Blogging Tips for Colleges and Universities

By now, you should know the importance of having a blog on your institution’s website. Not only does a blog inform students about your college or university, but it also helps with SEO – allowing more people to find you! With the large amount of people and companies blogging, it’s no longer enough to simply have a blog. You must create a blogging strategy to help establish high quality content – it’s essential for long-term success.

There are three main audiences to include when creating your college or university’s blogging strategy – prospective students, prospective students’ parents and high school counselors.

When blogging to reach prospective students, it’s important to place on emphasis on the questions and interests they may have. Try to remember back to when you were in their shoes. It’s a whole new adventure, and you have no idea what to expect. Think of the questions they might have, like “What’s the difference between a public university and private college?” “What is it like to live on campus?” and “What is needed to apply?” By titling your blog posts with these questions and answering them in the body copy, you are increasing your chances of being found by a prospective student who is typing them into Google, looking for answers. Also, you are establishing a relationship with these students by helping them through this somewhat confusing and intimidating time in their lives.

While students are most likely the ones to be searching online for answers, don’t rule out your prospective students’ parents. It’s probably been a few decades since they’ve been in college, and the search and application process has changed, thanks in large part to the Internet. The parents are looking for answers to their questions about financial aid, college visits and campus housing. They want to make sure their children will be safe, that the school could be a good fit and that they can afford to send their children there. Again, consider these types of topics and use them throughout your blog strategy to appeal to the prospective students’ parents.

The final group to consider when creating your institution’s blogging strategy is high school counselors. This is probably the smallest segment, and you wouldn’t create too many posts geared toward them, but it would be detrimental to ignore them. Building a relationship with high school counselors is often an in-person task, but it can be relevant online as well. Consider writing blog posts that include things like college application checklists or fast facts about your institution. Providing useful information and establishing your college or university as a thought leader will keep you top of mind when they have students asking for their recommendations on where to apply and/or attend.

It is important to include these three audience types when crafting your blog strategy and writing posts. Keep it diverse, relevant and impactful. If you can do that, your blog will become an amazing resource and lead generator. To learn more, take a look at our white paper, Increase College Admissions Numbers with an Effective Inbound Marketing Campaign, which includes different inbound marketing tactics – including blogging – you can use to attract an increased number of prospective students.

Does this sound like something you might want help with? We specialize in creating inbound marketing strategies and mapping them to your target audiences. Feel free to reach out today – we’d love to help you get started!

Updated: Apr 13, 2022