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  • [WEBINAR] Make Your Existing Marketing Work Harder for AI Search Visibility

    [WEBINAR] Make Your Existing Marketing Work Harder for AI Search Visibility

    Make Your Existing Marketing Work Harder for AI Search Visibility webinar graphic

    AI search is changing how prospective students discover programs. But building an entirely new marketing strategy from scratch isn’t realistic for most higher education teams.

    Budgets are tight, staff capacity is limited, and priorities compete for attention.

    That’s why we partnered with UPCEA for this spring’s live webinar:

    Make Your Existing Marketing Work Harder for AI Search Visibility
    Tuesday, March 24
    12 PM ET | 11 AM CT

    Your presenters: 

    • Paula French, Director of Sales and Marketing, Search Influence
    • Will Scott, CEO and Co-Founder, Search Influence
    • Emily West, Senior Market Research Analyst, UPCEA

    Why AI Search Visibility Matters for Higher Education

    AI-powered search tools are shaping discovery, oftentimes before a prospective student ever clicks your website. Platforms powered by LLMs evaluate your site, paid campaigns, PR coverage, and social media to determine what information to surface.

    When those channels operate in silos, AI tools may pull incomplete or inconsistent details. In some cases, your programs may not appear at all.

    For higher education marketers, the opportunity isn’t to rebuild everything. It’s to unify what already exists. When messaging aligns across channels, institutions increase relevance, strengthen credibility, and improve their presence in AI-driven results.

    What You’ll Learn in the Webinar

    This session is built for teams who want practical guidance they can apply immediately.

    In this live webinar, we’ll break down how to:

    • Create a consistent, credible presence across the marketing channels AI evaluates
    • Leverage existing assets to improve higher education AI search visibility
    • Strengthen trust signals so AI tools surface accurate program information
    • Reduce gaps that limit discoverability in AI-powered search

    You’ll walk away with clear steps to support your higher education AI search strategy without adding major lift to your team.

    If you’ve read our recent insights on how marketing supports SEO and AI search or explored our perspective on AI SEO for higher education, this webinar brings those concepts into focused, actionable execution.

    → Save your seat now

    Go Deeper: Interactive AI Search Strategy Labs

    After the webinar, join one of our small-group Strategy Labs:

    Tuesday, March 31
    Wednesday, April 1
    12 PM ET | 11 AM CT

    Led by Will and Paula, these interactive sessions offer hands-on coaching. Bring your questions about specific programs, campaigns, or content gaps. We’ll workshop actionable recommendations to strengthen your AI search visibility and connect strategy to measurable outcomes.

    → Save your seat now

    Build Visibility Without Building From Scratch

    AI search is evolving quickly. Visibility now depends on alignment across every channel AI evaluates.

    You don’t need to start over. You just need to coordinate the marketing ecosystem you already have.

    Register for the webinar and secure your place in a Strategy Lab today.

  • Search Influence Sees Double with 2 New Hires

    Search Influence is seeing double with the addition of two new team members! Let’s learn about our newest Influencers.

    Katelyn Mulkey, Sales & Marketing Coordinator

    Born and raised in Abita Springs, Louisiana, Katelyn didn’t go far for college, graduating from the University of New Orleans with a degree in Marketing. Before taking a brief detour, Katelyn worked as a Search Influence Account Manager for almost 3 years. But she realized that an agency is where she really thrives so now she’s back to make her mark on the Sales and Marketing team. When she’s not at work, you can find her out and about listening to live music all around the city. 

     

    Ren Horst, Junior Digital Copy Editor

    Originally hailing from Madisonville, Louisiana, the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain, Ren moved to Lafayette in 2016 to pursue their studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Ren earned their Bachelor’s degree in English and currently is currently working on their Master’s in Communication. Outside of working part-time on the Content team, Ren spends their time as a teaching & research assistant and growing their creative writing skills. 

     

    Welcome to Search Influence, Katelyn and Ren!

    Interested in joining our team? Check out our open positions!

  • Search Influence Continues to Support You During COVID-19

    To our clients and our community,

    As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, we feel it’s important to share with you Search Influence’s plans for business continuity. Our top priorities are the health and well-being of our team and their families, and our clients, their families, and their businesses.

    Our plans for business continuity and employee wellness include:

    Remote Work: For 3 years, the Search Influence team has had the option to work remote as part of our flexible work policy. This means we are practiced in procedures and technology to assure consistent communication and collaboration – with each other and our clients.
    Employee Wellness: We have cancelled all employee travel and have stressed the importance of staying home to work remotely by desire or by need. We have regular cleaning of our office with emphasis on communal spaces, have reinforced all health guidelines to prevent exposure and transmission, and have ample hand soap and sanitizer available throughout our office.
    Cloud-based Systems: All work for clients and internal collaboration is in the cloud. Client projects and information can be accessed remotely.

    As you work through what this means for your business, we are here to support you. We have been working closely this week with clients in the heavily-impacted industries of tourism and education to adjust strategies and communication.

    Please, reach out to us personally or to your daily Search Influence contact if there is some way we can be of service.

    Sincerely,
    Will and Angie Scott

     

  • Search Influence Adds 1 New Employee to their Krewe

    Just as New Orleans rolls into Carnival season, Search Influence adds a new member to the Sales & Marketing Royal Court.

    Shira Pinsker, Product & Marketing Manager

    Whether it’s biking on side streets to find shorter commutes or rewriting copy to convey greater emotion, Shira Pinsker looks for ways to improve. And with 15 years of experience working across the communications spectrum, she understands that a marketer’s job is to revise, learn, and strive for better results. She looks forward to supporting Search Influence’s revenue growth through developing and improving the company’s marketing efforts and product offerings. 

    Shira has increased social media and email newsletter engagement for nonprofit organizations and national brands, with her work on behalf of French Market Coffee and Zatarins recognized with a Judges’ Award and a Gold award from the New Orleans American Advertising Federation Addys. In her roles as a publicist and marketing manager, she has secured media coverage in outlets including NOLA.com, NPR, USA Today, and The Washington Post.

     

    Welcome to Search Influence, Shira!

    Interested in joining our team? Check out our open positions!

  • How Often Should You Revisit Your SEO Strategy?

    So you want to know how often you should revisit your SEO strategy. My recommendation? Go back to the basics! Google is constantly updating its algorithm, so your rankings can always be affected. That means you should constantly be on top of the strategy you set in place to ensure you’re being effective and generating results. When considering how often to revisit your strategy, it would be a good idea to consider the things that affect your rankings. The major players are keywords and content.

    The Key to Keywords

    The way people search for things is always changing. Where people used to Google the term “marketing company,” they may now Google “marketing company near me.” It’s one thing to rank well, it’s another thing for people to be able to find you based on what they’re searching for. If you aren’t ranking well for terms people are using, this won’t benefit you in achieving your marketing goals.

    If you keep a record of your original keyword research, you can always refer back to it to determine if those search volumes have increased or decreased over time. This will allow you to stay relevant on which keywords work best for you. Since it’s recommended that you revisit your keyword strategy every quarter for campaigns and promotions, it’s also a good bet to do this for SEO.

    A person highlighting notes on a desk

    Keeping Content Fresh

    Before you worry about keeping your content fresh, you need to ensure it fits the recommended guidelines set by Google. Title tags are important because they are often the first thing a visitor sees when they search for something and you pop up in their results. Meta descriptions also display in search engine results and should provide visitors some context about that page’s content. Even though that doesn’t directly affect your rankings, it affects people wanting to visit your website, which can affect rankings.

    Title tags and meta descriptions also need to fit within the length recommendations and include the keywords you chose for the campaign, if possible. If the keywords you chose and used throughout your content at the beginning of the campaign are no longer relevant, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board. When these two elements are concise and relevant, they can positively influence your rankings. Just make sure to keep an eye out for any updates made on recommended guidelines for content by Google.

    As far as content on your website, you can always tell if the website page has good and relevant content by how many visits it receives. Low webpage visits can be a good indicator that it may be time for a refresh. This does not exclude old content. While publishing new content is a great way to increase rankings, you can always revisit old content and give it a little TLC to see if the work you already put in can still work for you.

    Off-Page

    When it comes to off-page SEO, here is where it can get a little tricky. There are times where we aren’t in control of the things that happen off your site, like with backlinking, but there are tools and options to assist you in taking back as much control as possible. Let’s say you find a link to your website to be spammy; you can contact the webmaster and request it be removed. There’s no telling if or when this may happen, but you can always combat this by gaining new links from authoritative sites.

    When it comes to listings, you want to ensure your information is consistent across all platforms. Whenever an opportunity presents itself, you should make it a point to submit to as many listings as you can. A great tool you can use for this is Bright Local. It works to show you inconsistencies throughout the listings you currently have, as well as new opportunities you can submit to. It’s best to keep an eye on these and revisit them every month.

    An additional tool that is always accessible to you is social media. This is a great way to create awareness for your business and potentially gain more and new visitors to your website. Staying on top of your social media campaigns is a sure way to help your rankings. If you see a campaign is not performing well, then it may be time to reconsider what changes need to be made to make it better. While social media doesn’t increase your rankings, it can help gain new visitors and increase potential backlinking, which will.

    In the End

    There isn’t an exact recipe that will get you to rank number one. The key to running an effective strategy and campaign is to consistently revisit it. Remaining proactive when it comes to algorithm updates and keeping your website full of organic and fresh content will always be your best bet. If you consistently check and adjust, you’ll be on the right path! And if you need some expert assistance with your SEO or content marketing strategies, start a conversation with the New Orleans SEO pros at Search Influence.

    Images: Desk

     

     

  • Responsive Development with Foundation

    new-leadsndrRecently I implemented a redesign of the public facing page for one of our services, LeadSNDR. Like any other from-scratch project, I started off with a CSS framework that included a grid system. My old standby was the popular 960 Grid, but within the last few months, I’ve moved on to something more up to date and responsive, the Foundation Framework.

    Foundation is one of many modern CSS frameworks that gives web developers a solid set of tools to create a responsive site. It lets you free yourself from having to agonize over the mechanical intricacies of a responsive layout by standardizing and generalizing common patterns used to create sites of this nature. If you’re already using a fixed layout CSS framework, then switching to a responsive one will take next to no effort. If you’re not using any sort of grid system or something with a similar purpose, then I can’t recommend it enough. A solid CSS grid lends itself to creating really clean and maintainable markup. As an example of the Foundation grid, take a look at the layout shell of the LeadSNDR site.

    <div class="row">
    <div class="large-10 large-centered small-centered columns">
	<div class="row">
	    <div class="large-5 small-12 columns"></div>
	    <div class="large-7 small-12 columns"></div>
	</div>
	<div class="row">
	    <div id="header-image" class="small-12 large-12 columns"></div>
	</div>
	<div class="row">
	    <div class="large-7 small-12 columns">
	        <div class="row">
	            <div class="large-12 small-12 columns">
		        <ul class="large-block-grid-3 small-block-grid-3">
			    <li></li> ...
			</ul>
		    </div>
		</div>
	    </div>
	    <div class="large-4 large-offset-1 small-12 columns"></div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div class="large-12 small-12 columns">
        <footer class="large-6 large-centered small-12 small-centered columns"></footer>
    </div>
</div>

    In addition to the grid system, Foundation also includes a variety of components to accommodate a variety of responsive patterns. For example, the various navigation bars are particularly handy components. Building out a responsive navigation isn’t trivial and takes a good bit of doing, but using Foundation makes it pretty trivial.

    The only downside to using a responsive framework like Foundation is the lack of support for older browsers. With the newest version, Foundation stopped supporting IE8 and older and the previous version didn’t support IE7 or older. It’s something to be aware of and in some cases it might be a deal breaker, but personally I’d like to see more projects outright drop support for outdated software.

    Foundation worked out great for the projects I used it on, but I’m sure it’s not perfect for everyone. Take a look at some of these alternatives if Foundation isn’t exactly to your liking. I haven’t used any of these, but they’re getting their own praises in the community and certainly worth a look.