SEO for Schools

SEO for schools is powerhouse tactic that can elevate your schools online visibility. But what exactly is SEO? Education SEO (or search engine optimization) is the practice of optimizing your schools content, both on and off your school website, to help you get found online by your target audience. 

It ensures that the website you've worked so hard on, is found on search engine results pages (SERPs) without paying for ads when your audiences are searching for specific keywords that might in clude your school name (branded search terms) or for what you offer (non-branded search terms).  

With our targeted SEO strategies tailored specifically for educational institutions you can:

✓ enhance your school's visibility,
✓ improve search engine rankings
✓ and drive high-intent organic traffic
✓ and potentially reduce your paid ad spend 

This cost-effective marketing tactic can help you generat more traffic and more admissions leads. At The Virtual Marketer, we take the guesswork out of doing SEO private schools. Transparency is at the heart of what we do.
So whether you're frustrated due to a lack of clarity with your current agency or you're exploring SEO for the first time, our friendly team are committed to providing a straightforward, jargon-free approach.

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Education SEO Services we Offer:

  • Keyword Research & SEO Strategy Development: We'll work closely with you to research the most relevant keywords for your school so that we're visible to your ICP. We'll also help develop a strategy that gives us laser sharp focus on the pages and keywords that are going to be most impactful.
     
  • Site Audits and Technical SEO: Whether you're looking to improve your existing website or planning a redesign, we conduct thorough audits to identify areas for improvement and provide expert guidance every step of the way. This includes areas like deeper competitor analysis to identifying practical ways you can improve your core web vitals. 
     
  • Keyword monitoring and Reporting: From setting up and tracking website goals to providing detailed reports on your target keywords and the competitor landscape. We empower you with the insights you need to make informed decisions about your school's online presence.
     
  • Website migration: Launching a new website? Whether you're a veteran to school website redesigns or it's your first time, there are a lot of moving parts. Take the stress out of your launch process by letting our team guide you through how to mitigate any lost visibility in those hard earned SERPs.
     
  • Comprehensive on-page Optimization: If you're team is short on time - we can help with implementing strategic recommendations that arise from our extensive audits. Whether it's technical fixes on your website which improve your Core Web Vitals; to optimizing the content on your school website, ensuring your institution ranks prominently for relevant keywords.

Reach out to us today, and we'll tailor our services to meet your specific school website needs.

Why The Virtual Marketer SEO for School sBanner - Woman with folded arms title block

An SEO Agency for Schools, That You Can Trust

 

✓  Expertise in Educational SEO

With years of experience in the education sector,
we understand the unique challenges and opportunities schools face in the world of search. 

 

✓  Data-Driven Strategies

Our SEO approach is grounded in data and analytics, ensuring that every decision we make is backed by insights.

 

✓  Personalized Attention

We prioritize understanding your school's values, objectives, and audience to deliver customized solutions that resonate authentically.

 

 

✓  Transparent Communication

No smoke or mirrors here - we believe in clear, open communication every step of the way. You'll always be empowered to make the best decisions for your school.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is SEO for schools?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Schools is the strategic process of enhancing a school's online content to enhance visility when users search for you. By carefully writing, organizing, and structuring the material, as well as well as tactically aligning your activities off the website (e.g. on review sites, social media and more) it aims to elevate the visibility of your school in search engine results pages (SERPs). This optimization targets specific phrases and keywords that are most relevant to your potential users.

Just like SEO in the commerical world, educational SEO is done through several tactics - you'll get the best results when you combine technical SEO, on-page and, off-page activities. 
 

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On-page SEO refers to everything you do on the specific webpage you're trying to get ranking in SERPs. The biggest component of this is making sure the content is comprehensive, readable, supplemented with rich media and imagery and, where appropriate, well sourced.  Past that, it's important to make sure the content is keyword optimized (i.e. it's placed in key areas such as headings and urls where naturally appropriate). This helps search engine crawlers understand what your content is related to alongside other signals. 

Off-page SEO is everything that happens off your website to encourage users to your site or specific page in question. This can include outreach to specific websites that are well regarded/read by parents to obtain backlinks - or simply by building up a solid social media presence.

Technical SEO is the final piece to the puzzle, and can really make all the difference when competing schools are already performing well in organic search. This practice refers to anything related to how your website operates whether you're ensuring your site has the appropriate security certificates in place, to ensuring loading speeds are optimum. 
Why is SEO important for schools?

SEO is crucial for schools because—when executed correctly—it significantly enhance their online visibility. This drives an increase in traffic from the right audiences, leading to higher enrollment rates.

While SEO is often viewed as a long-term effort, when implemented right, and consistently, it can offer incredible advantages for schools, such as:

  • Reducing PPC costs for branded and local searches, making it a cost-effective marketing strategy.

  • Diverting users from external content sources like third-party school ranking lists and review sites, thereby controlling the narrative around the school’s image.
How do you do SEO for schools?

Implementing SEO for schools shares similarities with commercial SEO practices but is tailored to meet educational needs. Effective SEO strategy involves several key steps:

  • Keyword Research: As a seasoned school marketer you'll already know a great deal about your audiences. Using existing persona insights, you'll need to identify the search terms these users might type into search engine's when looking for your school or competitors. If you have keyword research tools at your disposal, input your lists to delve into more data around semmantic variations, questions and more.  From there you can start to investigate search volumes for keywords, and 'difficulty' to prioritise which you should target on your website, and where!

  • Content creation or revision: Align your keyword research with existing copy. If you spot gaps, you'll need to develop high-quality, informative content that addresses the needs and questions of your audience, incorporating the targeted keywords in a natural way. Black-hat SEO techniques haven't worked for years now, so it's important you prioritize your users and fulfilling their needs quickly and seamlessly. 

  • On-Page SEO: On individual pages, the target keyword should be present, where naturally appropriate; in headings, alt tags for images, the page url, links and rich media.

  • Technical SEO: Next you'll need to ensure your website is technically optimized for SEO by improving site speed, mobile responsiveness, and usability best practices.

  • Monitor and Optimize: Google Search Console, a free and often under-rated tool, is crucial for monitoring the performance of your SEO efforts. As you observe impressions for your optimized pages, analyze which keywords are driving those impressions. This insight might surprise you and can guide adjustments for your page, to better align with user intent. While tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush offer advanced features, they come with a cost and steeper learning curve so you may want to consider a reputable education SEO agency can handle ongoing content optimization and performance reporting for you.
What about SEO for international schools?

Whilst we often work closely with private schools in the UK and US, SEO for international schools (espcially those recently established) is essential for driving awareness in the crucial first few years of opening.

Competing establishments will often have higher authority websites, brand recognition, and more content! Whether you're starting with a brand new website or not, getting visibi
How Do Search Engine Algorithms Work?

Search engines are designed to give users the most relevant and useful information possible. To do that they use automated programs called bots or spiders to discover and analyze web pages. They then use complex algorithms to determine which pages are most relevant to a user's query.

There are various factors and signals that influence SEO - so if you're a school marketer, like any business wanting to thrive online, you'll need to give your web pages the best chance of ranking highly by spending a little time on SEO.

This means creating content that aligns with what your primary audiences (prospective parents, fee payers and students), and secondary audiences (staff, existing parents and others) are searching for.

There are many signals and tactics you can use to improve your SEO such as:

  • Relevance of content - First and foremost ensure your content matches the intent of the search queries
  • Quality and depth - Content is still king, and you'll need to supply comprehensive useful infromation if you want to outrank competitors. 
  • User friendliness
  • Mobile-friendliness
  • Page load speed
  • Backlinks from reputable sources

  • Clear site structure with logical navigation and descriptive URLs that include relevant keywords

  • Implement an XML sitemap to guide search engines through your site

  • Use robots.txt files to direct crawler behavior

Our Approach to Education SEO

So what can you expect from a leading SEO agency for schools? At The Virtual Marketer our expert, in-house team understand the unique challenges schools face. We always start a project by getting to know your school and onboarding your marketing team. We pride ourselves on becoming an extension to your team, and understanding the challenges you face as well as what's practical for your SEO and Content marketing in the short and long term. 

Once you're onboarded we will focus on all the core pillars of SEO icluding Technical SEO, On and off-page SEO, and User experience. We then produce a strategy on how best to improve which includes setting up regular monitoring and reporting that looks past the usual vanity metrics. 

SEO Tips for Schools

It all Starts with Keyword Research

At the heart of any good SEO strategy is keyword research-- which in essence is simply identifying the specific words or phrases that your target audience commonly search for when trying to find you or other schools. There are plenty of tools to help you get this done for free such as: 

Leveraging Local SEO for Educational Institutions

Local SEO - the practice of optimizing your online presence for specific geographical locations - is particularly important for schools. Since most prospective parents will be looking for a school that's easily commutable, the added boost in online visibility can have a huge impact.

Some simple ways you can improve your school's local SEO include:

  • Claim or Create a Google My Business listing: If you don't already have access to a Google My Business (GMB) page, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If it's already available you can claim your page - if not, simply set a new one up here.

    Once you've got access to your profile page, be sure to align the basics like your Name, Address, and Phone (NAP) on this and any other social accounts. Your basic data like using the correct category for your business (hint it will likely be "Private School") is important too. If you find that your school would be represented by several categories (e.g. you also have a prep school) you may want to consider setting up 'departments' too.

    Not only does having an up to date Google My Business profile help with visibility, it helps build credibility.
     

  • Optimizing your Google My Business: Ensuring your page is completed as fully as possible will help give your school better visibility in local search results. Enrich your Google My Business with relevant imagery of the grounds, students and staff, add school events, tie together your social profiles and more. Pro tip, add in your target keywords wherever it's naturally relevant.
     

  • Encourage Google Reviews: Build credibility and social proof by encouraging happy parents and pupils to leave reviews on your Google Profile. If you've found yourself on the receiving end of some negative feedback, it's equally important to address concerns and reply to these reviews promptly and professionally.Ensure consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information across all online directories is consistent
     

  • Create location-specific content: that highlights your school's community involvement and encourage backlinking from reputable local businesses.

Developing a Content Marketing Strategy for Schools

A robust content creation strategy can significantly boost your school's SEO efforts. Consider creating:

  • Detailed 'pillar pages' that align with your keyword targets and school aspirations. These may be about your curriculum, extracurricular activities, facilities or specific scholarship programmes for example. 

  • FAQs addressing common questions or concerns from prospective students and parents

  • Video and rich media content showcasing school life, virtual tours, and student testimonials

  • Encourage reviews from parents and students on Google and other platforms

  • Blog posts about school events, student achievements, and educational trends

On-Page Optimization for Educational Keywords

Optimize each page of your school website for relevant keywords:

  • Use education-specific keywords in page titles, headers, and meta descriptions

  • Incorporate long-tail keywords that match specific search queries (e.g., "best private high school in [City Name]")

  • Optimize images with descriptive file names and alt text

  • Create internal links to connect related content across your site

User Experience Factors

Mobile Optimization for School Websites

In 2016 Google announced it would crawl websites with a mobile-first appraoch. And, it was as early as 2009 that mobile searches surpassed desktop. That's why it's crucial to ensure your school website is mobile optimized. This means:

  • Implement a responsive design that adapts to all screen sizes

  • Ensure text is readable without zooming

  • Make buttons and navigation elements easy to tap on smaller screens

  • Test your site's mobile performance regularly using tools like Google's Mobile-Friendly Test

The Impact of Page Speed on School SEO

Fast-loading pages improve user experience and can positively impact your search rankings:

  • Optimize images and videos for quick loading

  • Minimize HTTP requests by combining files where possible

  • Use browser caching to store static files

  • Consider implementing a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for faster global access

Measurement and Reporting

As a leading SEO agency for private schools, we understand the importance of tracking and reporting on your efforts. Not only to garner insights and learnings, but to ensure your school senior leadership team see the value in your efforts and understand the landscape you're navigating as a marketer. As part of our SEO packages, we ensure: 

  • Your Google Analytics 4 account is correctly linked and tracking important conversions

  • We regularly use Google Search Console to understand how your pages are performing in SERPs (search engine results pages)

  • Track keyword rankings for important search terms related to your school

Past that we measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your Schools SEO to gauge the success of your SEO strategy:

  • Organic search traffic growth

  • Keyword rankings for target terms

  • Conversion rates (e.g., inquiry form submissions, open day registrations)

  • Bounce rate and time on site

  • Local search visibility and Google My Business performance

Ready to Boost SEO for Your School?

Unlock the full potential of your school website with The Virtual Marketer's specialized SEO solutions. Reach out today to start a conversation about how we can help you achieve your digital marketing goals.

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