noel-Levitz, Inc. E-Expectations Report 2011

25. Your Website: Usability
• Navigation is key
– Global, local, footer, breadcrumb, dropdown
functionality
• Strike balance between simple and busy
• Interlinking
• Most important pages
– Few clicks from homepage
– Several ways to get there
• Sitemap
• Custom 404 page
• Review analytics data
• Usability testing

26. Your Website: Aesthetics
• Your website = face of your brand
• Modern is key
– Wide template, large footer, social media
integration
• Color (or lack of)
• Images
• Continuity
• Above the fold
• Don‟t sacrifice SEO and usability

27. Your Website: Content
• Recognize your audience
• Text separators
– Headings, bulleted and numbered
lists, paragraph breaks
• Pagination
– What about with mobile?
• Color and font
• Interlinking

28. Your Website: SEO Friendly
• What not to do (or at least limit)…
– Flash
– JavaScript
– I-frames
– Code heavy
– Image-based links
– External links
– CMS – choose wisely

29. Your Website: Call to Action

30. Your Website: Call to Action

31. Net Price Calculator
• October 29, 2011 deadline
• Default vs. customized
– Default: Pros
• Meets law‟s minimum requirements
• Free
– Default: Cons
• Does not consider key components in Federal
Methodology Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
calculation
• Does not allow school to capture prospective
students‟ contact information

32. Net Price Calculator
Net Price Calculators 36% of students have used them
Mostly positive (school perception) 21%
Both 22%
Mostly negative 8%
No influence 50%
Scholarship Calculators 28% of students have used them
Mostly positive (school perception) 47%
Both 0%
Mostly negative 3%
No influence 51%
Noel-Levitz, Inc. E-Expectations Report 2011

33. Net Price Calculator: Custom

34. Mobile
• General Mobile Data
– 33% of American households (11% in „08)*
– 40% of Americans that do not own a smartphone
plan to in the near future*
• Education-specific Mobile Data
– 23% of prospective students reported searching
college sites from their smart phones**
– PlattForm SEO clients have seen a roughly 400%
average increase from last year in mobile traffic
*Deloitte State of Media Democracy, 2011
**Noel-Levitz, Inc. E-Expectations Report 2010

35. Mobile
• Mobile friendly vs. mobile site
• Mobile site
– Mobile browser detected
– Customized theme & navigation
– Most important information
– Unique phone number
• Mobile friendly
– Limit Flash
– Incorporate click-to-call
– Try it out!

36. Social Media
“Companies not actively engaging are missing a
huge opportunity and are saying something to
consumers, intentionally or unintentionally,
about how willing they are to engage on
consumers‟ terms.”
Josh Mendelsohn
VP, Chadwick Martin Bailey

37. Social Media: Activity
• Facebook now has over 750 million users*
• 93% of U.S. adult internet users are on
Facebook**
• 1 out of every 8 minutes online is spent on
Facebook***
• People share almost twice as much on
Facebook as they did a year ago*
*Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, July 2011
**Blogher, April 2011
***Comscore, February 2011

38. Social Media: Activity
• More than ½ of active Twitter users follow
companies, brand or products on social networks
• 79% of U.S. Twitter users are more likely to
recommend brands they follow
Edison Research, 2010

39. Social Media: Consumers
• 40% of customers who use search in their path
to purchase are motivated to use social media
to complete their decision
• 53% of people admitted that content on social
media websites changed their mind on a brand
they were considering buying
Group M Search and Comscore, 2011

40. Social Media: Students
• 33% of prospective students said they had searched
for schools on social networking sites*
• 74% thought schools should have a presence on
social media sites*
• 80% wanted official and non-official social media
content about the school*
• 53% said comments from current students were
most appealing**
*Noel-Levitz, Inc. E-Expectations Report 2010
**Noel-Levitz, Inc. E-Expectations Report 2011

41. Social Media
• Why/Why not?
– Social media = a School‟s website in 1998
• Strategy and measurement
– Have a purpose, and a way to measure results
– Develop guidelines
– Determine your audience
– Monitor, monitor, monitor
– Allocate resources
• Create social media advocates
• LISTEN: qualitative market research

42. Social Media: Guidelines
• Content
– Who?
– What mediums?
– What kind?
– Frequency
– Promotional/non-promotional ratio
• Creating accounts
• Comment discovery and response system

43. Social Media: What Should We Say?
• Engage, show you care and have a pulse
• Share interesting news
– This does not have to be about your school
• Take customer service to a new level (be
helpful)
• Provide an outlet for a community
• Ask and listen
• Create a content calendar and stick to your
guidelines

44. Social Media: Share Relevant Info

45. Social Media: Share Relevant Info

46. Social Media: Answer Questions

47. Social Media: Answer Questions

48. Social Media: Ask Questions

49. Social media: Community Outlet

50. Social Media: Commit to Responding

51. Social Media: Join the Conversation

52. Social Media: Have Fun!

53. Reputation Management
• Two types
– Search result focused
– Customer service focused
• Allocate resources (people and programs)
• Change expectations customers have for
companies
• Turn complainers into companions
• The social media connection

54. Reputation Management: In Action
• The Challenge:
– Student threatens to drop out of school via a Twitter tirade
– Growing use of social media among students
– If people feel wronged by a brand, it‟s payback time online
• The Solution:
– Daily social media monitoring
– Crisis management protocol
• The Results:
– Student who would have dropped stays in school
– School savvy with social media even if they‟re not
– Positive social media mentions about school‟s handling of the
situation
“You guys are great. What a social
media team. Sounds like we have a
student.” Rich Schechter, Medtech

55. You‟re a believer, but what about
the Board, VP, and President?
• “They can‟t find us and they don‟t like us!”
• Not in the phonebook?
• Showing the value

56. Show the Value
• Tracking
– Do you know where your online traffic/inquiries
are coming from, how they‟re performing, and
how they impact the bottom line?
• Redefining the competition
– Online vs. traditional
• Crunching the numbers

57. Show the Value: Tracking
• Branded vs. non-branded traffic
• Traffic to inquiry conversion rate
• Inquiry to enrollment conversion rate
• Mobile traffic percentage and conversion rate
• Filter out irrelevant traffic (ex. student portal, email
campaigns)
• Individual page conversion rates
• Contact form pages: conv %, exit %, browsing %

58. Key Takeaways
• Realize the importance of inbound marketing and
adjust your marketing mix accordingly
– Help them FIND you
• Maximize your reach qualitatively by improving the
website and social media performance
– Help them LIKE you
• Use the data you have to show the opportunity
– Showing the value

59. Questions?
Tylor Hermanson
913-254-6735
tylor.hermanson@plattformad.com