Most colleges don't venture into the use of SEO services and if they do, they are most likely to use local SEO. Changes in the economy are causing universities to reconsider their practices. People are getting cut from financial aid, jobs are down, and the desire for education is up. Since the costs of education are so high, people are searching for alternatives.

Online courses offer a cheaper alternative then going to classes on campus. With that being said, universities are going to want to extend their marketing techniques from local to cross country to keep making money.

Helping Schools Appear In Search Engines

Schools could benefit the most from SEO tools because most of the time, they reach out to the public and don't focus so much on search engines. Since schools used to use only local SEO, most locals are familiar of the colleges that are around in their small town, so SEO services weren't needed as a part of Internet marketing.

These schools focused on reaching out to local kids and do most of their marketing through other websites that connect kids to colleges. The creation of online courses opens up a whole new market that needs to be reached.

University URLS

The first step for universities to make changes to appear in search engines is to fix their URLS. Google will not be able to register multiple domains so for the best effect, they should focus their information on one domain rather than using multiple sub-domains.

When you create these pages, you want to put the title page into the URL. Search engines will recognize the title pages in the URL bringing the school to the top of the search engine list.

Using Title Tags

Most people may not be familiar with title tags even though they often see them on websites. Title tags are the content placed on the top of the page that links search engines to your website. Universities can use their logo as the title tag, which will lead customers to your direct information and make your content relevant to search engines.

Redirecting Links

Universities have to be careful with their links considering they have a lot of link turnovers with the ever-changing classes. If your links are moved or redirected and you don't properly set up a 301-redirect link, your students are going to get error pages when they try to travel to different links.

Language and Keywords

When creating content for your schools website, you want to make sure you are using search friendly language. Most SEO services will use a variety of keywords to connect schools with Google to help their school show up in the top links. When you are filling your schools website with content, you want to make sure to include words that students are likely to use when they are looking for a school.

By using popular search terms, you are creating a more likely chance that your school will be matched with students across the nation looking for an online education.

Robert has been writing about local SEO and various SEO tools for the past five years, his understanding of such services and the changing business environment encourages businesses to use search engine optimization to have better visibility on search engines.