Whether your university has been sewn into the fabric of your community for over a century or your K-12 private school is just gaining traction in the surrounding areas, attracting students to your educational institution is a competitive process. To increase enrollment, you need a proven inbound marketing strategy that helps your school stand apart from other institutions.
Creating an academic blog as part of your inbound marketing strategy allows prospective students to not only discover your school, but it also helps them make a final decision. Here are several benefits of blogging for schools:
- By generating organic traffic, an academic blog helps your educational institution get noticed by students, parents and college counselors alike.
- Besides helping to attract students to your university or primary, secondary or trade school, creating relevant, compelling and engaging content positions you and your educators as thought leaders.
- You can remind prospective students – especially those who visited your campus long ago and may not recall your cutting-edge classroom technology or expansive library – of how great your school is through detailed content, photos and videos.
- Blogs are the perfect complement to your marketing efforts, plus they let you link to contact pages, forms and downloadable incentives you can later use to follow up with interested candidates.
- You’ll be able to preemptively address common questions and concerns that students and parents may have without requiring them to reach out to a representative to get an answer.
- Blogs are built for students of today – with integrated social media buttons, prospective students will be able to share your posts, photos and videos on their own social media channels, helping further drive traffic to your website.
Is an academic blog right for your school?
If you’re looking to boost your search engine optimization (SEO) organically and boost awareness for your educational institution, then the answer is yes. As prospective students and their parents peruse your website and read your content-rich blog posts, they’ll be able to get a greater sense of your school’s personality and academic environment. All of the following types of educational institutions can benefit from starting a blog:
- Preschools
- Nursery schools
- Elementary schools
- Middle schools
- Secondary schools
- Private schools
- Parochial schools
- Charter schools
- Boarding schools
- Military academies
- Community colleges
- Private and public universities
- Technical schools
What should my academic blog be about?
First, think about who you’re writing for. Most likely, your academic blogging is meant to be seen by post-secondary students and their parents. But if you’re developing posts for a primary school, then you should be writing directly to the parents of potential students. Either way, you need to take your audience into account when considering blog topics.
Let’s say you’re writing to prospective university students who are deciding on whether or not to attend your college. In this case, help them visualize what the college experience will be like at your school. Use photos to highlight campus activities, or create short videos that showcase your brand-new dorms, first-rate dining halls and exceptional workout facilities. The idea is to stay on each prospective student’s radar, since your school is probably only one of several universities that they’re considering.
Other topics educators can blog about include things to do on campus or around town, post-college careers that have promising outlooks, the benefits of choosing a private over a public school or vice versa and clubs and activities available to all students. By combining good content, research and expertise into a well-organized blog post, you’ll help convince prospects and their parents that your school is the right fit for them.
If you don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to your school or university blog, our monthly blog subscription packages may be what your educational institution needs to deliver consistent blog posts, month after month.
About Virtucom Group
Consistent business blogging yields results – more clicks, more subscribers and – ultimately – more conversions. Whether you’re writing an automotive blog, an accounting blog, a healthcare blog or a home renovation blog, blogging for business and content development are useful for any industry. Follow the content writers at the Virtucom Group blog as they share digital marketing tips and discuss website content writing services that can optimize your business blog.
