Incorporating Personalisation Into Your Seo Strategy
JUN 29 2022
Personalisation is a hot topic when trying to provide a memorable digital experience for web visitors. Many online businesses have been quick to embrace the trend, yet the same can not always be said of schools. Those schools that find ways to deliver a more personalised experience will have a distinct competitive edge.
When using search engines, people expect to see personalised results. With the help of AI (artificial intelligence), Google will use the data available from the user’s previous online activity to tailor the results to be specific to each individual. Each time a person uses a search engine, they send signals to Google about their location, language and device they use.
Google is not totally transparent about sharing the factors that determine search rankings however, we do know that user experience is high up on the list. There are three metrics that are worth keeping a close eye on to measure how Google might view the experience users are receiving on your website:
- Bounce rate–represents the percentage of users that visit your website and then leave (bounce) rather than viewing additional pages.
- Time spent on site–is the time a user spends on your site from start to finish. Although not necessarily a ranking factor when observed alongside bounce rate, this can be a good indication of the effectiveness of your site.
- Average pages per visit–the number of pages a user interacts with before exiting your site.
Personalisation can have a massive impact on these metrics. The more personalised and relevant the content is to the user, the more likely they will stay on the site longer, click through and interact with more pages.
There are three main areas that schools should focus on when creating a personalised SEO strategy.
1. Location
The area where your school is based is essential for those parents not looking to send their child to a boarding school. They will want somewhere that is a reasonable commute to their home. Ensuring that your website is optimised for local search is vital. We have listed a few ways to do this below:
- Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business)–Having an optimised business listing can help to give a significant boost to your local SEO strategy. Include the correct primary category (if not sure, check to see what your local competitors are using). Keep the profile updated with relevant content and updates. If you have multiple school sites, create a separate profile for each one. Be proactive in encouraging parents to leave reviews.
- Individual landing pages for each location– If your school has multiple sites, it is important not just for user experience but for SEO purposes to have a separate landing page for each. You can include location-specific keywords and embed maps that will indicate to Google that the content is hyper-relevant to nearby users.
- Curate localised content–This can include using the location in URLs, headers, sub-headers and on-page copy. Blog posts including relevant images and information on the local area.
2. Dynamic Content
Times have changed, and marketing departments can no longer rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to attracting and converting customers. Take the Amais™ platform–it has the ability to collect customer data at various touchpoints on the customer journey. With the help of AI (artificial intelligence), it can turn it into insights that will help you deliver a more tailored and unique experience to your prospective parents. If a user visits pages centred around a demographic within your school–say the prep school. Next time they visit the website, the content they see will be centred around that. The more touchpoints the parent completes on the journey, the more specific the content can be over time.
Before implementing a dynamic content strategy, ask yourself the following questions.
- What would I like the customer to do?
- What type of content would be the most helpful to them?
- What path would I prefer the customer to take?
By asking these questions, you can create a more meaningful strategy.
3. Interpreting the Data
Marketers can no longer achieve SEO success by stuffing relevant keywords into website copy and blog posts. Search engines are now much more sophisticated and want to ensure that the website they rank aligns with the intent behind a search query. Your focus should be on creating data-driven content that adds value and answers the questions of your prospective parent.
How do you start to create a data-driven content strategy?
- Analyse your existing content
- Update pages based on current performance and keyword rankings
- Use the data to re-evaluate your personas if needed – you can learn more about creating your school’s digital marketing strategy including creating persona profiles in our previous blog post.
- Run regular reports to compare against your KPIs (key performance indicators). This will provide you with a quantifiable measure of performance over time to gauge your performance over your objectives.
Using the data to create a personalised content strategy.
There are five stages of the sales process that school marketers need to be thinking of when creating SEO-focused content:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Retention
- Advocacy
Tracking this process allows you to personalise the content your user sees when they revisit the website. The goal is to move them through the funnel to a point where they have confidence in your school and book a call or site visit.
Would you like some support in implementing personalisation into your SEO strategy? We’re here to help.
