Here’s the Scenario: You are sitting in your office when you learn that the Dean of the College has just approved a new academic program. How exciting! Ready, set…before the gun sounds and you set off to develop a marketing program that surpasses your enrollment goals, there are a few things to think about. In terms of marketing new programs (especially online, graduate, or adult programs), many marketers believe that the first step is to start buying Google AdWords. But, hold on. Before you put one dollar into AdWords, stop and think for a moment. How are you talking about these programs? How many searches are done for program-relevant keywords on a monthly basis? How are you going to measure the impact (from the initial click on an ad through the funnel that leads to an admitted student)?

Keyword Research is imperative to determine what words and phrases you should be using when marketing these programs, regardless of whether you are promoting them via online ads, facebook ads, printed communication pieces, or web site copy. Do the research to determine which keywords you should use to optimize.

Organic Search/SEO – On average, 30% of all traffic to a web site is delivered by Search Engines. More than 80% of that traffic is delivered by Google. On large university web sites that get more than a million visitors per month, 300,000 are arriving via organic search. Therefroe, you need to determine where you are coming up in Google, Bing, and Yahoo for specific terms that are relevant to your institution and its programs. Furthermore, you need to analyze your competitors and see what terms they are optimizing. There are a number of ways in which you can make your SEO more effective:  using long-tail keywords, link building, social sharing of content, and fixing the technical aspects of your title tags, meta data, etc. Take the time to ensure that you are ranking as highly as you can in organic search by using SEO best practices.

Google Analytics Goals – Make sure that you are setting up goals in Google Analytics (specifically related to inquiries, visits, information sessions, applications) to make sure that you can measure and know what sources (organic, paid advertisements, social media sites), landing pages, and internal site pages lead to conversions. Analytics will help you determine the ROI of your marketing efforts and also help you determine how best to improve your web site.

Go! You are now off and running. Watch those qualified prospects move down the funnel until they are enrolled students.

Questions for you:

• Do you have a list of SEO keywords that you are optimizing for your programs?
• How are you currently measuring your SEO efforts?
• Have you set up Google Analytics Goals? If not, do you need some help?