The Search for Higher Ed: How Prospective Students Navigate Websites

Speaker 1  0:00  
Your next great student is one personalized video experience away. StudentBridge helps schools create meaningful digital moments that convert curiosity into action.Schedule your consultation@studentbridge.com and start filling seats.

Speaker 2  0:16  
You're listening to Filling Seats, the state of Enrollment Marketing in Higher Ed hosted by StudentBridge. In this podcast, you'll learn what's working to grow, shape and sustain enrollment at colleges and universities directly from fellow enrollment marketers, thought leaders and Ed Tech innovators.

Host  0:32  
Hello and thank you for tuning in to Episode 52 of our filling seats Podcast. I'm Jonathan clues, CEO and founder here at StudentBridge, have a great guest with us today. Matt Hames, who's with he's the Associate Vice President Digital Strategy at 3 Enrollment Marketing. Matt, Good day to you. How are you?

Matt Hames  0:53  
 I'm great. Thanks for having me, John. It's a I'm excited to be here. 

Host  0:58  
Well, thank you very much. Matt gives it a bit of a background yourself. I mean, well, before we even do that, let's tell do that, let's just tell the viewers and the audience what we're talking about today when we talk about the very top of the funnel today, about how students, new, new, kind of even start looking for their university choices. How does that college selection process even start? We believe it starts digital when we talk about search engine and, kind of, some tips of how to get your digital footprint and digital presence in the best place. Well, that kind of sum it up nicely for you?

Matt Hames  1:26  
Yeah, basically what happens when somebody becomes newly aware of your institution? And that happens at various times in the enrollment cycle. People become newly aware of your institution when they're thinking about touring, when they're thinking about applying. When they get accepted, their friends and family become newly aware of the institution. So there's many points when people become newly aware, and we're going to talk today about what happens when they become newly aware.

Host  1:53  
All right, fantastic, Matt. Give us a little bit background on yourself.

Matt Hames  1:56  
I started as a copywriter in advertising. Loved writing, writing, so I've been a marketing for most of my life. When I I kind of evolved into a social media strategist. At around the time that social media was really picking up, I helped turn on the Twitter feeds for some major brands and turn on the Facebook pages for some major brands as well. And that sort of transition that at my point, I had a couple of small children, and the advertising agency world wasn't the best place for a dad with a couple of small children, so I moved into higher education. 

Host  2:34  
Would you like Mad Men? 

Matt Hames  2:35  
It was a little bit like Mad Men. The hours are not nine to five ish. I once had a creative director who's made a rule that said no meetings could start before noon for creative people. So you can imagine how that kind of worked. It's it's not a great it's not a great industry for for a for quality of life and a household of young kids. So higher education is the great you know, again, you're still on call it. It doesn't stop. But higher education digital strategy was a much better fit at that time in my life. 

Host  3:12  
I'm sure 3 is  happy to have you so, so let's just talk about it. So let's get straight into the meat of the conversation, so that when prospective students search for college online, what are the main ways they typically find an institution's website? I mean, how they get in there in the first place?

Matt Hames  3:29  
Great. So, so that's a great question, and it really sort of depends on the time of the year in the enrollment cycle. If they're not really sure what they're looking for yet, they might search colleges near me, or colleges in a state that they want to go. If they've if they've already started looking at some of their lists and and putting some names on the list, then what, what a lot of students do is what Google calls a brand query. And a brand query is when they search for the institution by name. So Monsters University, for instance, they type in Monsters University into Google. It's you have to be newly aware. Obviously, you have to be aware of Monsters University to type Monsters University into Google. So there's some other marketing that has already generated some awareness for them. And they go to Google and they type in Monsters University, and that's what I like to call the digital Welcome Center. So that is their digital Welcome Center. What they see there on Google

Host  4:37  
Right now. I like that digital Welcome Center. Excuse me, you and I haven't met, but I'm a big believer of what's called the Dagmar philosophy of marketing and buying, which is awareness, comprehension, conviction and action. And like I say, but for some people to type in those words into any search engine, you have to know the words. So the awareness is already happening and they're starting their comprehension, part of that buying cycle, which is now. I know Monsters University, everyone's favorite university, monster university exists now I'm going to go and and go and research it for my comprehension. So, okay, so searching it in what, what? What is kind of like. Give me some examples of like, kind of like, how that's impacting University search at the moment. I mean, what, what? What does that really mean? I get what you're saying. What does it mean? So

Matt Hames  5:22  
it's a, it's another, it's again, it does depend on the time of the year, right? So, so newly aware you're in the application process, you're starting to think of of applying, or you're starting to think of visiting. There's in the early in the enrollment cycle, that's when you're more likely to type in Monsters University inside of Google. So I did a, I did a comprehensive look at what happens when people do that. And I use 2022, which is the last year of Google Analytics, Universal Analytics. It was, it was a very easy way to look at Brand query and and the click through rate of that brand query. And I did that. I ran the numbers for all of 3 Enrollment Marketing's partner institutions. So I took a bunch of large universities, large state schools, small state schools, privates, large privates. So it's a good snapshot of higher education around the US, right? So I took all that data and I put it into an Excel document. And I'm an English major, so using the Excel document is somewhat foreign to me, but I did it anyway, because it wasn't that complicated of math. I just, I just took all of the brand query click through rate numbers and did an average, what was the average click through rate for a brand query in 2022, of people clicking the.edu which is at the very top on desktop, and about third on mobile. So what do you think is the click through rate? Average click through rate for a brand query in 2022,

Host  7:04  
so just to, just to be totally clear, brand career query means you're looking you're not saying, what are the best schools in the Northeast? Then you get a bunch of schools you're looking up, literally, Monsters University, that's it. That's what a brand right.

Matt Hames  7:17  
That's a brand query is. And then Monsters University portal, not monsters, University Athletics, just Monsters University brand query.

Host  7:26  
I mean, obviously I'd think that if you get the search result for the returns back what you're looking for high like 60, 70% but I've got a feeling I'm being set up here. So go for it.

Matt Hames  7:36  
You're being set up because the average rate was 18% Wow. That meant that, on average, eight and a half out of 10 people who did a search for an institution by name did not click on the .edu at the very top of that search. The

Host  7:53  
not there when you when it's happening. But what's the anecdotal reason for that? Look, because that doesn't make sense to you. You're there. You put in Monsters University in Google because you want to learn about Monster University. Yeah, monstersuniversity.edu, comes up nice and high. I ignore it. Why am I ignoring it?

Matt Hames  8:09  
So you're ignoring it, because in 2018 Google, Google redesigned the SERP for US, for US higher education institutions. So the SERP is a fancy way of saying search engine results page. And there is a SERP for higher education. There's a SERP for automotive. There's a search for clothing. They're all different, right? So they're different products that Google puts out there. And by the way, the mobile SERP is not a responsive desktop one, it's entirely different. So when a younger person does a search on Google for Monsters University, the.edu is not first. What's first is actually Wikipedia, a bunch of images, and then some things that you might want to know, and then the.edu so it isn't first. It's always first on desktop. So the parents and people who are maybe using using their computer at school, at their high school, might see it at the very top. If they do it on a mobile phone, they're definitely not seeing it first. But what Google tries to do in this SERP is answer every question that everybody might have at every point in the enrollment cycle. So there's a lot going on. There's a top nav, there's there's a right hand side knowledge panel that offers a bunch of information. 

Host  9:35  
Yep, open acceptance rate, yeah, yeah, location, if there's enrollment, 

Matt Hames  9:41  
yep, if there's one thing that social media platforms taught us to do, it's scroll. So the the impact of on behavior for consumers from social media platforms is that we learned how to scroll, and so we scroll. We don't, we kind of ignore. The.edu not completely, right? The best number that I saw in my report was 39% and the worst number I saw was 6% and that was an institution that was in the middle of a name change,

Host  10:14  
 wow, wow. So yeah, when

Matt Hames  10:17  
I tell people this, when I tell people this, they say, wow. And I say, Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? People are looking at your digital presence, and not just your.edu and so I make the semantic argument, because, again, I'm an English major, that the website is not the website, it's the.edu there are a bunch of other websites on the search engine results page that you should be, that you should really care about and give some tender love and care to. 

Host  10:50  
I'm a First of all, you keep mentioning you're an English major. I'm an English man, so I imagine you're going to speak English better than I am, or more correctly, but because I'm not an English major, but I would say that I have myself actually, while I'm now proudly, obviously the CEO of StudentBridge, and we believe in digital engagement through video storytelling, everything else. My background is actually in web application, web development, and looking at things like search engine, not not so much the optimization, but just the user journey. And yeah, you're hitting some areas I really believe in, because it's about your digital footprint overall. It's about your digital presence. It's not just about the edu it's about what what's niche saying about you, or what's Wikipedia saying about you. Hey, it's about all these when someone goes to a search engine, there's gonna be 55 now not on the front page, and certainly not the first part of the home front page, but first page search result could lead you anywhere, and so that's your digital footprint. So that's something I feel so what's important to tying a college, pro or program to a larger narrative? I mean, you know, we talk about things like a visual map, dollhouse stuck is one of our metaphors we use. Um, how are you using? Kind of like when we talk about the jump from an edu site somewhere else. Okay, let's go back to your Wikipedia. They go to Wikipedia, what does the student do then?

Matt Hames  12:09  
Yeah, it's a great question. So a lot of times I've, I've, I look at Wikipedia data from how, how much in that in an enrollment cycle, how much traffic goes from a Wikipedia article to the.edu because, again, I firmly believe that that in a perfect world, everybody actually does click on the.edu at the top, that would be the most ideal situation for For certainly our partner institutions and anybody in higher education would rather they went to the.edu at the very top. The truth is they don't. So we start to look at how, how can you, how can you drive people from a Wikipedia entry to your.edu and I'll tell you one of the most interesting things when I look at people's Wikipedia entries, when they update their.edu which happens every time a new president comes in, or when or or every five years or so they they're like, We gotta redo our.edu We gotta make it fresher. What they what most institutions fail to do is update their ref tags. So they they don't have to update the ref tags and their Wikipedia entry. So the ref tags end up becoming Internet Archive ref tags. So the so instead of driving traffic from Wikipedia to the.edu they end up driving traffic from Wikipedia to the Internet Archive version of the previous.edu

Host  13:46  
Okay, yep, yep, yeah. 

Matt Hames  13:49  
So when thinking about your Wikipedia entry and updating your.edu Do you have updated ref tags like that's a simple question. Are your ref tags actually to your.edu or are they to a version two times ago that the Internet Archive is is winning them to

Host  14:07  
how? Um, don't know you have this data. But so let's say I'm thinking about going to Monster University. I know the name Monster University. How much of it does someone go to Google the first time? Versus I'm just gonna have a guest. It's monstersuniversity.edu. Does today's 1617, year old. Are they aware the.edu domain extension? Are they really going to Google to find it?

Matt Hames  14:30  
Yeah, it's a it's a really good question, and I can, I can give you a data answer, but I'm not sure that what the data is actually saying, though, if, you look at your GA floor, if any higher education institution looks at their traffic to their.edu right now, it's either direct or or search engine is one or two. So they're, they're for new users. So it's almost an it's, it's one or two. Of people who are Yes, I understand that if I type in, if I type in Monsters, then monsters.edu is going to be an option if I type in Harvard, harvard.edu, is going to be an option if I type in MIT, mit.edu is going to be an option and on a mobile phone. So on a mobile phone. Sometimes it might even say, Do you want to go here? And so like there? Some people do go direct, especially new users. Other people are aware of the nomenclature, and they're they're aware that if I start typing it in Google auto complete on a desktop will offer it as an option to you too, depending upon what your institution's name is, if your institution's name is super complicated, or the name of another brand, like, for instance, I used to work at Colgate University. If you're typing in Colgate, there's another thing that wins that predominantly, right? Colgate.edu is not going to win that. The toothpaste is always going to win that. So it really does depend. I believe that. I believe that what happens is that most people go to Google first and learn the nomenclature and then tell their friends and family like, oh yeah, just go to just go to monsters.edu that's where all the information is. So I believe that most of the newly aware journeys start at Google because of how high the new traffic to the.edu is from organic Google search. It

Host  16:36  
is everything. Obviously, Google did a good job making Google a verb. Is everything Google. How's Bing looking? I mean,

Matt Hames  16:46  
pretty much, it's pretty much everything is Google these days. You know, there's a number of reasons why, if you're if you use Safari on a browser, the default browser is Google. If you use most browsers, the default browser is Google. Most people use Chrome on a desktop and Safari on a mobile phone, and both of those are default browser Google. So Google is both won the won the verb war, and they've also, they're also the default browser on just about everything. So they pretty much win everything. 

Speaker 1  17:20  
Picture this a digital experience so personal prospective students feel like they're already on your campus. That's what StudentBridge delivers, helping you attract, engage and enroll students like never before. Get started@studentbridge.com and start filling seats.

Host  17:39  
So we cover the fact that that students start the journey on search most of the time, especially first time. Yeah, we know Google is, is the thing. So What can schools, colleges do to improve those click through rates? I mean, are there? Are there some quick tips you can share for what you should do? Yeah, so there's,

Matt Hames  17:56  
there's some, there's some very simple things that you can start to think about. You can start to think about it your.edu which is at the top the page, title and description, which are meta information. You can start to think about those as invitations to click. So, you know, I'm not going to give you the exact language, but it's more like find out what life is like at Monsters University, as opposed to just Monsters University, you know, in and then the location I'm not even in the in the void. I think they are right like, you don't need to, you don't need to put default page titling and default page descriptions. Think about those as we want to get a click out of this more like, more like the subject line of an email, than than just the default. So that's kind of the first one. Think about what you want to say to people and at different points in the enrollment cycle, like when we get to May and June, you want to change your page title to say, visit Monsters University, right? When you, when you get to the fall, you want to say why, you'll fit in to Monsters University, right? And so you want to think about the your page title as more of a call to action, if you want, yeah, and then the second, the second piece of advice is on everybody's desktop. SERP, again, the search engine results page on everybody's desktop and on most institutions mobile. SERP, there's a there's another module, or a Google snippet called people also ask. And what that snippet is, is other questions that newly aware people also ask about an institution. And what you

Host  19:50  
got those like questions that come up, you expand them if you want to read it right, yeah. 

Matt Hames  19:53  
And what I would do is, I would, I would fight really hard to have. Dot EDU be the answer to those questions, because right now, they're often answered by us, News and World Report, prep, scholar, niche, different review sites. And what I would try to do is is try to answer those questions as best as you possibly can on your .edu

Host  20:21  
Right, right, absolutely. Now. Look, we talked about the important search my last podcast episode, we spoke about the dangers of AI search results hurting traditional SEO, because people are giving a generative response in in natural language, seeing what they want. It's moving on, not even scrolling down to the clicks. What I know you had a view on this, so I think something you said The Verge calls Google zero. What? How would you expand on that thought before we move on?

Matt Hames  20:48  
Well, the best way to think about it is that institutions of higher education are already at Yahoo zero and ask VIV zero and Alta Vista zero. So we've, we've already experienced a time where a search engine used to drive traffic to a.edu and no longer does so. It's not unheard of to think that there could become a day where Google no longer drives traffic to your.edu this year in 2025 I think, is going to be the year where the massive platforms try to change our behavior and move from the verb, let's Google that to Let's Ask our AI assistant that question, right? So if you ask meta, tell me about Monsters University, then you are no longer going to get a SERP. You're going to get a description of monsters. University, yeah, may or may not contain a link to your to monsters.edu If, if meta can convince you to change your behavior using their sunglasses, if Google can get you to change your behavior using a button on a Samsung phone. If Apple can get you to change your behavior to ask Siri, if Microsoft can get you to change your behavior by asking copilot, then we could get to a place where traffic to the .edu from organic search drastically reduces. 

Host  22:25  
Yeah, I mean, so I guess that could support Google's paid model, where at least they're still going to put put a lot onto the paid people, you know, the people that advertise. But, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think that, look that, do you not think that evolution is somewhat natural? You know, we were like, says, changing condition conditioning behaviors, but we're all used to putting a search  list and having to do our own research based on what we typed in, where AI will just go, Look, I hear what you're saying once you give you the information as it as it learns you. So that's pretty natural, isn't it?

Matt Hames  22:57  
I think, I think it's, I think it's a combination of things, right? I think there's different points in the enrollment cycle where people are going, where the behavior could change. I think when people are nearly aware of an institution, and they don't know the questions that they want to ask yet they're just really interested in an institution, then going to Google and typing in Monsters, University continues to be a behavior, and I think the SERP will continue to be a SERP that has the.edu on it, but as you get to things like, what is student life like at Monsters University, Google already doesn't do a great job at answering that question, right? And one of the reasons is that higher institutions of higher education move the answer to that question from their.edu to social platforms. So you'll find out what student life is like at Monsters University on their Facebook page, on their Instagram, on their TikTok and on their YouTube videos. So they've kind of purposely moved those conversations, that content to these massive social platforms. So if you type into Google, what is student life like at an institution, you end up getting, like US News and World Report and niche and listicles and and a kind of like a brochure from the.edu it's not a great answer, but if you ask a an AI, what is suit life like it compiled all that information and gives you an answer, 

Host  22:57  
yep, and it gives you an opinion, answer, no, 

Matt Hames  23:07  
and it gives you an opinion, yeah. So it's, it's, it is, it is a better experience only because of the experience right now that Google gives you is not a good one. So anything is better than what is current with the status quo is right now, and I think that that is where the behavior might change. So you still might get people in the newly aware saying, I don't know what I don't know. So I'm just going to type in Harvard right into Google, right. Right. But as I know what I know, I'm going to type in, what is student life like at Harvard? Yeah, and that's a different that's a different thing, and that's a different tool to answer that question. 

Host  25:13  
Well, thanks. We're going to take a quick break for a few minutes and 30 seconds, and we'll be back and Matt will pick this up and take it over the finish line in 30 seconds.

Matt Hames  25:22  
Sounds great.

Host  25:25  
Alright, we're back for the final part here. Thank you again. We got Matt Hames from 3E joining us and going to take us over the finish line. Matt, we ended up talking about how some of the conversation universities have moved some of that to social media. It could blend in with this stat that 40% of high school juniors and seniors report difficulties in finding information during the college research indicting potential navigation issues. So talk to me. That's from CC daily com, but talk to me a little about that. I mean, like that, that number surprised you, or you'd now 40% seems low. I mean that

Matt Hames  25:59  
that number seems low to me. When you move information about your institution to a chronological social media feed, then like if you post about what student life is like on Monday and somebody looks on Wednesday, it's hard to scroll back and and the reality is that the way that the social feeds are is they're not set up to show you old information. So we we have this desire to constantly be new on social platforms, and yet, there's a need to update people on what student life is like on these social platforms. So, yeah, no, I'm surprised it's as high as 40%

Host  26:38  
right? Yeah, yeah. So, so you'd think it'd be higher, over 40% sometimes,

Matt Hames  26:43  
yeah, I think, yeah, I I'm surprised it isn't 85% of people find it really hard. 

Host  26:49  
Hey, maybe they're scrolling a lot. Go ahead, sorry

Matt Hames  26:53  
yeah, no, maybe I was gonna say the same thing. Maybe they are scrolling again. These social platforms taught people to scroll. So maybe they're just finding it 

Host  27:00  
getting super strong. Thumbs we similar. Number 46% report being online almost constantly. Average Gen Z now is watching three hours of short form content a day, just a day. So I know that if you go into a room right now, it'd be hard to find someone that isn't glued to their device. And that's just we're all glued to our devices. So look, let's start wrapping it up. Matt, yeah, we're talking about like students finding search and how to find the university's website in the first place, and the difficulty of that digital footprint. But talk to me about what you would do if you're at a university when you used to be. So what would How would you track all this kind of finding out what your digital footprint even looks like?

Matt Hames  27:44  
Yeah. So the advice that I give to the to our partners, our partner institutions, is to Google yourself like Google thyself. Think about the newly aware person who is looking for your institution. What do they? What do they see when they type in your institution and Google what do they see when they type in, when they click on the images, because students want to see themselves there, and images are the best way. What do they? What do they, where did they go when they type in your institution on Google Maps? Do they go to the right parking lot? Or do you, does the does Google Maps send them to a parking lot way over here? Or a.dot.to a building way over there? Because I've seen that too, where they just kind of stop you in the middle of the street, and then there's a ... to a building. It's like you you want parents to figure out how to ... to there, and then it's not even the right place. So, you know, put yourself in the in the shoes of a newly aware person, a newly aware student, a newly aware parent, and and see what the see what Google is giving them as your digital Welcome Center. Is it good?

Host  29:00  
I think what can be advice like, look, we we approach our, I don't like to use the word sales, but our business development angle, we so we approach it. We go to a school's web experience, a web, web footprint, digital presence, and just get a feeling, like, if I was a student, and we've hired recently, some recent grads, and they're great at this, because I go, Well, I wouldn't like that. Oh, I don't like that. Oh my gosh. Just that image just puts me off. They have so many opinions on so much. And it's the ability to kind of like, you say Google yourself. You're you're thinking search. StudentBridge, we do more conversion. But between the two of us, it's like, hey, just how do you first even have your your how you represented out there. Now, when you come when you do finally get the edu site StudentBridge says, How are you representing yourself? And so I see how the same methodology absolutely plays into both sides,

Matt Hames  29:51  
and we're just talking about different parts of the enrollment cycle, right when absolutely, what, what, what I would love for all of our partners that we partner with is that everybody ends up on the.edu and starts navigating the.edu in a very simple way. It just the truth is that doesn't happen yet. And so there are ways that you can look at it, inform it, optimize it a little bit. What I always say to what I always say to VPs of enrollment, is, you don't clean the windows and and and vacuum the carpets in your welcome center. You ask somebody else to do that, but you make sure those are done in your digital presence. You don't have to do it all yourself, but you can say, hey, is there any way to get this done? Can we can we clean the windows and and vacuum the floors of our digital Welcome Center as well.

Host  30:44  
So I think we should change the title of this podcast to do you clean your own windows, vacuum your floors, because I do agree with you. I love that little analogy. Yeah. Look, just, you don't mind wrapping us up, take us over the finish line with three just top tips. They can be fast fire, like just just a couple of things you'd like to say, hey, if you're listening, do this. 

Matt Hames  31:04  
Yeah. So today, Google yourself. We already talked about that, yep. And then first tip, now second tip. Figure out how you can influence what people see there too. That's the that's the second tip. And that's, you know, there's a lot of ways to figure that out, but just see what's there and what you can influence. And then, three, prepare yourself for a world where the Google SERP goes away, and that just means, like, thinking about the questions that people are going to ask an AI, and does your .edu effectively answer those questions? So does your.edu answer and that just means you're building pages on your.edu both for people, but also for large language models that are going to read the answers that people are already asking about your institution. 

Host  31:55  
Yeah, it's kind of interesting that that's what you end on, because we see this all the time where a lot of universities are struggling to get to just now. And really they go, we think about not just today. They go, we think about tomorrow. And so that's something that we see all the time. 

Matt Hames  32:10  
We know the questions that people are asking. Google even says, Here are the questions people are also asking. So you know the questions that people are also asking, answer those on your .edu as much as you possibly can,

Host  32:22  
right? That's good advice. Matt, thank you very much for taking time out of your day to join us today. Been a pleasure. You can obviously Matt, 3 Enrollment Marketing has been in industry a long time. Great resource. So we have time for today. So we're gonna have to wrap this up this episode of Filling Seats podcast. But again, if you ever want more resources or find out from uh, previous guests and comment, we've got lots of great content on www.studentbridge.com and obviously love to hear from you, but until then, thank you very much, and speak to you all soon.

Matt Hames  32:55  
Thanks everyone.

Speaker 2  32:57  
This is the Filling Seats podcast hosted by StudentBridge, where we help enrollment teams achieve more by fusing authentic storytelling with industry leading technology and personalized digital experiences. To connect with this episode's guests, check out the show notes. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a rating and review and don't forget to subscribe. For more information about StudentBridge and this podcast, go to studentbridge.com/podcast .