As our website migration project wraps up, we’ve addressed many of the underlying technical and aesthetic barriers affecting performance. Since then, we’ve shifted our focus to content improvement as we continue to enhance our web presence.
The purpose of this content improvement is to optimize reach and serve the needs of students by publishing information they’re looking for and making it easily findable.
In this article
- Content strategy and writing tips to boost recruitment and program marketing efforts
- How one article generated over 869 clicks to the CLAS website through Google
- The secret ingredient behind CLAS’ most visited web page
Thought leader content
One way to optimize content and improve search engine optimization (SEO) is with “thought leader” content. This is content that an individual or brand publishes as an extension of their expertise providing some value within a subject matter or topic.
In the month of March, the Department of English website generated 800 clicks from Google searches with the help of a top-ranking piece of content: 15 books every English major should read. This article alone generated 107 clicks from Google for people searching for this topic.
The article was written in 2019, so it’s not new. Although the website redesign has helped its visibility. You’ll also notice that it doesn’t talk about major requirements or anything like that. You don’t even have to be a student at Wayne State for this article to apply or be helpful to you. It’s purely informational and appeals to anyone interested in reading or the study of English.
What does the article accomplish? It positions Wayne State/English department as a thought leader (providing some value on a topic people care about). But just as important, it brings people to our website. It gets our name in their minds; and for prospective students, they can immediately begin exploring our programs and career paths.
A more detailed report shows exactly what people were searching for on Google that lead them to this article on our website.
Take two 🎬
Another article, this one by our languages department, Top ten best proverbs about language learning, generated over 869 clicks from Google to the CMLLC website within the last year from people searching for “proverbs about language.”
Similar to the English department’s article, this one is a few years old but has relevance because it matches something people are still searching for.
Putting it all together
Neither of these articles was written with “let’s write a thought leadership article” in mind. But the thought process was probably more along the lines of simply “this would be helpful for or interesting to our students.”
Notice how the content is purely informational without a call to action to ‘go check out our programs.’ That call to action isn’t needed here because the reader is generally able to make that association on their own should they be interested in learning more.
As thought leader articles, these two examples focus more on resourcefulness than authority. An authoritative thought leader article would be something more akin to an academic article written for The Conversation. Example: Activists, state authorities and lawsuits filed by survivors are putting pressure on the ‘troubled teens’ industry to change its ways.
Writing your own thought leader articles
While all thought leader content serves a purpose, not all thought leader content published will break the all-time high for clicks. Rather, the goal should be to grow a collection of topics and content that demonstrate resourcefulness or authority and leadership within an area of study.
Topics like 15 books every English major should read are resourceful (help people solve a problem or generate an idea), easy to digest and often fun. While topics like Activists, state authorities and lawsuits filed by survivors are putting pressure on the ‘troubled teens’ industry to change its ways are more authoritative and approached from a research perspective.
Writing our own thought leader articles begins with asking/thinking about what questions are people (students) asking that we can answer and provide leadership on? Or what questions will they encounter that they haven’t asked yet?
Google Trends and AnswerThePublic are two easy-to-use tools that you can use to probe for thought leader topics and ideas to write about based on what people are looking for answers to online.
Our CLAS Marketing Team is also able to generate an analytics report of search queries that brought a person to one of our websites. For example, over the last six months, there were 207 search queries for “biomedical physics” that led someone on Google to arrive on our website. This tells us that people (most likely prospective students) are looking for information on biomedical physics. So, what thought leader articles can we write that might be of interest to them and/or answer questions that they are looking for the answers to?
Academic and program content
Website traffic from a search query like “biomedical physics” may also mean that a student is just looking for program/degree information. This is also useful to know as it cues us to ensure that our biomedical physics program content/pages are up to date and adequately cover what students will be looking for.
In a recent study of 5,965 undergrad students by Carnegie, 82% of respondents said that they use search engines to find information about available degrees without having a school already in mind. If our program content/pages are answering what students are looking for, we’ll have a higher chance of getting found in those Google search results.
💡 Our Writing Effective Program Landing Pages Guide covers some of the major points to consider when drafting and enhancing your program pages.
Ranking higher ✈️
Of all of the CLAS websites, the top-ranked query, “what is citizenship,” delivered 8,504 clicks from Google over the last year seating this as the most visited CLAS page with 167,128 page visits in total.
While this isn’t an academic program or department, it does represent an academic interest – citizenship. Searching the query, “what is citizenship,” on Google will lead you to the Definitions of citizenship page that clearly and succinctly (important) answers the question so many people are looking for in this case, “what is citizenship?”
Also interesting is that this page ranks so high even with an antiquated web design. Once this website is soon migrated, we expect its performance to further grow.
Putting it all together
The basic idea with academic and program content is to ensure a program page provides accurate and sufficient info about our program but also addresses questions a student may be looking for. This is also why the general program landing pages (ex. Programs in history) answer the question, “what is {insert major here}?” as a way to try and capture a common question students may be looking for who may not yet know what they’re interested in majoring in.
Recruitment-focused content
Similar to thought leader content, we’re also publishing recruitment-focused articles aimed at addressing more direct questions and ideas about our majors and/or the Wayne State/college experience in general.
Over the last year, our “Why study environmental science?” recruitment article generated 241 clicks to the CLAS website coming from a total of 262 clicks in general from the search query “environmental science” on Google.
Unlike the thought-leader articles, this recruitment-focused article directly acknowledges what Wayne State has to offer in this area but it also addresses (important) general questions around environmental science that a student researching majors would want to know (even if they don’t choose to enroll at WSU).
We call this collection of recruitment-focused articles our “College Hacks” that answer common questions across a variety of majors and student interests (ex. how do I pick a major? or Top five reasons to take spring/summer classes).
Some notes about recruitment-focused articles
- These articles are typically evergreen (not event or time-specific) so that they remain fresh and don’t easily age
- Written in a friendly tone, easy to digest (no academic jargon) and addresses the perspective of the student
- We use social media to drive traffic to these articles not just once, but each year or as needed when relevant to the conversation
- These articles are also included in other recruitment materials (ex. welcome emails, promotional videos) that are relevant to those recruitment funnels and campaigns
In short, we just don’t rely on Google search to drive traffic to these articles but we use them to help power our marketing engine.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Behind the scenes, we’re actively working to optimize all of our content for search engines to help the college and our programs get discovered through higher rankings on Google.
All this basically means is that we employ a number of strategies/tweaks that you have or will see on your websites such as section headers within a page or re-writing various descriptions, articles, links, headlines, menu navigation, etc. to be more student and search engine friendly.
It’s a delicate balance and a science and often requires some trial and error. But as you notice changes and tweaks, this is likely why.
Next steps
Brainstorm about what thought leader and recruitment-focused articles that would be of interest to students and/or the general public.
Thought leader articles
Questions to consider:
- What questions are people asking that we can answer and provide leadership on? What questions will they encounter that they haven’t asked yet?
- Will the article be written with a focus on resourcefulness (help people solve a problem or generate an idea) or authoritative (approached from a research perspective)?
How to write these:
- Write evergreen pieces: Focus on experiences rather than time/event-specific things that will age quickly
- “How to” and listicle articles (ex. Seven ways to become a better researcher) are two popular yet simple formats for composing articles
- Consider crowdsourcing content from multiple faculty members to help compose a single article. In the 15 books every English major should read example, each of the books was a recommendation by a faculty member that was all compiled into one article
Tools to brainstorm topics/questions:
- Google Trends
- AnswerThePublic
- Google Search report (provided by CLAS Marketing Team)
Recruitment-focused articles
Questions to consider:
- What questions are students asking or might want to know about our majors, industries, Wayne State, and/or college experience in general?
- What questions will students encounter that they haven’t asked yet?
How to write these:
- Make them evergreen: Focus on general experiences rather than time/event-specific things that will age quickly
- Be friendly in tone and make it easy to digest (concise and no academic jargon)
- Address the perspective of the student
- Use social media to promote these articles periodically and as needed
- Reference your articles in other recruitment materials (ex. welcome emails, promotional videos) and campaigns as needed
Beef up/clean up program pages
Ensure that your program pages and content are accurate and provide sufficient info about what students may want to know or are already asking about.
Use our Writing Effective Program Landing Pages Guide to get started.
Be mindful about overloading program pages with too much content such that it becomes difficult for the student to navigate it. The primary goal of the program pages is to inform the student about their options and the value Wayne State delivers. Some information will still be best communicated by the student having a conversation with a program director or advisor.
Let us know how we can help
Our CLAS Marketing Team is ready to help you with topic ideas for articles, search traffic reports, and guidance with enhancing/updating your program content. We’re actively working on many of these items and look forward to partnering with you for great success.