Q&A with K12 SEO Expert Jenny Munn
WRITTEN BY KATIE TEST DAVIS
You asked, we listened! In our 2019 Client Survey, our clients asked for more information on search engine optimization — also known by the abbreviation SEO. To get the scoop, we sat down with education SEO expert Jenny Munn. Jenny specializes in digital marketing in the Early Education and K-12 Education field and is also a faculty member for the American Marketing Association’s Digital Marketing Bootcamps.
Jenny started our interview by explaining the basics and then shared three great SEO tips school leaders can implement TODAY. Here’s our conversation:
Why does a school district’s website matter?
Jenny: Your website matters for so many reasons. There has to be a place where you can control information and how it’s presented and how it’s consumed. There are districts that put all their information on social media, but you never know when Facebook is going to change its algorithm. You need to make sure your homebase is up to date and consumable.
Your website also needs to be readable on mobile. That’s how people, especially parents, are consuming information these days. The other important part of having a good website is that when parents are searching around — especially millennials — you don’t want them to be frustrated that they can’t find information. Make it easy for them with a good website that is thoughtful about how the information is presented, and you’ll save yourself from a lot of angry and frustrated parents who can’t find the information they are looking for.
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What is SEO?
Jenny: This is not a technical description, but I consider SEO the discipline of making your content findable. How do you define findable? Findable is having your website come up when people know to look for you by name but also when they’re not. When your audience is just looking for information, you can, and need to, show up there.
We are too busy, too time-starved, too used to instant gratification, too dependent on Google, to sift through pages of Google results. Parents want and expect to get answers to their questions quickly!
Why do school districts need SEO?
Jenny: I think everyone needs to know the best practices to make their brand show up online. But public school districts need it because we know that parents research their school choices early and often, and they need to be able to get to the source of the information directly. We do not want parents finding articles that don't have accurate information or facts, so if you have information that’s important to get across it is important that you know how to make that visible.
Jenny’s Top Three Easy Tips for School District SEO:
Stop making everything a PDF! Districts love PDFs, but it’s not the most SEO-friendly format. If someone lands on a PDF, their only choice is to hit the back button, and PDFs are not easy to read on mobile. Your reader can’t see your website header and images, and they can’t orient themselves within your website. The solution is to put content from the PDF on the website and also have the option to download the PDF.
Balance jargon with the language parents are using. With private schools, I come up on this all the time — the private school may call its campuses “upper” and “lower” schools. But no one is going to google “upper school Atlanta”, they’ll google “High School Atlanta”. Your district might formally call a test “an assessment”, but the parent may call it a “standardized test”. Make sure you use language that your parents will use on your website so they can find what they are looking for.
Google yourself. Brainstorm what your most important keywords are, then go to Google and do those searches on both desktop and mobile. Evaluate and assess what you’re seeing with objective eyes. Put yourself in parents’ shoes and see what you’re getting. Is Google showing images, content and PDFs that reflect what your district has to offer?
Jenny left us with this final thought: “The most important thing with SEO is understanding keywords. What do you think a parent (or whoever you are trying to attract) is searching online? What are their biggest priorities? Make sure you’re writing those down with an eye to improving and making sure you are understanding the steps to stay relevant and improve your SEO.”
