Avoiding the Pitfalls: Common Education SEO Mistakes That Hurt Visibility and How to Fix Them

To succeed in today’s digital age, every educational institution needs to have a strong presence online. Whether this is a primary school or university, you need to be easy to find online by parents/students so that you can recruit to your institution, build trust, and compete with other similar institutions in your area. SEO is one of the most effective ways to enhance visibility by improving your search engine ranking, but there are a number of common education SEO mistakes that can hurt visibility. This post will explore the most common SEO mistakes that educational institutions make and how to fix them. Read on to find out more.

Lack of Keyword Research 

One of the most costly mistakes is a lack of keyword research. Every SEO strategy begins with comprehensive keyword research, which helps you identify the best keywords to use in your content to improve your search engine ranking. In addition to this, keyword research helps you better understand user intent and learn about the wants, needs, and pain points of your target audience - this can be useful when it comes to generating topic ideas and ensuring that your content is relevant and valuable.

You can use tools like Google Keyword Planning and SEMrush to perform keyword research that will help you determine the best words and phrases to use.

Creating Low-Quality Content

Content plays a pivotal role in SEO, but many education websites (and businesses) opt for low-quality content (often AI-generated). While this might be easier, Google is increasingly cracking down on low-quality, spammy content and rewarding high-quality, engaging, and relevant content. This is particularly important in the education sector, as this content can have a big impact on an individual’s life and decisions. Therefore, you should focus on creating high-quality content that addresses the needs of your target audience.

Overlooking Local SEO

Most educational websites will be targeting those in the local area, which is why it is vital that you have a strong presence on local search engine results pages. Without local SEO, you will consistently lose out to the competition. Here are a few of the best methods for improving local search ranking:

• Use location-specific keywords

• Register in local directories

• Ensure NAP consistency online

• Obtain positive reviews

• Optimise website for mobile

• Optimise Google My Business profile

Not Optimising Website for Mobile

Leading on from this, it is essential that you optimise your website for mobile. Over 63% of web traffic comes from mobile, and Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means that it uses the mobile version of your website for indexing and ranking. Therefore, websites that load quickly and are easy to navigate on mobile are looked favourably on by Google and can significantly boost your SEO efforts. A few of the main ways to optimise your website for mobile include:

• Use responsive design

• Optimise touch elements

• Compress images

• Simplify navigation

• Test with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test

Neglecting On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is an often-neglected area that could be holding your website back. This involves making sure that every page has a unique title and meta description and using header tags (H1, H2, H3) to structure your content. This will make your website easier to understand, crawl, and index by Google.

Quantity Over Quality Backlinks

Link-building is a key aspect of SEO that involves obtaining backlinks from other websites to enhance the credibility of your website. However, many make the mistake of thinking that quantity over quality is best. While this may have worked in years gone by, Google has clamped down on this practice and now punishes websites that obtain links from irreverent, low-quality sources (link farming).

Instead, Google rewards those who have backlinks from sources that are highly relevant and credible. This is why you need to form partnerships with reputable publishers in your sector, which will help you leverage their credibility to enhance your own reputation in the eyes of search engines. You can also use the services of a digital marketing agency specialising in link building for education, as they will have a pre-existing network to utilise.

Not Tracking Performance

SEO should be viewed as a constant, ongoing effort. However, many educational institutions do not track the performance of their SEO campaigns, which can hold them back from success. By tracking performance, you can identify areas where you need to fine-tune and make improvements to maximise results. You can use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor key metrics like bounce rate, traffic, user behaviour, and keyword performance.

Attempting DIY SEO

Leading on from this, SEO is a highly specialist, complex, time-consuming, and ever-evolving field. Many educational institutions fall into the trap of thinking that they can do their own SEO and achieve a strong ranking on search engines.

Instead, it makes a lot more sense to use the services of a digital marketing agency that has expertise in SEO for schools. In addition to being aware of the latest trends and best practices, they will know specific tactics and methods that will benefit educational institutions the most. Having SEO experts handling your campaigns can provide peace of mind, knowing that the best white-hat tactics are being used to enhance your online visibility. This can also free up a huge amount of time and energy to focus on other areas!

These are some of the most common education SEO mistakes and how they can be fixed. Every school, college, and university needs to create a strong presence online, but this is easier said than done with everyone battling for position on search engine results pages. SEO allows you to leapfrog your competitors and increase your visibility online, which should increase organic traffic to your website. However, SEO is complex and constantly changing, which means that it is easy to make mistakes if you are not a dedicated specialist. By avoiding the above mistakes, you can maximise your SEO efforts and create a strong presence online that will help you achieve your goals.