Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Best Practices

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) BEST PRACTICES

This section will help your development/IT team optimize your webpage for search engines, allowing anyone searching for online or transfer courses at your school to find your page explaining your partnership with Acadeum.

1. Within the HTML code, optimize per the following:

   1. Title

      1. Optimal title length: 55 characters

      2. Add your Institution name & at least one of your target keywords to your <title> tag, don't use each target keyword more than 1 time: college courses online, online college courses, online college courses for credit, transfer course equivalency, accredited online college courses, online courses for college credit, course transfer

         1. Example: <title>[HI] Approved Online Transfer Courses</title>

   2. Meta Description

      1. Optimal meta description length: 160 characters

      2. Add at least one of your target keywords, don't use each target keyword more than 1 time: college courses online, online college courses, online college courses for credit, transfer course equivalency, accredited online college courses, online courses for college credit, course transfer

         1. Example: <meta property=”description” content=”[HI] offers online courses through the Acadeum Course Sharing network. These courses are pre-approved, fully online, and are transcribed on the student’s [HI] transcript for credit.”>

   3. Headers

      1. h1: <h1>[HI] Pre-approved Online Transfer Courses</h1>

      2. h2: <h2>How It Works>

      3. h2: <h2>Reasons to Take Advantage>

      4. h2: <h2>Don’t See the Course You Need?>

   4. Body

      1. Enrich your text with the following semantically related words: higher educational, accredited online colleges, working professional, credit hour, information technology, online university, public universities, online courses, university offers, college credit, online college, programs allow students, college courses, students enrolled, online classes, advertising supported site, course equivalency, school rankings resource guides, graduate program, top university

      2. Make sure that your text is easy to read with the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. The readability score should be 50

      3. Focus on creating more informative content. Recommended text length: 1542 words

      4. Add at least one target keyword: college courses online, online college courses, online college courses for credit, transfer course equivalency, accredited online college courses, online courses for college credit, course transfer

   5. Images

      1. Include relevant images and/or videos & include alt tags that give a brief description of the image and its context

2. Ensure that the page is accessible through your site navigation (ie users can find it on their own, not only if they are given a direct link)

Access the full series of communication templates here.
(Download all templates here)