Have you ever tried searching “looking for waffle makers” or “want a French toast recipe” or “looking to study cyber security near me” or “what do I need to study to get a job as a police officer” on your smartphone, tablet, or computer?
The results may surprise you. Institutions compete for google clicks like other organizations. Yet, like other consumer facing organizations, it seems you have lost the opportunity to help search engines index and present semantic friendly answers to the most common queries prospective students and others act upon. Instead, you have to vie with Google AdWords for their attention and clicks. It is a very expensive marketing adventure which can be avoided if you could address the shortcomings of your website content.
My first thought is institutions for years, have been taxed with so many changes it is hard to keep up. We could argue most organizations have to deal with that issue. So, how can other organizations who post content on recipes or products like waffle irons and low margin items like tea bags and coffee keep up with their web content, but institutions can’t? It would be worth exploring the reasons and to see if there are potential methods of addressing the obstacles, don’t you think? Antidotally, while attending the recent National AACRAO conference, I asked many attendees just this with an informal survey. Most are simply unaware. Which then leads to other questions such as what can we do about it, what would it cost, and how can we go about making things better so all benefit?
We at AcademyOne, working with the Postsecondary Electronics Standards Council, have come up with some methods and practices we are preparing for the upcoming PESC Spring Data Summit to help elevate the discussion – and seek early adopters who would want to implement our recommendations.
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Why PESC? Well, PESC is the only organization focusing on how to develop and implement best practices using data standards across institutional “stovepipes” that often create challenges and costs simply because of specialization and lack of clarity. Who takes care of and coordinates web content at your institution? W3C rich internet standards and code such as HTML are used across the globe. Who on your campus is aware of how web content should be created and curated to foster page rank, good results, and currency? PESC specializes in developing guides and addressing use cases that you in the higher education industry can utilize to lower costs, streamline, improve outcomes, and of course speed up with automated methods.
If you’re interested, please contact us or consider attending the PESC Data Summit scheduled for May 2-4. Click here to sign up.
