What is SEO, and How Can it Help Your Language School?
Are you looking to increase your online presence? Perhaps you want more potential students visiting your website. Whatever the reason, SEO is a great tactic that can help you reach these goals. This article will discuss what SEO is and how it can help improve the ranking of your website on Google search results pages (SERPs).
1. What is SEO and how does it work?
SEO is a process of optimizing your website and its contents to rank higher and gain more organic traffic. The goal behind SEO is to make it easier for potential customers or clients to find you on search engines like Google, Bing, etc.
2. How can SEO help your language school?
SEO is an excellent way to increase the online presence of your school. If you are looking for more students, then implementing SEO strategies can help rank your website high on SERPs and drive potential customers towards it.
SEO can be a complicated process. However, with the help of proper training and tools, you will quickly see your website getting ranked higher on SERPs. This is why it’s recommended that language schools outsource their SEO requirements to professional marketing companies.
3. The importance of keywords
The first step of SEO is to understand the significance of keywords. Keywords are words or phrases that help users find your website on search engines like Google, Bing, etc.
To make it easier for potential students to find you online, you need to select appropriate keywords and include them in your content (blog posts, articles), metadata, URLs, and tags.
The more keywords you use, the higher your chances of ranking high on SERPs and getting organic traffic for those search terms.
4. On-page optimization
In addition to the keywords you select, there are other elements that can impact your search engine rankings. On-page optimization is a process of making sure all these features (title tags and meta descriptions) help with SEO.
Title tags: They describe the contents of a web page and play an important role in attracting organic traffic from SERPs. Title tags should be unique for every page and contain keywords you want to rank high on SERPs.
Meta descriptions: They provide a brief description of the contents of your web pages and are used by search engines like Google, Bing, etc., as snippets. Meta descriptions help with CTR (click-through rate) and also contribute towards better SEO.
The above are some of the most important features that require on-page optimization to rank high on SERPs and get more organic traffic from users searching for your school online. It’s recommended that you make use of an SEO tool like Yoast to help with this process. Make sure you optimize all these elements by following Google’s guidelines.
5. Link building strategy
Link building is another important part of SEO. It’s the process of creating links from other websites pointing to your own website. This helps with getting more organic traffic and improving your search engine rankings faster.
There are different kinds of link building strategies you can use for this purpose- guest blogging, resource pages, directory submissions, etc.,
6. Content is king
It’s recommended that language schools make use of blogging to improve their SEO. However, this can be a challenging process and require some time and effort on your part.
A blog allows you to create fresh content for visitors looking for information about the services you offer. This helps with driving more traffic towards your website and improving your brand visibility.
It’s recommended that you write at least three blog posts per week and make use of proper SEO strategies to help with positioning them on top of SERPs. This will also improve CTR (click-through rate) and keep visitors engaged for longer periods.
Good content is the key to success in this regard.
When writing blog posts, stick to the topic and avoid using large chunks of text. Make it easy for readers by breaking your content into short paragraphs or bullets with sub-headings in between them. Images are another important element that can help you appeal more to visitors online. They give a visual representation of your services and are liked by search engines as well.
In addition to this, it’s also important that you have a proper social media presence and engage with your audience through these platforms. Social media is an excellent platform for language schools looking forward to building their brand online, improving SEO rankings, and reaching out to more potential students worldwide.
7. Monitoring your progress with analytics tools like Google Analytics
All these SEO strategies help you get more organic traffic and improve your rankings on SERPs. However, it’s important that you keep track of the progress and measure things like CTR (click-through rate), the number of visitors per day, etc., to see whether any changes need to be made in order for your language school website to rank higher and get more visitors.
You can use the free analytics tool like Google Analytics to monitor your website’s progress and see how many people visit your site, where they come from (geo-location wise), etc., It also provides you with information about which keywords are bringing in organic traffic for your language school, what is considered as a good CTR, etc.
You can also use this tool to find out where your visitors are coming from and which pages they tend to check more often on the website. This helps you focus on improving these areas in order to get better rankings for different keywords related to your school’s area of study/course offering online.
It’s recommended that language schools make use of a good analytics tool to monitor their website’s progress.
8. Getting your website audited by an SEO professional
You can also hire an SEO professional to help with optimizing your website for more organic traffic. It’s recommended that you get the ‘on-page optimization’ (SEO elements like meta tags, keywords/keyphrases, etc.) audited before doing anything else. A good SEO audit can give you valuable insights into how search engines
9. Some common myths about SEO
There are some common SEO myths that language schools often come across when trying to improve their search engine rankings.
Some of the most popular ones are, “SEO is dead” or “Google updates have killed SEO”- these are not true at all!
Search engines like Google constantly update themselves with better algorithms and features that help in improving the relevancy of search engine results. SEO is still alive and kicking, which means you need to optimize your website accordingly for better rankings on SERPs.
Another common myth is “SEO takes too much time” or “I don’t have time to worry about this! ” – this is not true either!
10. The future of SEO
SEO is constantly evolving and the future of SEO will largely depend on how well search engines like Google can understand what your website is all about.
Currently, there are some new things that you need to focus more on when trying to rank higher on SERPs for different keywords related to your school’s area of study/course offering online such as voice searches, video content optimization for YouTube and Facebook, etc.
Some of the most popular SEO strategies that still work in 2021 include:
- Keyword research (researching on different keywords related to your school’s area of study/course offering online is important.)
- Link building (quality links from external sites and social media help you improve rankings and get more organic traffic.)
- Creating quality content (content that actually adds value to your website’s users. It should answer questions, be engaging, etc. so people want to share it with their friends online!)
- A/B testing (try different versions of a page on your site and track the results to figure out which one works best for you!)
- Meta tags (meta titles and descriptions still play a role in how well your website is going to rank on SERPs.)
SEO can be considered a tough process that requires hard work, but it’s definitely worth it. It can help your language school website get the best rankings on SERPs and increase traffic to a great extent!
Do you need help with SEO? Let us know!
We are an SEO agency specializing in helping language schools with their digital marketing needs. We have helped schools improve the ranking of their website on SERPs and increase traffic by over 400%.