In the blog, Alison highlights why schools can no longer rely on SEO or paid ads alone.
Today’s student search behavior is fragmented across AI Overviews, social media platforms, and traditional search engines.
To compete, institutions must build integrated campaigns that engage prospective students, wherever discovery happens.
Reaching Students in a Fragmented Search Landscape
The modern student search journey is no longer linear. Students may watch a TikTok video, ask ChatGPT for degree comparisons, browse Google AI Overviews, or click a retargeted Instagram ad, all within the same day.
Without a unified digital strategy, schools risk losing visibility at critical touchpoints. Alison explains how aligning SEO and PPC helps institutions close those gaps.
SEO builds brand authority and improves organic visibility in both traditional search results and AI-generated summaries. Paid ads provide guaranteed placement in high-intent moments, supporting awareness, lead generation, and enrollment conversion.
When combined, these tactics ensure your institution shows up consistently, guiding prospective students through every stage of their decision-making process.
Building an Integrated Strategy That Drives Results
In her guest post, Alison offers actionable advice for bringing SEO and paid efforts into alignment. She covers how to:
Structure SEO content for AI-driven search
Build funnel-specific paid campaigns that match student intent
Use cross-channel insights to refine targeting and messaging
As she emphasizes, schools that take a siloed approach will struggle to compete as AI-powered search and social search reshape how prospective students explore their options.
Build a Smarter Enrollment Funnel
If your team is ready to bring its marketing strategy in line with today’s search behavior, Alison’s blog is a valuable starting point.
Map the full enrollment funnel based on how students actually search
Align website content, paid media, and email nurturing to engage prospects at each stage
Build a cross-channel marketing strategy that drives more inquiries and conversions
The white paper is built for higher ed marketers looking to drive measurable enrollment outcomes, not just traffic. If you’re ready to rethink your strategy, this is the resource to guide your next steps.
This past June, Search Influence Co-Founder and CEO Will Scott attended SMX Advanced Boston to speak on one of the most pressing topics in digital marketing today: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
His session, “5 Key Insights for Mastering Generative Engine Optimization,” took place on Friday, June 13, from 1:45 to 2:15 PM ET.
This fast-paced, tactical talk explored how marketers can improve their visibility in AI-generated search results across platforms like Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, and ChatGPT Search.
Catch a preview of what was discussed in this video interview with Will Scott and Danny Goodwin, Editorial Director of Search Engine Land and Search Marketing Expo.
Why Generative Engine Optimization Matters
AI-powered search is rapidly transforming how content is discovered, ranked, and served. Instead of simply matching keywords, today’s generative engines rely on a mix of structured data, recognized entities, and conversational language to deliver summarized results.
These changes aren’t just reshaping rankings. They’re redefining what “findability” means in search.
To stay competitive, marketers need to understand how these systems retrieve and prioritize information. In “5 Key Insights for Mastering Generative Engine Optimization,” Will outlined five critical tactics to help SEOs adapt their strategies for the AI-first search world.
After attending, marketers walked away with a clearer understanding of how to:
Align content with recognizable entities and structured data to improve AI relevance
Enhance visibility by incorporating sources and signals that reinforce trust
Evaluate how content performs across AI-generated search results using AI SEO tracking tools
Refine SEO tactics to accommodate conversational and predictive search
About Will Scott
Will Scott has been at the forefront of SEO for over two decades, helping marketers adapt to constant shifts in how content is discovered and ranked.
In 2006, he co-founded Search Influence with his wife, Angie, and has since led the agency in supporting thousands of clients through everything from technical site fixes to the emergence of AI in SEO.
He’s internationally recognized for his contributions to the industry and is credited with coining the term “barnacle SEO” in 2008 — a strategy still used today to build visibility through high-authority platforms.
This spring, Will led a two-day Generative Engine Optimization Master Class for SMX, delivering practical guidance on content structure, entity optimization, and tracking AI search performance. He also presented at LocalU Global, sharing AI-powered strategies for streamlining local SEO efforts.
In addition to leading Search Influence, Will regularly contributes to marketing publications and speaks at industry conferences such as Pubcon, offering insight into the evolving relationship between AI and SEO.
Take Your AI SEO Strategy Further
The SMX Advanced session offered a sharp look into what matters most for AI SEO. But when the session ended, the real challenge began: taking those insights and turning them into action for your institution.
Built specifically for higher education marketers, the SEO Roadmap is a short-term, high-impact engagement that goes deep on one top degree program. It gives you a focused, testable plan you can implement immediately and scale strategically.
Each SEO Roadmap includes four key components of a comprehensive SEO strategy:
Keyword Strategy: Targeted terms based on search demand, competition, and AI-query relevance
Content Strategy: Page-level guidance for structure, on-page optimization, and entity inclusion
Technical SEO: Fixes and enhancements to help search engines (and AI models) crawl and index your site more effectively
Authority & Link Building: Tactics to boost your trust signals and visibility in both traditional and AI-generated search results
You’ll gain prioritized recommendations and clear next steps so your team knows what to do now and what to build toward next.
Ready to start with one program and scale your results?
Contact us to build a future-ready AI search strategy that drives enrollment.
\This post was updated by Ren Horst on 05/01/2025 after the webinar took place. It was originally published on 04/02/2025.
Key Insights
AI is driving a shift toward instant answers, changing how online content is found and reducing the need to click through to webpages.
To compete, your content must reflect people’s intent, not just what they type.
Institutions that act now can maintain visibility where it matters most: at the decision point.
Pages that emphasize clarity, structure, and real-world context are more likely to be picked up by AI tools.
External signals like mentions, citations, and schema help reinforce your authority.
As artificial intelligence reshapes how prospective students search for information online, higher education marketers are under growing pressure to adapt.
In the recent webinar “SEO for AI Search: Protect Your Student Enrollment Pipeline,” presented by Search Influence and UPCEA, Search Influence Director of Paula French (Director of Sales and Marketing, Search Influence), Will Scott (Co-Founder and CEO, Search Influence), and Bruce Etter (Senior Director of Research and Consulting, UPCEA) broke down what institutions need to know — and do — now.
The session covered three critical areas: how AI is transforming search behavior, why core SEO practices still matter in this new search world, and what your team can start doing today to remain visible.
If you missed it live, here are the top takeaways to help shape your AI SEO strategy.
SEO for AI Search Webinar: Top Takeaways
Understanding AI search
What is AI search?
AI search is a search experience powered by artificial intelligence that delivers complete, synthesized answers to queries, instead of the traditional list of clickable links.
Platforms like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity don’t always send users to web pages—instead, they generate answers using large language models (LLMs) trained on vast datasets, sometimes enhanced by retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which pulls in real-time web content.
However, these models also rely on entities, citations, and structured data to decide what gets included in responses.
These tools prioritize clarity and credibility, reshaping how content is surfaced. This shift is changing how users interact with search and how institutions must approach their content strategy.
How is AI search changing user behavior?
Instead of scrolling through organic results, users increasingly receive answers to search queries directly from tools like Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT.
This has led to a sharp increase in zero-click searches, where the search ends with the summarized response, without a need for the user to visit a website.
The trend is accelerating fast as AI usage grows. ChatGPT reached 100 million users within two months of launch, and generative AI adoption has already hit 39.4%, outpacing the early growth of both the internet and personal computers.
As these platforms prioritize quick, in-platform answers, some sites are seeing organic traffic drop by as much as 15% to 64%.
The space for traditional organic links continues to shrink. It’s not just AI-generated results pushing them down—today’s search engine results pages (SERPs) are packed with product carousels, featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and other dynamic elements that crowd out classic blue links.
But the window isn’t closed. It’s simply shifting. Clear, structured, and credible content still has a shot at visibility, especially if it aligns with how people phrase questions and how AI systems choose what to surface.
Rethinking SEO in the age of AI
What is SEO for AI search?
SEO for AI search is the strategy of optimizing digital content to be surfaced, cited, or featured in answers generated by AI-powered search tools.
This approach focuses on helping AI platforms recognize your content as authoritative, relevant, and structured enough to use in their responses.
Instead of focusing on organic search engine results rankings, the intent is to be referenced directly in the answer, whether through a citation or inclusion in the response itself.
To achieve this, your content must be semantically clear, supported by schema markup, and aligned with what AI considers trustworthy. The goal is to build pages that speak fluently to both human intent and machine logic.
How does traditional SEO differ from AI search SEO?
Traditional SEO is driven by ranking factors like exact-match keywords, content volume, and backlinks. AI search SEO takes a different approach, one that aligns with how artificial intelligence models gather, interpret, and present information.
Instead of keywords, it prioritizes entities: clearly defined people, programs, places, or concepts that AI can recognize and connect across sources.
Rather than focusing on content volume, it values semantic relevance: how well your content reflects user intent and contextual meaning.
And instead of relying solely on backlinks, it rewards citations: trusted references that help AI validate your authority.
Some refer to this evolving strategy as Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). At Search Influence, we prefer AI SEO or AI search SEO, because it’s still SEO, just built for visibility in the next generation of search.
Improving visibility in AI-driven search
How can you make your content entity-rich?
The more your content aligns with how entities are framed in trusted sources, the better chance you have of being included in AI-generated responses.
To show up in AI-powered search, your content needs to be entity-rich. That means using clear, recognizable references to your university, schools, programs, and related topics, so AI knows exactly what you’re talking about.
But getting there takes more than keyword tools. You need to look at the places where entities already “live,” like Wikipedia.
For example, if you’re trying to rank for higher education, it helps to know that Wikipedia actually treats that as part of a broader entry: tertiary education. Inside that page, you’ll also find related concepts like continuing education and vocational education, all tied to the same entity. In this example, you can use structured data and clear language to help AI connect your content to those recognized ideas.
Why is schema markup important for entity optimizations?
A traditional SEO tactic, schema markup is a type of behind-the-scenes code that helps search engines understand your content and relate it to the right entities.
It’s not visible to site visitors, but it gives AI extra signals about your content’s topic and structure.
While it’s still unclear how directly AI tools use schema, we know it plays a key role in organic search, and strong organic signals are still one of the best ways to boost your website’s visibility in AI results.
On university websites, schema can clarify who you are, what you offer, and how different pieces of content relate to your institution. It helps reinforce entities like your university name, academic programs, and faculty, especially when paired with clear language on the page.
Some helpful types of schema include:
Article schema: Tells AI the headline, description, and type of content
Publisher schema: Links content back to your institution as the source entity
SameAs schema: Connects your content to other relevant entities and concepts across the web
There are also education-specific options, like EducationalOrganization and Course schema, that help AI connect your site to topics like higher education and online learning.
How do you optimize for semantic relevance?
AI-driven search engines and tools prioritize meaning over keywords. To stay visible, your content needs to reflect how real people think, search, and ask questions.
Write with intent: Answer specific questions, connect related topics, and provide helpful context, even if you’re not writing in a Q&A format. This shows AI your content is built to inform, not just rank.
Keep it chunked: Use short, focused blocks of around 170–200 characters. That’s how information appears in AI Overviews and featured snippets, and it increases your chances of being included.
Prioritize structure: Use clear headings (H1s, H2s) and make sure your page titles say exactly what the content delivers. When your content is easy to scan, it’s easier for AI to understand and surface in results.
How can you use semantic triples to make your content more findable?
Semantic triples are foundational to AI-powered search. From Google’s Knowledge Graph to AI Overviews, these tools rely on clear, structured relationships to understand what your content means and when to surface it.
Each semantic triple follows a simple format: subject → predicate → object.
For example:
University X → offers → a nationally ranked online MBA That MBA → leads to → career advancement for working professionals
This structure helps AI connect the dots between your institution, your programs, and the outcomes students care about. The more often these relationships appear, both on your site and across trusted sources, the more likely AI is to recognize your relevance and elevate your content in search.
To use semantic triples effectively:
Identify the core relationships in your messaging (Who? Does what? Why does it matter?)
Express those ideas in short, direct statements, especially in headings, intros, and metadata.
When possible, link related triples together in a way that still sounds natural to readers.
For instance, you can combine two triples into a persuasive sentence:
University X offers a nationally ranked online MBA that leads to career advancement for working professionals.
This kind of structure isn’t just good writing. It’s exactly what AI is built to understand.
What are citations in SEO, and how do they help AI understand your authority?
Citations (mentions of your institution, programs, or people across the web) help AI connect your brand to the topics you want to rank for.
These references don’t always need to be clickable links. What matters is consistent, contextual mentions in trusted places.
AI-powered search engines look for co-occurrence, which is how often your name appears near relevant terms on authoritative sites. These mentions could come from news articles, faculty bios, higher ed directories, speaker bylines, or awards listings.
The more often your institution is tied to specific keywords or subject areas, the more likely AI is to recognize you as an authority.
To strengthen your citation signal:
Choose a consistent, “locked-in” phrase that reflects your niche (e.g., top-ranked online business program).
Use it in boilerplate descriptions, press releases, faculty bios, and guest content.
However, citations work both ways. When your site links out to reputable sources, it shows AI that you’re part of a trusted information network. Referencing government data, academic research, or respected media outlets adds credibility and helps AI understand the context of your content.
Where can you build citations?
There are plenty of places to earn citations — if you know where to look.
Some require cross-team coordination, while others are quick wins you can act on immediately. The key is to show up consistently in trusted, topic-relevant spaces.
Ideas include:
Online directories like Niche, Peterson’s, and BestColleges
Media coverage in outlets such as Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle, or local press
Alumni stories and features on industry-specific sites
Conference speaker bios and event listings
Professional associations like UPCEA, GMAC, and CIC
Tools for tracking AI search performance
What are the best tools to track your visibility in AI-powered search?
Despite popular belief, it is possible to track your AI SEO performance. New tools are emerging fast to meet that demand.
At Search Influence, some of our top picks include Scrunch, RankScale, and Profound. These platforms offer insights tailored specifically to AI-powered search, helping you understand how your content is being surfaced in tools like Google’s AI Overviews or ChatGPT.
Some platforms focus on surface-level AI visibility metrics, while others dive deeper into entity tracking, co-occurrence analysis, and content structure. The right tool for you ultimately depends on your goals, budget, current tech stack, and reporting needs.
Q&As From the Webinar
If you’re a resource-strapped institution, what’s the most important place to start?
Many academic websites are weighed down by long, unbroken blocks of text. Start by structuring your content in semantic-friendly chunks.
Chunking your content is one of the simplest, highest-impact ways to improve visibility, especially when time and resources are limited.
By breaking that content into clear sections, with meaningful headers, concise paragraphs, and scan-friendly formatting, you improve readability for users and make it easier for AI to understand and surface your content.
Is there a limit to how many external links you should include, or does it depend on the content?
It depends on the type and length of the content.
For shorter or more narrative-driven pieces, you may have fewer opportunities to link out. In those cases, it’s better to focus on clarity and flow than forcing in links.
More external links can be valuable for technical, research-based, or program-specific content, especially when pointing to trusted sources that support your claims.
If there’s relevant data, industry standards, or authoritative context available off-site, link to it. Just make sure every link adds real value and helps AI understand the credibility and depth of your content.
How do paid search ads influence AI SEO?
Paid search doesn’t directly impact how your content is pulled into AI-generated responses, but it can still play an important supporting role. It’s still important to bid on your branded terms. Even if your content appears in an AI-generated answer, paid search helps you control what users see and where they land next.
There are two layers to how AI search tools work today:
LLMs generate responses based on pre-trained data.
RAG systems ground those responses in real-time web content pulled from traditional search indexes.
That means traditional search ranking signals still matter, including engagement metrics like time on site, click-through rate, and user behavior. And that’s where paid search comes in.
Paid ads can boost visibility and drive more engagement with your content. In turn, that engagement feeds into ranking signals, making your site more likely to be included when AI systems pull from live search data to shape responses.
There’s another layer to consider: In tools like Google’s AI Overviews, when users click on suggested links, they’re often sent to a follow-up Google search, not directly to your website.
The first thing they see? Your paid search ad, if you’re running one.
Why Partner With Search Influence
SEO is evolving fast. If your institution wants to stay visible as search engines shift toward AI, your strategy needs to reflect how search works now, not how it worked five years ago.
At Search Influence, we help colleges and universities take practical steps to improve visibility, increase qualified traffic, and support enrollment goals amidst emerging trends. We’ve spent nearly two decades working with higher ed teams to turn complex websites and limited bandwidth into measurable results.
We’re here to help you where it makes the most sense, whether that’s full-service execution, in-house team support, or a hybrid approach.
Ready to explore what’s possible? Book a call with our team, and let’s talk AI search optimization strategies for your institution.
More resources for higher ed marketers
SEO Research Study: Our original research with UPCEA on how colleges and universities are approaching SEO, including gaps, priorities, and benchmarking data you can use to advocate for strategy updates.
SEO Roadmap: A done-for-you strategy (updated for AI search) that focuses on one top program or degree. Built by our team, this roadmap delivers a clear, prioritized plan you can implement over three months, covering keyword strategy, technical updates, content improvements, and authority-building tactics.
SEO Workbook: A guided, do-it-yourself resource that helps you uncover site issues, understand your authority, define keyword priorities, and more. You’ll walk away with at least three months of actionable SEO tactics your team can put into place immediately.
Missed the Webinar? Watch the Replay
If you want to see the full conversation, including live examples, audience Q&A, and deeper discussion from our panel, watch the complete recording of “SEO for AI Search: Protect Your Student Enrollment Pipeline” on YouTube.
Whether you’re building your strategy from the ground up or refining what you already have, the full session will give you the clarity, context, and insights you need to make smart decisions in the age of AI search.
Search is evolving fast. Is your institution keeping up?
In her latest guest blog for UPCEA, “Higher Ed SEO Trends to Stay Competitive,” Search Influence’s Director of Sales and Marketing, Paula French, breaks down four key trends redefining SEO in higher education.
She explores how AI Overviews are lowering organic results, why platforms like TikTok and YouTube are becoming primary search tools, and how Google’s “People Also Ask” and E-E-A-T signals are raising the bar for ranking.
If you’re seeing organic traffic drop or struggling to reach qualified prospects, Paula’s blog is your guide to what’s happening and what to do next.
The Latest SEO Trends in Higher Education, Unpacked
AI Overviews are reshaping search results
Google’s AI Overviews now provide quick, synthesized answers from multiple sources and display them at the top of many search results. While this shift can reduce organic traffic, Paula explains how universities can optimize for these summaries by writing detailed, concise content that invites clicks — and still positions the institution as a trusted resource.
Social search is gaining ground
Today’s students are just as likely to search on TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, or even YouTube as on Google. That means institutions must think beyond traditional SEO to social search. Paula shares how repurposing website content and leveraging student-generated media can help schools appear where generations like Gen Z are already searching.
“People Also Ask” is a missed opportunity
Google’s “People Also Ask” section remains a powerful place to earn exposure, yet many institutions overlook it. Paula explains how answering common student questions — and structuring content with search in mind — can help universities appear in these high-traffic dropdowns, even as traditional rankings fluctuate.
E-E-A-T matters more than ever
With so much information being summarized or reinterpreted by AI, Google’s emphasis on trustworthy sources is only increasing. Paula reinforces why meeting Google’s quality standards, E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), must remain central to any SEO and AI search strategy for better visibility.
Across all four trends, Paula offers a strategic lens on what matters most right now: earning attention, trust, and action from the students who are most likely to apply. For more in-depth insights into each trend and how to make them work for you, check out Paula’s full blog post on UPCEA’s page.
From Insight to Action: The SEO Workbook
Reading about the latest SEO trends is one thing. Acting on them is another.
To support higher ed marketing teams in building a competitive SEO foundation, Search Influence created the SEO Workbook, an easily accessible resource packed with hands-on exercises and strategy planning tools.
Inside the workbook, you’ll find guidance on how to:
Evaluate your site’s authority and visibility
Build a content strategy around high-value academic programs
Strengthen your site’s technical foundation for search
Improve discoverability across search results so your organization ranks better in AI summaries, social platforms, and traditional search
Completing the exercises will give you a prioritized action plan and three months of SEO techniques you can start using immediately.
If your institution is ready to compete for attention in today’s search environment, this workbook will help you focus your efforts and start seeing real results. Download our SEO Workbook today to bridge the gap between what’s changing in search and what your team does next.
This post was updated by Ren Horst on April 16, 2025 following this year’s conference. It was originally published on March 18, 2025.
Key Insights
At the 2025 UPCEA Annual Conference, speakers emphasized that higher ed marketers need to adapt their strategies to keep up with changing search behaviors, rising student expectations, and evolving enrollment trends.
With more students relying on AI and social platforms to answer queries, strategic SEO keeps institutions searchable, relevant, and competitive.
Whether institutions decide to manage SEO in-house or work with an agency depends on the team’s size, skills, and available time, especially if SEO isn’t a core focus.
To create better student onboarding, institutions must use retention data to understand early disengagement and support lasting learner success.
This past March, Search Influence headed to Denver, Colorado, for the 2025 UPCEA Annual Conference.
Paula French (Director of Sales and Marketing), Jeanne Lobman (Director of Operations), and Will Scott (CEO and Co-Founder) hosted a booth and discussed the state of higher education marketing, with a focus on AI’s impact on SEO and student recruitment.
Paula also led two speaking sessions on emerging SEO trends, while Jeanne moderated a panel on using retention data to improve onboarding. Each presentation explored the most pressing marketing insights institutions need to stay ahead in 2025 and beyond.
In case you missed it, here’s your recap of our high-impact sessions at the AI in higher education conference.
“2025 Recruitment SEO Trends: Strategic Solutions to Emerging Challenges”
Presenters:
Paula French, Search Influence
Liz Turchin, University of Minnesota College of Continuing and Professional Studies
During this roundtable session, Paula and Liz discussed how changing search behaviors are reshaping recruitment strategies in higher ed. With Google’s AI Overviews and social platforms playing a growing role in how students research institutions, many schools must rethink how (and where) they show up online.
The conversational format allowed marketers to share challenges, exchange ideas, and dig into what’s actually working. Paula highlighted emerging SEO trends and shared guidance for leading internal conversations that help marketing teams adapt.
She also emphasized the importance of aligning SEO, paid search, and social efforts to increase visibility and keep prospective students engaged.
To support continued SEO planning beyond the session, Paula introduced our SEO Workbook. This hands-on resource is designed to help higher ed teams assess their current strategy and prioritize tactics that support enrollment in today’s AI-influenced search world.
“SEO: In-House or Outsource? That Is the Question.”
Presenter: Paula French, Search Influence
In this Industry Insights session, Paula addressed one of today’s most common challenges in higher ed marketing: deciding whether to manage SEO internally, bring in outside expertise, or go for a hybrid team.
As search trends continue to disrupt how prospects discover and evaluate colleges, SEO is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s foundational. Effective SEO ensures your content ranks well, nurtures interest, and guides students toward the next step.
Paula explained why every marketing touchpoint — ads, social media, email, and conferences — ultimately leads prospects back to your website. If your site isn’t well-optimized, you risk losing them before they even make it into your funnel.
To help teams choose between an in-house, outsourced, or hybrid SEO team, Paula shared a straightforward framework for evaluating capacity, skill sets, and goals. The session challenged institutions to be realistic about their resources and commit to an approach that ensures SEO isn’t just happening but actually making an impact.
Not sure which SEO staffing model fits your team best? Take our SEO Quiz for quick, personalized recommendations to guide your in-house vs. outsource decision.
“Is It Enough? Using Retention Data to Inform New Student Onboarding Practices”
Presenters:
Jennifer Murray, Fitchburg State University
Peter August, Fitchburg State University
Moderator: Jeanne Lobman, Search Influence
With more mid-career professionals entering graduate and continuing education programs, the question isn’t just how to recruit them, but how to truly support them from day one.
This session offered actionable ideas for using data to improve communication, set clearer expectations, and create more effective onboarding experiences that support engagement and retention.
The discussion asked institutions to take a hard look at their onboarding processes: Are they assuming too much about new students’ familiarity with academic expectations, technology platforms, and graduate-level demands? Are current onboarding practices truly preparing students for success?
With our Director of Operations, Jeanne, leading the discussion, the conversation focused on how retention data can, and should, inform onboarding strategies. The presenters emphasized that while retention is often viewed as a long-term outcome, it begins with a student’s earliest interactions. How well they’re welcomed, informed, and supported during onboarding directly impacts whether they stay and succeed.
Top FAQs from the Higher Education Conference
How will AI influence higher ed in 2025?
AI is quickly changing how prospective students search for college information. Tools like Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs), Perplexity, Gemini, and ChatGPT are becoming common starting points for researching programs, requirements, and outcomes.
These platforms generate quick summaries by pulling from multiple sources to answer user questions directly. While traditional rankings still matter, institutions may see reduced click-through rates if key information surfaces before a user ever reaches the organic listings. While this shift introduces new challenges, it offers new opportunities to stand out.
AIOs and other AI search platforms often cite the sources they pull from. By creating clear, well-structured content that directly addresses common student questions, your institution can increase its chances of being referenced. Optimizing for AI search builds on your existing SEO efforts and positions your content to appear where students now begin their decision-making process.
Is traditional SEO still important in the age of AI?
Yes, traditional SEO is still important, and it also plays a direct role in how your content performs in AI-driven search experiences.
AI platforms and tools don’t operate in a vacuum — they pull from existing content across the web and often favor sources that already rank well in organic search. In other words, the stronger your SEO, the more likely your content is to be cited in AI-generated summaries.
Many strategies that support strong SEO also position your content for AI visibility. That includes writing clear, structured content, using descriptive headers and FAQs, and following E-E-A-T best practices. Optimizing for entities — such as specific programs, degrees, and locations — also helps AI tools understand how your content aligns with user queries.
When paired with technical fundamentals like schema markup and clean metadata, these tactics help ensure your content remains visible across both traditional and AI-powered search experiences.
How do I decide between in-house vs. agency SEO?
The right approach depends on your team’s size, skill set, available time, and current SEO strategy’s performance.
In her Industry Insights session at the AI higher education conference, Paula shared five key factors to help you evaluate the best approach for your institution:
Team size: Small teams often need full external support, mid-sized teams may benefit from a hybrid model, and larger teams with dedicated SEO roles can often manage more internally.
Search visibility: If your top programs don’t rank, or you’re unsure, that’s a sign your current approach needs attention.
What’s in place: Consider whether you have key SEO elements like target keywords, specialized tools, updated content, and performance tracking.
Specialized skills: Strong SEO requires technical, content, and analytical expertise, not typically found in just one role.
Time investment: In-house SEO takes time. Without 40 or more hours of internal capacity available per month, it may be more efficient to outsource.
Still unsure? Our 5-question SEO Quiz takes the guesswork out of the decision. In just a few minutes, you’ll get personalized insights to help you optimize your resources and choose the path that best supports your university’s goals.
What is a social search marketing strategy?
A social search marketing strategy involves optimizing content to appear in search results on social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
An increasing number of prospects use these platforms as search engines, looking up programs, career advice, and campus experiences directly through social apps rather than Google. That shift makes it all the more important to create content that’s discoverable beyond traditional search.
At the same time, social media content can also appear in Google search results, giving your institution even more visibility across platforms.
Some tips for optimizing for social search include:
Creating engaging, keyword-friendly content native to each platform
Repurposing existing site content into short, shareable posts
Prioritizing video content, especially formats like Reels, TikToks, and YouTube Shorts
The goal is to meet students where they’re searching and make sure your content is part of what they find.
How are adult and online student recruitment strategies different than marketing to college-aged prospects?
Adult and online learners often need more flexibility, clearer communication, and stronger onboarding support than traditional college-aged students.
Unlike traditional students, they’re often managing full-time jobs, families, and other responsibilities. Many are returning to school after time away, which means onboarding plays a critical role in helping them navigate systems, build confidence, and stay engaged early on.
This focus has become even more critical as the demographic cliff reduces the number of college-aged applicants. To attract and retain adult learners, institutions must communicate clearly, offer accessible support services, and deliver learning options that fit their lives.
Retention data can reveal where existing students struggle or disengage, whether due to unclear expectations, lack of support, or program inflexibility. By identifying those trends, colleges can adjust their recruitment messaging and onboarding strategies to better meet the needs of adult learners from the start.
Build a Stronger Higher Ed Marketing Strategy to Drive Enrollment
The 2025 UPCEA Conference highlighted just how quickly student behavior and the search environment are evolving. To stay competitive, institutions need marketing strategies that align with how today’s prospects search, engage, and make decisions.
At Search Influence, we work with colleges and universities nationwide to navigate this shift with strategies rooted in data, clarity, and long-term impact. A great starting point is our SEO Roadmap — an actionable plan designed to help you strengthen search performance for one of your most important academic programs.
The roadmap delivers tailored recommendations for traditional search, AI-generated results, and emerging social search behaviors. It’s a strategic resource built to elevate your authority and visibility, refine your content, and drive meaningful enrollment outcomes.
See how the SEO Roadmap can help focus your efforts and reach more students today.
We’re honored to announce that Search Influence has been named a finalist in the Best SEO Campaign category at the 2024 US Agency Awards! This recognition highlights our collaboration with Halvorson Plastic Surgery, where strategic SEO drove meaningful growth in patient inquiries and expanded their reach to patients seeking quality care.
The Nominated Campaign
For the past two years, we’ve partnered with Halvorson Plastic Surgery — a trusted provider of cosmetic and reconstructive procedures in Asheville, NC. We have a shared goal to maintain a steady flow of new patient inquiries by implementing thoughtful and data-driven SEO strategies.
Over the past year, we pursued a two-stage SMART goal:
Increase year-over-year organic search leads.
Rank within the top five for specific target keywords central to the practice’s success.
We’re thrilled to announce that we met and exceeded both goals, helping Halvorson Plastic Surgery connect with more prospective patients while enhancing the practice’s online presence and visibility. This success earned us a shortlisted spot in the 2024 US Agency Awards for Best SEO Campaign.
We’re proud to partner with Halvorson Plastic Surgery to enhance their search rankings and online visibility, helping more patients connect with trusted care and make informed choices.
Four key categories contributed to this success:
Content Strategy: Boost rankings and authority through publishing keyword-targeted blog posts, optimizing on-site content, and creating off-site content
Off-Site Entity Optimization: Increase authority and reach with off-site content creation and link-building
Technical SEO: Enhance search engine understanding and site navigation by implementing schema
Google Business Profile Optimization: Improve local visibility and SEO with profile updates and optimizations
About the US Agency Awards
The US Agency Awards celebrate innovative strategies and impactful campaigns led by agencies of all sizes and specialties across the United States. With 20+ categories, the awards highlight achievements across industries such as marketing, PR, technology, design, and digital advertising.
An expert panel of industry professionals scores each submission through a rigorous two-step process. In the first stage, judges pre-score entries to create the shortlist. In the second, the panel meets to select winners, with some categories also recognizing a silver prize. This year’s winners will be announced on November 14 via the US Agency Awards site.
Award-Winning Search Engine Marketing Agency
We’re honored to be shortlisted for the 2024 US Agency Awards and thank Halvorson Plastic Surgery for their trust in this partnership.
This recognition follows our Silver Award win for the Best Integrated Campaign at the 2023 US Agency Awards and our shortlist at last year’s US Search Awards for the Best Use of Search B2C – PPC category.
Search Influence is a full-service search engine marketing agency committed to helping clients grow through strategic SEO. If you want to strengthen your online presence, contact us to learn more about our expert SEO services.
Specialize in higher education marketing? Check out our new SEO Roadmap offer for three months of actionable strategies that position you for search success.
AI content marketing is changing the way agencies, internal marketing departments, and freelancers go about their daily workflow.
As more marketers add generative AI to their competitive toolkit, the gap between those who use AI versus those who don’t will grow. This makes jumping on the proverbial AI train today more crucial than ever.
Search Influence uses a suite of data-driven AI tools, including Anyword, to complement our content creation processes, thus maximizing our efficiency while ensuring our content is performance-optimized.
Just as AI has its benefits, it also has its limitations. To mitigate AI shortcomings, it’s important to maintain the magic touch of the human editor via the “AI sandwich.”
Intuitive prompting can distinguish between content that meets expectations and content that falls short of them.
Over the course of history, countless tech advancements have reshaped how we view and approach our daily workload.
In the late 19th century, the invention of the tractor revolutionized the average farmer’s day-to-day by enhancing planting and harvesting efficiency, thus reducing the need for manual labor. In the mid-20th century, the introduction of ATMs made banking more accessible, minimizing the necessity for bank tellers to be available around the clock. Now, fast forward to the early 21st century, and generative AI tools are empowering content marketers to maximize their productivity and automate the creation of performance-driven copy, all in just a few keystrokes.
Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with our good friends at AI platform Anyword to discuss the impact of AI on content creation and how it helps our team work smarter. In our joint webinar “AI Performance Writing: How to Apply AI + Analytics to Your Content,” we dove deep into the state of AI content marketing, its opportunities and challenges, and how Search Influences uses data-driven tools like Anyword to better predict the success of our content collateral.
In case you missed it, here’s a quick overview of our action-packed discussion for your convenience, and maybe — just maybe — you’ll consider giving it a watch in your free time if you’re interested (100% shameless plug there).
The AI Train: Getting On or Getting Left Behind
Few industries will be as affected by generative AI as marketing. That is, if you look at some hot takes by sites like Hotjar, Spiceworks, and U.S. News & World Report… among many, many others.
The pressure is on many agencies, internal marketing departments, and freelancers to adopt AI into their daily workflows. This mounting pressure isn’t necessarily being applied from internal sources, but rather in the way the industry tides are naturally turning.
The data shows that more and more marketers are integrating AI into their daily tasks, whether it’s to help generate a punchy headline or to save time in their workload altogether. With a steady influx of marketers leveraging the power of AI, those who do not will inevitably feel the brunt of a competitive disadvantage.
Since generative AI first broke, Search Influence knew we couldn’t be one to miss the proverbial “AI train,” as it would only pass us right up on the route to our competitors. As Bora Tarimcilar, our Anyword webinar co-panelist and client support specialist, put it, “If you’re not on the train, there is this kind of sense of getting left behind.”
Anyword: The AI Software Built for Content Marketing
Search Influence started testing Anyword in 2023, at a time when generative AI was first starting to grow wings and take flight in the public eye. We set out on a mission to add another AI platform to our diverse suite of tools, which includes platforms like ChatGPT, Adobe Suite, Surfer SEO, and Google Gemini, among several others.
With Anyword, we’ve found success in creating performance-driven content that resonates with our clients and their audiences. The tool has since become one of many key strategy components for producing high-quality, impactful content.
Benefits of Using AI in Content Marketing
Investing in AI today has its payoffs tomorrow.
Timesaving for peak efficiency
The phrase “time is money” rings true in content marketing. We all wish we had more hours in the day, especially when deadlines are looming.
With AI as a +1 on our teams, we can now produce an entire ad campaign’s worth of copy in minutes versus the hours we’d have likely spent prior.
The faster we produce content, the more time we have to focus on strategy, optimization, and the bigger picture as a whole.
Relevant, competitive content
An important disclaimer: Generative AI is not a subject matter expert. It doesn’t have a degree, it doesn’t have any certifications, and it certainly doesn’t have real-world industry experience.
However, AI models do function by scraping the web for a “common consensus” on what to include in its outputs in response to your prompts.
For example, let’s say you’re writing a blog for your legal client titled, “When Should You See a Personal Injury Lawyer?” and you default to AI to help get you started. After receiving your prompt, the AI model will analyze a vast dataset of online content, including articles, legal blogs, FAQs, and expert opinions on personal injury law. It will then identify common themes, important legal terms, and frequently mentioned advice to construct a well-rounded response.
This helps ensure that the content you write is robust, researched, and in line with what your competitors are discussing. Plus, it may even help fill in some topic gaps that you’ve missed but your competitors haven’t.
A hub for brainstorming
Sometimes, the hardest part of content creation is simply getting that first word or sentence down.
AI tools are perfect for those “blank page” moments. Need a catchy headline or an engaging intro? Generative AI’s brainstorming capabilities can spark creativity and help overcome writer’s block, setting the stage for compelling content that doesn’t leave you with a headache.
If you’re not all in for AI automation, using tools for brainstorming purposes is one of the best use cases for getting your feet wet with this new tech. Even the best fires need an accelerant here and there, and AI is just that for your content creation process.
Challenges of AI Content Marketing
Despite all its benefits, AI content marketing is not without its limitations. To get the most value from an AI tool, you’ll need to know what to look out for — just as much as what to look for.
Robotic tendencies
AI is, in its truest form, just a robot. It’s not the kind you see in science fiction movies that are cynically threatening, but nonetheless, there’s no human behind the screen.
Generative AI is not capable of experiencing human emotion, and it naturally lacks empathy. Unless you give it highly detailed context, it won’t automatically know that you’re maybe speaking to an audience with highly sensitive needs, like, for example, those in the “Your Money or Your Life” category.
Because the model is not human, it also does not know how to distinguish fluff from lean, helpful content. With fluffy content, you lose the full extent your content can make on your audience simply by being generic and impactful. You’ll always need to bring humanness to the content, which also means double-checking that the content reads natural and conversational, not robotic.
AI buzzwords
“Unwavering,” “top-notch,” “a beacon of,” and so on — sometimes, it seems like AI has a few favorite words and a severely limited vocabulary.
With these “AI buzzwords” comes one inevitable pitfall: Your content ends up using the same adjectives to describe your brand or services as your competitors.
This can be beneficial in some areas, like when you’re trying to establish a place in the industry relative to your competitors, but it also leaves you with the risk of content that sounds the same as everyone else’s — thus affecting your ability to stand out.
At one point, these terms likely did do considerable justice to content, and some could even have been classified as power words. Now, however, their impact seems diluted due to overuse.
Machine hallucination
AI is, again, no subject matter expert, and it is capable of making mistakes.
The phenomenon “AI hallucination” occurs when an AI model generates content that is factually incorrect or nonsensical. This happens because the AI tries its best to create plausible-sounding information based on patterns it has learned, even if the actual data or facts do not exist.
ChatGPT even has a disclaimer that it can make mistakes, and to always check information that isn’t common knowledge.
By blindly trusting the facts and evidence AI provides you, you risk publishing inaccurate and possibly even offensive content that could harm your brand’s trustworthiness, authoritativeness, and overall bottom line.
Mitigating Common AI Shortcomings
Where there are problems, there are solutions.
The AI Sandwich
Generative AI is your teammate, it’s your dynamic +1, but it is not your replacement.
The human editor will always be necessary to create a human-like feel in the content, fact-check all information, and optimize it for maximum engagement.
At Search Influence, we like to call the relationship between the human and the AI model the “AI Sandwich.”*
The human (acting as the top bun or slice of bread) prompts the machine with all the important information it needs to produce a quality output, and then they wait as the machine gets to work (acting as the sandwich’s hearty sandwich ingredients — think lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, and meat). Once the machine produces its output, the human editor (now acting as the bottom bun or slice of bread) goes behind it, cleans it up, personalizes it more to the brand, fact-checks it, and overall adds that human touch.
While the content is not produced top-to-bottom by a sole human writer, it is perfected by the human, which grants an overall stamp of approval that the copy meets quality standards.
*Learn more about the AI Sandwich and its use cases with Search Influence CEO, Will Scott, on the “Make Marketing Make Sense” podcast.
Practical prompting
If you’re worried about generic, impactful content and the overuse of AI buzzwords in your content, the solution starts with your prompt.
I’m a strong believer that the quality of your prompt determines the quality of your output. If you give the AI model a bare-bones prompt and expect it to fill in the gaps, it may do so in a way that doesn’t suit your brand or campaign goals.
I recommend you include these points to be as specific as possible with your prompts:
Your campaign goal and keywords (if applicable)
Your tone of voice and your target audience
Your desired call to action
Your desired word count
Any terms you do or do not want to be included in your output
When you’re working with a platform like Anyword, with pre-built prompts, covering all your bases is simple. But if you aren’t using a tool with pre-built prompts provided, there are a ton of helpful articles, videos, and templates online that can get you started.
Dive Deeper Into AI Content Marketing
A very, very big thank you to Anyword for inviting me to join “AI Performance Writing: How to Apply AI + Analytics to Your Content.” I hope that you all are just as excited and geeked out as we are about this new wave of content marketing.
And, if you’re not, that’s perfectly okay. Just know the AI train does have a seat open for you.
Search Influence specializes in full-service content marketing, from SEO and paid advertising to email marketing, social media, and beyond. To learn more about how we’re using AI content marketing to drive client success at scale, get in touch with us today.
We’re thrilled to announce that Search Influence has made it onto the Inc. 5000 list for 2024! This recognition marks the eighth time we have been honored by Inc., previously being listed on the Inc. 5000 six years in a row from 2012 to 2017 and on the Inc. 500 in 2011. This year, we ranked 393rd in the Advertising & Marketing category and 4,154th overall. Locally, the digital marketing agency was ranked 14th in New Orleans and Metairie, and 28th in Louisiana.
See how our commitment to excellence has led to this continued recognition.
The Inc. 5000 List at a Glance
The Inc. 5000 list recognizes America’s fastest-growing private companies, ranking them based on revenue growth over a three-year span.
Companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list were evaluated based on their growth from 2020 to 2023. To qualify, businesses must:
Have generated revenue by March 31, 2020
Have generated at least $100,000 in revenue in 2020
Have generated at least $2 million in revenue in 2023
Be a privately held, for-profit business based in the United States
For over 40 years, the Inc. 5000 list has been a hallmark of business success, with past honorees including such notable names as 7-Eleven, Domino’s Pizza, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Yelp, and Zillow. As a proud, privately held company based in New Orleans, we’re honored to stand among some of the nation’s growth leaders.
Our innovative approach and commitment to a progressive work culture have earned us significant recognition over the past few months. In 2023, we won a Silver Award at the US Agency Awards and were finalists at the US Search Awards. We were also named one of the Best Places to Work by New Orleans CityBusiness in 2022 and 2023, bringing the total number of trophies in our cabinet from this award to four.
From our humble beginnings as a small startup in 2006 to our 2024 Inc. 5000 recognition, we’re proud to consistently push the boundaries of what’s possible for our company, our clients, and the digital marketing industry.
Your Partner for All Things Digital Marketing
We are grateful to be back on the Inc. 5000 list. To achieve this milestone once again by Inc. reinforces our dedication to sustained success.
Let us share the benefits of this honor with you, by helping you enrich your campaigns with our extensive experience and industry trust.
Connect with us today to discover our digital marketing services and see why we’re ranked among America’s fastest-growing companies.
In a June guest blog for B-Corp certified digital marketing agency Seer Interactive, Search Influence Co-Founder and CEO Will Scott breaks down a fundamental, yet often overlooked, higher education SEO tactic: schema markup.
Schema markup for higher education websites is a form of microdata added to a website’s HTML to help search engines better understand the content. It uses a semantic vocabulary (i.e., code) known as Schema.org to annotate various webpage elements with metadata. By crawling your schema, search engines can get a better sense of who you are and surface your site in the SERPs in response to relevant search queries.
Schema markup is the back-end roadmap for your higher ed website. It guides search engines, like Google, Bing, and Yahoo, through the campus of your content via structured data that’s easy to understand and follow. This helps streamline your site’s crawlability, boost your chances for rich snippets, and improve your visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Key Takeaways From “Higher Education Schema – How Your School Can Win Google”
Schema is much beyond just simple code. In “Higher Education Schema – How Your School Can Win Google,” Will goes deep into this core technical SEO concept, offering insights on:
The Fundamentals of Schema Markup: Understand the basics and why it’s essential for higher education websites.
Step-by-Step Implementation: Detailed instructions (with a template) on how to apply schema markup using Schema.org, tailored specifically for educational institutions.
Practical Examples: Real-world applications and examples to illustrate how schema markup can be effectively used.
Impact Analysis: Insights on how schema markup can grow your institution’s online presence and drive more prospective students to your enrollment funnel.
Dive Deeper Into Higher Education Schema
2024 research from Schema App found that 1 in 5 digital marketers have trouble showing the value of their schema markup. If you’re unsure whether your school’s schema is truly search engine fluent, do your part in helping Google to translate it.
As a higher education digital advertiser, you know managing campaigns is no easy feat. Marketers need to contend with increased competition, limited resources, and a complex marketing landscape.
Fortunately, with the right expertise and digital platform knowledge, your school’s marketing department can achieve your enrollment goals — if not surpass them — without overworking your budget.
Join Search Influence and UPCEA on April 30 for the live webinar, “Stop Wasting Budget: How to Get Better Digital Ad Results and Increase Satisfaction,” to see how to maximize enrollment and minimize lost ad dollars at your university.
Featured Session at a Glance
Each year, online and continuing education schools funnel an average of $800,000 into their digital marketing. Yet, only 47% are satisfied with campaign performance, and just 38% are satisfied with their cost per inquiry (CPI).
This April 30 at 12PM EDT / 11AM CDT, Search Influence and UPCEA team up to tackle this discrepancy head-on and offer opportunities for campaign improvement. Tune into our live webinar to gain:
Key takeaways from our latest research study revealing most schools have room for marketing improvement
An exploration of the top strategies to improve your digital advertising results and reduce CPI
Strategies for maximizing your marketing budget while maintaining (or even enhancing) your lead quality
By attending, you’ll come away with actionable tips and tricks to identify wasted budget and upgrade your prospect’s experience.
Hear From Higher Education Marketing Trailblazers
Search Influence has been a proud Platinum Partner of UPCEA since 2022. In “Stop Wasting Budget: How to Get Better Digital Ad Results and Increase Satisfaction,” you’ll hear from both UPCEA and Search Influence’s higher ed marketing veterans:
Jim Fong, Chief Research Officer, UPCEA
Paula French, Director of Sales and Marketing, Search Influence
Jeanne Lobman, Digital Advertising Manager, Search Influence
Attend Live & Qualify for a $50 Giveaway
As a thank you for attending, Search Influence and UPCEA will draw four live attendees to win a $50 credit to a global reward catalog featuring 1,000+ of the most popular gift cards, prepaid cards, and charitable donations.
All live attendees will be automatically entered in the giveaway.
Join us live for a chance to win a take-home prize beyond the insightful marketing strategies you’ll gain from the webinar.
Improve Your Higher Education Digital Ads With Search Influence
Is your higher ed marketing budget feeling the heat from underperforming campaigns?
As a higher education digital marketing agency, Search Influence has helped plenty of schools like yours turn strategy questions into data-driven decisions. With nearly two decades of experience marketing for schools across state lines, we know higher education digital advertising, and we know what converts without sacrificing budget.
Register now for “Stop Wasting Budget: How to Get Better Digital Ad Results and Increase Satisfaction” to dive into strategies that revamp your campaign success.
