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GET TO THE PRODUCT!How colleges and universities can increase traffic to degree, major, and certificate pages
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@DougGapinski (me)
Colleges and universities sell education.
The proxy for that education is the major, minor, degree, or certificate each student is granted.
In other words, your academic programs – your majors, minors, degrees, and certificates – are your products.
Program pages are web pages to represent majors, minors, degrees, and certificates.
1. Why program pages matter
2. Evaluating your program pages
3. Generating more traffic to program pages
4. Questions
Why program pages matter
Source: Ruffalo Noel Levitz Number of respondents = more than 1,000 college-bound seniors
Source: Eduventures Number of respondents = more than 31,000 admitted first-year students
Source: @davidpoteet
• Intercept survey performed on University of Portsmouth (UK) website
• Number of respondents = 400 visitors • In the UK “course” means “major”
“What did you come to the website looking for today?”
Evaluating Your Program Pages
First, make sure your individual degree pages are more than a registrar’s catalog listing.
In this example for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, there is no marketing content for a prospective student – so there is very little point in driving traffic to the page.
Choose your top 5 most enrolled degrees as a baseline.
If you want to get to this information quickly, your public U.S. News & World Report listing usually has your most enrolled programs.
colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com
Set up internal vs. external filters to understand how much traffic comes to an individual degree page from on-campus computers vs. prospective students.
Measure page views vs. unique page views as a way of understanding new vs. returning visitors to individual degree pages.
Measure bounce rate to help you understand how much traffic comes to a page intentionally.
Navigation summary shows referring pages and where they went after a specific degree page.
In this case, we can see that the degree listing page is the most common point of entry.
In this case, we can see that degree options and exploring other degrees are the most common points of exit.
In-page analytics are another way of visualizing where visitors go after arriving at a specific degree page.
Generating More Trafficto Your Program Pages
Make sure your degree pages are easy to reach from anywhere within your site.
Make “degrees” or “programs”a persistent link.
arbor.edu Strategic redundancy in the footer drives traffic to degree listings.
Implement search autocompletion that focuses on majors or degrees.
Create a highly usable listing page – the page that collects all of your degrees.
simmons.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs “Cards” pattern with filters
simmons.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs “Cards” pattern with filters
bu.edu/academics/degree-programs/ Alphabetical list with filters
bu.edu/academics/degree-programs/ Alphabetical list with filters
uchicago.edu/academics/programs_of_study Tabbed list with legend for minors, interdisciplinary studies, and joint degrees
uchicago.edu/academics/programs_of_study Tabbed list with legend for minors, interdisciplinary studies, and joint degrees
uchicago.edu/academics/programs_of_study Tabbed list with legend for minors, interdisciplinary studies, and joint degrees
Provide links to related degrees.
Use consistent nomenclature within your own site.
Undergraduate degrees = “majors” or “programs”
Undergraduate degrees in Europe = “courses”
Graduate degrees = “degrees” or “programs”
Continuing education = “certificates” or “non-credit courses”
Make sure your degree pages are easy to get to from outside of your site.
Make sure degree pages are buttoned up for SEO.
SEO influencers for degree pages:
• well-written copy that is relevant to the degree
• title tag
• meta description
• relevant headlines and subheads (h1, h2, h3)
• alt tags
• links to a page or degree from social media
Use semantic urls to promote individual degrees– in print, in advertising, and email.
This is great as a promotion for a degree – URL is too long for drivers.
Semantic URLs can be used to point visitors to:
•degree listing pages – example: fabercollege.edu/degrees
•undergraduate-only listing pages – example: fabercollege.edu/majors
•individual degrees – example: fabercollege.edu/economics
•custom print or email-specific URLs – fabercollege.edu/geteducated
Use PPC (pay per click) campaigns to promote individual degrees.
Getting started with a PPC campaign:
•Use Google AdWords to assess the volume of local / national searches for specific degrees.
•Test a degree-based PPC campaign in specific geographic markets first – keep it affordable vs. buying in every national market.
•Consider PPC campaigns for high-enrollment degrees first (academic programs you have an easier time selling)
PPC copywriting:
•Always run multiple ad variants to see what visitors respond to.
•Test a couple of broad terms (such as “MBA”) vs. more specific terms “part-time MBA” or “executive MBA in Seattle”
•Because PPC ads resemble Google returns, it’s good to focus on decision factors.
GOOD EXAMPLES
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