How Do I Do SEO For A School Website In San Antonio

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SEO for a School Website

Websites are an excellent way for schools to reach prospective students, parents, teachers, and administrators. The primary goal of a school website is to provide the public with information about the institution.
After all, it can be difficult for the public to find how a particular school operates and what life is like on the campus.
A school website should have information about who operates it, enrollment information, staff profiles and photos, current news articles, events, and the like.
As more students access information online, schools need to optimize their sites for search engines to stay competitive. Investing in SEO will make schools appear in search engines when prospective students are searching for their institution.

Tips for Doing SEO for a School Website in San Antonio

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1. Use the Right Keywords

The importance of adding the right keywords to your school website is paramount. San Antonio has more than a dozen Independent School Districts (ISDs) with over a few hundred schools. Being able to rank high for your targeted keywords among them is crucial.
When people search for something on Google, they usually have a few words that come to mind to describe what they are looking for. These words must be included in your website, along with other semantically related words that represent concepts or ideas about your school.
You can use tools like Word tracker or word stream to find these keywords.
Have a look at the screenshot below.
The more visitors that come to the site, the higher chance of getting new students or donations.
For example, apart from the generic keywords such as School, Faculty, Admissions, Classes, Programs, and Courses, you may also want to use the following words/phrases (depending upon your institution) that are more specific.

• Physical Education
• English as a Second Language
• Programming
• Post-Secondary Education
• Chemistry Tutor
• STEM Education
• Engineering

2. Optimize Your School Website's Page Titles and URLs

The page titles on a school website should be optimized to be unambiguous and descriptive. They should also contain keywords so that the user can more easily find what they are looking for.
It is important to use the appropriate keywords. It is also important to keep the Page Titles as short as possible without cutting out crucial information about what will be on the particular page. It is not proper to use gibberish, but rather try to use words that people would type into a search engine.
See how this school website has optimized its title and description.
If you want to optimize URLs for a school website, it is important to have a unique and descriptive URL for each page.
For example, the URL could be as basic as http://www.schoolname.com/academics/. This will ensure that any time someone searches for information on academics from this school site, they will be directed to the appropriate webpage.
Example:
Check out how girls LLC and School of Science and Technology of San Antonio optimized their Page Title for stem course here.

3. Have a Blog

Having a blog for your school website can help with SEO and give valuable information about your school to the public.
A blog should be updated regularly, which will keep students and teachers updated on new events, classes, and other important information. Blogs are a great way to give prospective students and their parents an inside peek about your school.
They can reach out to more prospects by blogging about its culture, helpful resources, and upcoming events. This gives schoolers a better idea of what life will be like at that college.
If a blog provides fresh content, it will contribute to an increase in site traffic. Schools can post updates about their programs, answer prospective student's questions, and share news or events with an established blog.
You can also use it to update prospective students on any changes occurring in the field of education.
Example:
Check out how Keystone School of San Antonio uses its blog to attract prospects.
Also, Have a look at the blog section from IDEA Public Schools in San Antonio.

4. Have a Mobile-friendly Site

Students (read prospective students) are becoming increasingly reliant on technology. To ensure they are not limiting their opportunities by not having access to your school's website using their mobile phones, you need to ensure your site is mobile-friendly.
Mobile-friendly sites allow all information on the site to be accessed conveniently on a smartphone or tablet.
People are using their smartphones to search online more often than before, and the number of people who use a desktop computer to go on websites has been decreasing steadily.
Mobile devices have been steadily increasing in popularity, and the increase is attributed to affordable access to these devices and faster connectivity speeds.
Even Google had announced that mobile-friendly websites are essential to rank well on their SERPs. The search engine giant has been pushing its "mobile-first index," which focuses primarily on the mobile user experience.
Have a look at this mobile-friendly school website in San Antonio.
Tips for a Mobile-friendly Site:

• Make sure you choose a responsive theme
• Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test Tool
• Optimize your images for mobile
• Minimize use of Flash
• Avoid using complicated JavaScript or CSS features that are unnecessary on mobile devices
• Keep the Navigation simple

5. Earn Backlinks

Your school website needs high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites to rank well in search engines. Authoritative websites are trusted, reliable, and often have many years of experience in the industry.
For example, Texas School Guide can be seen by search engines as a trusted site. A backlink from such a site will surely improve your credibility in the eyes of Google.
The more quality backlinks you have, the higher your website rank in Google search engines.
Look at this quality backlink to a school website in San Antonio.
For example, if your school website has 25 excellent backlinks from sites like Great Schools.org or USNews.com, it might enjoy a higher ranking than another website with only ten good backlinks.
One of the most popular and effective ways is through blogging. As a school, it is essential to boost your online presence by doing things such as creating engaging content and establishing connections with other websites.

6. Optimize Meta Descriptions

Optimizing your website's Meta Descriptions is one of the most basic-yet-overlooked SEO steps. Meta description typically has 160 characters or a little less. Your Meta Descriptions should be short, but they should also provide a clear idea of the content on your site.
For example, meta descriptions for your school website should include words that show the relevance of the school and its history, academics and programs, contact information, and the like.
If you are unaware of Meta descriptions, they are the small text that appears below the link to your website on search engine results.
See the meta description of this private boy's school website in San Antonio.
Remember that a meta description is not a place for keyword stuffing or an advertisement. Instead, it's a way to help people determine whether the content on your site is what they are looking for.
Tips:

• Write meta descriptions in active voice
• Do A/B test them
• Include a call-to-action

7. Optimize Images

Alt tags give search engines an understanding of what the image says if it doesn't load for some reason or is loaded but not fully visible. They come in handy if your school website has too many photos.
There are many ways to optimize images. One way is to ensure that the image's title and description are tagged with keywords related to what the image is about.
Images are essential for SEO because they are visually pleasing to users, which can help convince them to stay on your site longer. Images can also be used in your SEO strategy for long-tail keywords if you want to rank higher for something like "STEM courses in San Antonio."
Related: Image Optimization Tips
You can use tools like compressor or Tinypng to compress images.
Tips:

• Make sure the images are not too heavy in size.
• In most cases, JPEG is the best format to go with. It does not lose quality when scaled and retains color information.
• JPEG also provides a good balance between storage space and image size.
• PNG files have smaller file sizes than JPEGs. Due to their lossy compression, they do not scale well when zoomed in on.

8. Have a Robust Internal Link Structure

Internal links are one of the most effective ways to increase the number of SEO-friendly pages on your website. Internal linking also has the benefit of improving page rank for individual pages.
They also provide more opportunities for visitors to explore additional content on your site.
Here is an example of how Idea Public Schools of San Antonio uses its blog to link the readers to other pages of its site.
Adding links to other relevant pages within a current web page is imperative for creating a coherent and easy-to-navigate website.
Google ranks websites higher when they have a lot of internal links. The more internal links you have, the easier it will be for people to find and read your content.
Internal linking broadens the content on a website to make it more relevant. It also helps establish a site map that increases the ease of navigation for users.

9. Have a Sitemap

A site map is essential for SEO because it tells search engines what pages are available and where. It can be created manually or automatically. It is akin to a table of contents.
Sitemaps help search engines categorize and index websites more efficiently. You can create a sitemap manually through a spreadsheet or plugins.
Sitemap breaks down the website into discrete sections, detailing the purpose of each page, the content it has, and how it is expected to be found or accessed. This way, the crawlers will not end up missing out on any vital information that can help increase your site's ranking.
Three Sitemap Generators

• XML Sitemaps
• My Site Map Generator
• Sure Oak

10. Create Location-specific Pages

A location-specific page is a page of content that has been optimized for the user's location. If someone sees (in SERPs) that your school is close to where they live, they may see you as more authority in the local area.
They will be more likely to enroll in your school because they believe that you are an established entity in the area.
For example, See how this website has create separate location pages for every city in Texas.
The most successful local websites have location-specific pages to provide customers with tailored information based on their specific geography. This decreases the bounce rates and increases the time spent on the page that has been viewed.
Tips:

• Include school opening/closing hours
• Give directions using maps
• Create location-specific content
• Keep your (Name, Address, and Phone Number) NAP consistent

Benefits of Performing SEO for a School Website

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1. More Enrollment

SEO for your school website will organically achieve higher search rankings, more site traffic, and an improved user experience. With these three aspects, your school will see a spike in attendance and enrollment.
The keywords SE-optimizers use on your site will make students, teachers, and parents (looking for information about the school) visit your site.
When you research keywords that your potential students use while searching for academic programs and incorporate those in your SEO techniques, your site will naturally rank higher. When the traffic increases, so do the enrollment.
Tips:

• Make your school site more searchable by adding relevant keywords, tags, and optimized images that search engines will pick up.
• Use clear Call-to-Action buttons such as "Enroll Now" and "Call Now" across the site.
• Create videos that feature active students talking about their experiences with the school.

2. Improve Trust

For a school to thrive, it must have the trust of parents and students. This does not happen instantly and often takes time and consistent effort. Many ways exist for a school to improve their trust with parents and students alike, but one way is by appearing on the top slots on SERPs.
When your school website receives high rankings from major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, prospective students will see the organic push as a recommendation. This, in turn, will instill trust in your school in them.
Likewise, backlinks serve as a measure of credibility in the digital landscape. Remember: When websites link to your school website, they are "vouching" that your institution is trustworthy.
Have a look at this trustworthy backlink from Wikipedia for a school website [Northside ISD]
Tips:

• Post the reviews of students on your school website
• Collaborate with educationalists and credible educational bloggers to earn backlinks
• Promptly reply to any negative comments on public platforms

3. Achieve Brand Awareness

SEO is like cleaning up an old house that nobody has lived in for years and then doing it over to look as nice as possible.
The more people that come into your house, the more positive vibes you get, and as a result, your house becomes better known as a good place. The same applies to your school website.
Many schools building a name find themselves struggling to market themselves to the students and parents. Search engine optimization is a way to increase their "brand" awareness without spending a lot of money on advertising.
SEO works to improve the visibility of your school's website on search engines. Optimizers like us do this by strategically placing keywords within your school's content, which allows your site to be found through online searches.
For example, You can find Legacy traditional schools in the first page for the search term “schools in San Antonio”
Tips:

• Ensure your school logo is present in all promotional materials
• Consider giving complimentary study materials
• Organize educational events to attract students

4. Reduce Advertising Costs

In recent years, it has become increasingly difficult for schools to compete for prospective students in the country's competitive landscape. It is no secret that the competitiveness led to schools investing more and more in paid digital marketing strategies.
They are unaware that SEO can significantly reduce their advertising costs by greatly improving the cost per conversion/acquisition.
Similarly, measuring the return on investment can be challenging for a school that regularly advertises on social media or spends money on billboards or local newspapers.
However, SEO offers a more tangible way of measuring success. This will lead to reduced advertising costs, and therefore you will have more money to invest in developing your school infrastructure and the like.
There is a fierce competition in PPC for school niche. Have a look at the screenshot below.
Tips:

• Consider investing in PPC ads.
• Go paperless to cut costs.

SEO for School Websites - FAQs

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1. What Are Some SEO Content Strategies To Attract Students?

Create evergreen content that provides real value for students. For example, articles such as "10 Tips to Choose the Best School" and "Learn how to apply for a student scholarship in five minutes" help attract students 365 days a year.

2. How To Find Relevant Keywords For My School Website?

First, list down your school's courses and facilities. Use tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner, Keywords Everywhere, and Rank Tracker to find keywords related to the shortlisted terms.

3. How Much Does It Cost To SEO For Our School Website?

The budget purely depends on your school's objectives and needs. Say that you only want to achieve awareness but not enrollments; the cost will not be that high. Get in touch with us for a quick estimate.

4. What Are Some Sites To Get Backlinks For Our San Antonio School?

Consider sites such as Niche, Home City, Great Schools, and My San Antonio.

Key Takeaways

• Create location-specific pages. For example, you can create dedicated pages for San Antoni, Texas, and the like.
• Use keywords relevant to your school and its offerings
• Keep your school blog active
• Earn quality backlinks from authoritative educational websites
• Optimize images for search engines
• Have a mobile-friendly website
• Interlink your web pages
• Optimize meta descriptions and page titles
• Create and submit a sitemap