See All Our Insights
How Colleges and Universities Can Recruit Students in a Digital-First World
Higher Education
By using our site, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn More
Institutions of higher education are facing an interesting puzzle under COVID-19. How do you recruit students when in-person channels are limited? The selling points of your stately campus grounds, plush dormitories and enticing meal plans, in-person events, and physical classrooms may hold different value now. People still need degrees, but the traditional reasons that students picked your college may have changed, as have the ways in which they will find and choose their future school.
College recruiters have typically depended on in-person events to recruit students. This may have included recruiting events at high schools, campus tours, and in-person interviews as part of the application process. With these activities now being limited— it’s time to reorient marketing budgets in new directions.
From now until an indefinite point in the future, collect recruitment will be largely digital, which means that college marketing budgets must reflect this reality. How do you pivot?
Arguably, the college website should be the centerpiece of digital strategy—but complaints about the poor quality of college websites have been persistent for years. Institutions need to ensure that their websites are both engaging and accessible to attract prospective students.
When campus visits are limited, the university website takes the place of the campus proper. It’s going to be the primary method that prospective students interact with your organization. As such, universities need to fast-track certain improvements if they don’t exist already.
For example, over 40% of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices. Is your college website mobile-optimized? It should be. Not only will this present a more user-friendly experience for your prospective students, it will also positively affect your Google search rankings. Even if a student’s college search starts with a phrase as simple as “colleges near me,” you want your institution to show up on the front page of the results.
In addition, your college website needs to be optimized according to the needs of the prospective student. For example, your prospects might want to look at your campus map, the list of majors you offer, and how to apply. If your website doesn’t make it easy for visitors to look at those topics directly from your homepage, then your prospects might become frustrated and bounce. In general, it should take just three clicks to get from your homepage to the most important topics that your prospects are looking for.
Revamping your website and designing marketing campaigns for new social media channels are both long-term projects—but you need to start converting prospective students now. What are the best ways to start building momentum?
Your most beneficial first stem might be to develop a search engine optimization (SEO) plan. Even small colleges and universities can garner organic search traffic in significant volumes, which means that capitalizing on an SEO strategy is a great way to generate more awareness.
The first step for colleges is to understand which of your pages are ranking highest and which keywords you’re already ranking for. The next step is to understand why your students are flocking to these pages and keywords. Do they refer to courses they’re interested in? Scholarships and student aid programs? Acceptance rates?
If you’re not currently ranking for anything, your job is a little harder. You need to understand what your institution is known for—and more importantly, what your institution is known for that other colleges don’t rank for already. This may require a little soul-searching.
Lastly, you need to great a content marketing plan going forwards in which you optimize your existing landing pages and white papers to include the keywords you need to incorporate. By doing this, you’ll be able to score some quick wins and build your pipeline of potential applicants.
Here at Verndale, we’re a customer experience agency that works with organizations across industries to help them increase conversions and delight their users. If you're a Higher Ed recruiter with this goal in mind, we can help you optimize your web presence for usability and findability, ensuring that you’ll attract more prospective students and keep them in the funnel. For more information on how we can help you, send us a note.
