Search Engine Optimization is a very important part of your web design and marketing process. Understanding and optimizing a large website like a college or universty one can be an extremely large and scary undertaking. Compiled below are a list of posts directly related to SEO for Higher Education that have been ordered in such a way to be a logical path to follow on your understanding of SEO for Higher Education websites.
Understanding SEO Basics for Higher Education Websites
- If People Can’t Find It, Does It Matter - Building the argument of why SEO is important and valuable is a critical first step. Convincing the higher ups to let you spend the resources can be a challenge, but one worth pushing.
- Website Grader: A Quick Site Audit Tool for Free - Website Grader will give you a quick overview of your website compared to over a million on the web.
- On-Page SEO - There are certain elements on each page that you need to optimize in order to get the love from search engines.
- Off-Page SEO - Off-Page SEO is all about the links baby! There are still some certain things that you need to understand about these getting these links.
- How to SEO a College Homepage - The first place to start with any SEO effort is your most visited page. Very rarely does any site have a page that beats out the homepage in monthly visits.
- Which Search Engines Really Matter - Knowing which search engines matter and how to focus on them is critical.
- Which Search Engines Really Matter: The Followup - This followup to the priveous post takes a look at the landscape months after the original.
- Content Is More Important Than Design - Just remember that Search Engines don’t care at all about design. Doesn’t mean that it isn’t important just that it isn’t vital to success.
Advanced SEO for Higher Education Websites
- Content Creation as a Link Building Strategy - The saying “Build it and they will come” holds true as the first way to begin your link building process.
- Page Titles and Meta Descriptions: Your Search Calls to Action - What really shows up in search results and how to win the battle of the results.
- Google Site Search as a Usability Test - Want to start doing advanced keyword research? Start utilizing your Internal Site Search as the keywords that people are actually looking for on your site.
- Missed Opportunities for College Dorm Searchs - Remember it’s not about what you call it it is about what people are actually searching for and this little case study will help you better understand that.
- A Good Starting Point for SEO: Local Search - Do you only carry about a specific region, state, or city? Well learning how to optimize for geospecific results can be extremely valuable.
- Xenu: For Finding Broken Links and Much More - One fo the tools of the trade to help you find broken links.
- Creating a Custom 404 Page - When you have inbound links that go to dead pages you have a problem. Combining this with the Xenu tool listed above and you can solve a lot of those problems.
- Solving a URL Canonicalization issue with a Site Wide 301 Redirect - Correcting search “double vision” can be all the difference in pushing your site over the top in rankings.
- Optimizing Graphics for the Web - Optimized Graphics can help with SEO. Clear image titles and small load times help with optimization.
- Google Mini vs. Google Site Search: Is Hosted Search Ready for Prime Time - Using the right search application for your interal search brings up questions like this one.