Faculty & staff resources

Optimizing your site for SEO (search engine optimization) will help boost traffic and make your website more crawlable for Google.  

 
On-page SEO
 

On-page SEO consists of your site’s information architecture and HTML. 

Keyword research

Keyword research: How people search for things/plug key phrases into Google. 

Meta descriptions

Start by making sure your pages have meta descriptions: Hints and clues for search engines to read your page and know what’s on it. 

  • Example: Example: What are pre-professional programs? Blog
  • Meta description: “Pre-professional programs provide a foundational education that equips students with the necessary skills, knowledge, and experiences to pursue professional degrees and careers.” 

Conduct keyword research to see what keywords users are plugging into Google and add them to your website content  

  • Pages where these keywords are relevant 
Title tags
  • The clickable link that shows up in Google search results  
  • Keep them short and simple, and include key words  
  • Example: What can you do with a liberal arts degree?  
Headings
  • Page structure and content hierarchy
  • H1, H2, H3 tags
    • H1: main heading, includes primary keywords
    • H2: secondary headings, can use H2s to organize/structure the information in blog posts
      • Can include primary keywords, secondary keywords, variations of primary and secondary keywords
    • H3: H3-H6 tags can be used as subheadings for H2 tags, and include variations of keywords  

Off-page SEO

Social media

  • Followers, engagement

Links

  • Do other trusted websites link out to you and vice versa? 

Technical site sweeps

  • Make sure pages are encrypted. Use SSL certificates. URLs should start with https
  • Indexability
    • Implement a dynamic XML sitemap on your site
      • It's more difficult for search engine crawlers to find and crawl pages on your website without the help of an XML sitemap
  • Make sure the mobile version of your website is compatible with mobile devices/optimized for mobile interface
  • Schema markup is structured data added to a website's HTML code. This gives search engines context about the content on a website. Through the enriching of snippets, search enignes will better recognize schema-identified information, which improves visibility and click-through rates. This way, search engines have an easier time understanding the context of web content, which makes it easier for them to present. When indexing is improved, this helps boost overall rankings and relevance for your website.
    • Drupal does support schema markup and the plugin that Drupal core provides is JSON:API.
    • Review with your Web/IT team to implement the best plugin for your needs.
  • Avoid keyword cannibalization. Keyword cannibalization is when multiple pages on the same website are ranking for the same keyword(s), leading them to compete against each other in search results, which hurts rankings. This can be fixed by adding internal links to pages, updating internal links, redirecting pages, and merging content into a single, consolidated page.