Why Your School Needs to Be First on Google

Here’s why landing your school website in the top search results of Google matters — and how that can help you increase student enrollment.

If you’re in charge of managing enrollment at your school, chances are you’re always looking for ways to increase enrollment as well. And your school’s website plays a critical role in making that happen.

In fact, your school website is one of your strongest student recruitment tools.

Now, the logic is simple: getting more eyes on your school’s site means more people (parents) will learn about you. And if what they’re seeing resonates with their needs, they’ll likely enroll with you.

But parents can’t ever reach that final step if they can’t find you to begin with!

Luckily, there’s a way to draw parents’ attention to your school’s website: by making it easy for search engines to find, “read,” and list your site.

Why Does My School Need to Be at the Top of Google?

I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of browsing the web — in this case, using Google to:

• Find answers to your questions both big and small
• Get the street address/contact info for schools, restaurants, retailers, etc.
• Look for images (or memes) and videos
• Shop for things you need
• Shop for things you don’t need
• …and a lot, lot more!

Reviews. Directions from Google Maps. News. Airline flights. Google offers so much, and it’s by far the dominant search engine platform.

With 8.5 billion searches happening every day, you can guarantee prospective parents are on it as well. And they have a very specific search intent: to find the best school for their child.

To have your school appear to these wanting-to-enroll parents, your school’s website needs to be optimized for a search engine to index (find, then list in search results) your site.

Search Engine Optimization for Schools — What?

In the marketing world, the process of making it easy for search engines to index your site is known as search engine optimization (SEO). SEO for schools means making sure your site appears as high as possible in search results to prospective parents.

This is important because people rarely go beyond the first few results when browsing online.

Parents looking for a new school in your community are no exception.

If your school’s website isn’t appearing at the top of Google results for relevant searches, you’re missing out on potential students and families — missing out on the opportunity to use SEO to increase student enrollment!

Great. So How Can I Get My School First on Google?

Unfortunately, there’s no single guarantee that your school will be precisely first on Google.

But the good news is there are plenty of things you can do to increase your school’s chance of appearing and ranking highly!

We’ve covered SEO and related topics a handful of times on the blog, so here are three articles to get you started:

1. What is SEO and How Does it Impact My School?

I recommend getting started here for an excellent primer on SEO for schools. My colleague, Nick LeRoy, breaks down what school SEO is and then gives nine tips for improving your site’s search engine optimization.

2. This is What Happens When a Parent Searches “Best Schools Near Me”

I wrote this article earlier this week to expand on the idea of local search results and why that matters for schools. Simply put, to help your enrollment efforts, your school needs to appear when parents search for terms like “public schools in [city]” or “best school near me.”

3. How to Use School Review Sites to Your Advantage

In this blog, you’ll learn how claiming your profile on school review sites and then gathering as many positive reviews as possible are both critical steps to improving your site’s SEO ranking.

(If you’re having a problem with negative school reviews, here’s an additional article worth checking out: Dealing with Negative Reviews of Your School.)

Getting your school’s website at the top of Google is critical to being “first in line” to attracting parents looking to enroll. By being the first school they see in their search, you have an advantage over all other schools in your area.

Even if new parents already know your school by name, having your site appear at the top ensures they can easily find you. They won’t get frustrated being unable to find your site or having to call you just to get basic enrollment information that should be available online.

Get started with the three articles above, and then reach out to our experts to learn how SchoolMint Engage can help your school appear in search results!

To get in touch with a school SEO and enrollment consultant, request a free consultation.