Search Engine Optimization for Higher Education Institutions

This document discusses the significance of search engine optimization (SEO) in higher education institutions, specifically focusing on the case study of Oulu University of Applied Sciences in Finland. It explores the implementation of SEO strategies to improve website visibility and attract international students. The research findings highlight the importance of optimizing web content, including title tags, meta descriptions, and backlinks, to enhance search engine rankings and increase global traffic.

Search Engine Optimization
Student's Name
Institution Affiliation
Date of submission

ABSTRACT
The project involves a case study concerning Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
within the worldwide web site of Oulu University of Applied Sciences (Oamk) (Ahola,
2017). Oulu University is a higher education collage located in Finland that possesses the
vision of attaining the heat position as an international and multidisciplinary Campus of
Applied Sciences in the country. The main purpose of this paper is to establish a design for
the SEO in Oulu University’s intercontinental web site (www. Oamk.fi/en) to guarantee the
improvement of the Web’s ranking positions, and visibility on the Google search engine
(Ahola, 2017). The research also aimed at bringing more potential international learners and
worldwide traffic to the institution’s Web page. Since the Website of the organization has a
variety of possible applicants around the world, it is very essential that the campus’ Web info
are easily accessible to all probable international users, particularly the potential foreign
scholars.
SEO has been identified as an Online Marketing methodology that assists in the
advancement of web entrée. In the urbanized world, individuals make use of Search Engines
like Google in finding or acquiring on diverse matters in a more visual and fast approach.
Through bibliographic analysis, qualitative and quantitative assessment, the study
emphasized on the acknowledgement of the idea behind SEO and the means in which SEO is
appropriately executed for the administrator’s universal Web page, www. Oamk.fi/en (Clay,
B. (2015). The SEO plan delivered by the conducted survey was established with the
objective to offer the representatives a referral document for application during their future
digital promotion stratagems for internationalization.
The study’s findings indicate that the most significant goal for the creation of the SEO
scheme for advancing the globalization in Oulu learning organization was to establish web
information that takes semantics and search intent into an interpretation. Through the use of
the available technological advancement the institution’s Website coherent was built based
on the chosen key terms to acquire the most reliable worldwide traffic (Busche, 2017). The

study outcomes also illustrated that higher learning organizations needed to stay at the top list
of the Search engines to attain their target intercontinental search queries, as well as possess
meaningful and relevant URLs, heading tags, Snippets, descriptions and titles, actual web
info, internal linking, and backlinks, for the aim of enticing most people to choose the
organization (Clay, 2015).
Yoast, (2017) argued that the SEO’s future was unknown since there was only a
single item that to maintain the people’s assurance in SEO while the other related matters
changed constantly. Therefore, Search engine promotion and SEO were presumed to
maintain high priority standards for higher educational centers, especially the organizations
that desired to attain a greater competitive advantage against their rivals in the universal
market (Ahola, 2017).
Keywords: SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Higher education, SEO in higher education,
SEO for Internationalization, Digital Marketing.

INTRODUCTION
This Bachelor’s thesis describes the definition of search engine optimization for an
international higher education institution in Finland, introduces a search engine optimization
plan for implementing the changes to the institution´s website and provides analytics
solutions for monitoring the effect of change. In the beginning of this chapter the background
of the study is described. Then the technology problem and the aim of the research are
introduced, as well as the commissioner.
Search Engine Optimization in the Internationalization context
SEO has been described as an approach applied in the acquisition of traffic via
creation a visible web page within the search engine findings through paid or ‘organic’
methodologies. The word ‘organic’ refers to the use of free and natural means to advance
website prominence without the use of Ad services, which involve paid promotions (Shenoy
& Prabhu, 2016). The paper purposes to inspire the acknowledgment of the significance of
SEO as an online advertisement approach that can be used in increasing globalization in
Universities such as Oamk, which is located in Finland. To help the reader better understand
and find easily the words or concepts related to SEO and its meanings, the glossary table in
Appendix 2 was created.
Oulu University’s population involves learners from different continents around the
world, the Campus also has international associate institutions and global staff members.
However, the university’s need of the being leading University of Applied Sciences in
Finland makes the organization to implementing new approaches towards attaining their
dream (Yoast, 2017). Therefore, the education institution focuses on the implementation and
application of SEO to guarantee that its website’s information is easily accessible by several
prospective global users, particularly the potential foreign learners in other continents.
Before starting the actual Search Engine Optimization plan and keyword research, the
mission statement for the Oamk’s international website SEO project was defined: Oamk’s

international website (www.oamk.fi/en) is the website of Oulu University of Applied
Sciences in English, focused on internationalization and international people. The
information of the website helps foreign students and stakeholders stay updated about Oamk
and its events, as well about practicalities about studying in Oulu and in Finland. The mission
of the Search Engine Optimized website is to ensure that information is available for
everybody who search for content related to Oamk and its study options in Google,
enhancing international visitors’ experiences, by providing exclusive and unique content that
answers their questions and doubts asked in the search queries. Improving the quantity of top
position rankings and average positions in search engine results pages (in short, SERPs)
supports visibility, brand awareness and many other associated measures of progress (Wilson,
2016).
Consequently, from the Digital Marketing perspective, excellent SEO practices are of
paramount importance to the success of businesses that depend on reach and visualization, as
it allows to achieve these objectives in an organic way and without spending large amount of
money (MOZ, 2017). The way a company appears in SERPs can alter its course and
determine outcomes. When attention is not put properly on SEO, a company puts itself at
risk: competition can swoop in and reputations get tarnished (Ahola, 2017).
Nowadays, achieving relevance is the main SEO guiding principle. Search algorithm
obsession is not a best practice in SEO. Living in fear of updates to core rankings means
doing SEO wrong. Google has publicly urged webmasters and SEOs to not fixate on each
individual component of their core algorithm (Ahola, 2017). Consequently, the focus of SEO
is not on algorithms changes, but, in quality content development aligned with the new
technologies.
Research problem
Nowadays, people use Google constantly, to search, ask questions and get information
as the result of their searches. If a company/institution is not found in search results, it might

have its level of potential leads and effective costumers affected. The study-paper purposes to
offer a response to the query that inquires the types of the recommended steps needed to
effectively execute SEO to a higher learning organization’s website, when targeting the
globalization aspect. The research problem was found when the Oulu University of Applied
Sciences – Oamk, English website’ pages were not being discovered by search engines nor
being found in search engine results pages (SERPs), or were being found in very low-ranking
positions, when searches were performed in English.
Still, pages in English and images in the international part of the website were often
found with misleading titles and descriptions of its contents. This set of factors may cause
low visibility of Oamk in international countries and bad user experience, as well as it can
affect internationalization, international student recruitment and international engagement
level (Furnell, 2007). Moreover, these are critical factors for the commissioner’s digital
marketing, since Finnish Universities of Applied sciences are facing that the number of
applicants from outside Finland have been slightly decreased in 2017, after the introduction
of tuition fees (Khadka, 2017).
Research method
This work will consider, in particular, the world's most used search engine, Google,
which has 91.99% of the Search Engine’ Market share in the world (StatCounter, 2017) and
in which the first positions are high competed in search results, especially in English
language. For the research, the focus will be on the English version of the Oamk’s webpage
(www.oamk,fi/en), with an emphasis on internationalization. Globalization cab be described
as the planning of a service or product in a manner that it achieves the users’ requirements in
different nations, and that the designed amenities or items can be easily accepted by various
cultures and languages. (Investopedia, 2018)

The main research method used in this work will be the case study methodology
whereby a case study analysis needs a company issue to be investigated, alternative solutions
to be examined and suggested.
The case study will be conducted through non-participant observation by the author.
From bibliographic review this work will explain how Google sees and interprets the
websites available on the web, and how it affects digital marketing and internationalization in
higher education institutions, using the case study of Oamk. Therefore, this thesis will explain
organic SEO strategy on-page that can help in indexing and ranking the commissioner’s site
in better positions in organic search findings (Berman, 2013). MOZ, (2017) defined on-page
SSEO as the process of augmenting single web pages to position higher and achieve more
meaningful traffic within the searching engines. Busche, (2017) added that on-page SEO are
advanced by all dynamics regulated by the owner of the website, including the basic code.
On-page SEO consists of title tags, metatags, internal links, content, URLS, and site maps
(MOZ, 2017). Generally on-page SEO concentrates on effective content presentation to the
applicants of the website while adhering to optimal web setting and semantics to ensure the
success of the site. The proficient arrangements led to the establishment of an organized and
systematic site that delivers better readability, relevance, and reputation to the users as well as
to the search-engine crawlers (Shenoy & Prabhu 2016)
According to Ahola, 2017, SEO performance can be judged by time spent on a site,
number of pages reviewed, or conversions themselves. In the case of Oamk, the situational
analysis showed that users were usually spending less than 10 seconds in one page, which is a
very short time. This kind of analytics might be a signal that users are not engaging to the
content provided or are not finding what they were searching, or are facing loading problems,
for example. Thus, deciding to quit the pages early and affecting the reputation of the content.
Concerning the positive points, Backlinks were strength for Oamk on the situational
analysis. It was identified that the school has a great number of backlinks. The number of

backlinks a website has is a good indicator of its popularity or importance, which strengthens
the domain authority and can help to leverage search engine ranking. (Busche, 2017)
Moreover, the high number of Oamk’s backlinks versus another multidisciplinary
university of applied sciences can be seen from the picture below:
The figure means that when compared to this other multidisciplinary university of
applied sciences, Oamk has greater chances to get better ranked in Google for a certain

content, as Google uses links to discover new web pages and to help determine how well a
page should rank in their results.
Relevance
Concerning the Relevance category, which means factors that point to the way
search engines connect searchers’ queries with the website’s content to ensure that it is
appropriate to satisfy their need, first it is necessary to understand what is SERP. According
to Brick Marketing, 2017, the result search engine or SERP page, when the search engine
page contains a keyword question, is the web page appearing in the browser window. The
results list usually contains the connections for the most popular to the least common
websites, given the amount of hits for the search keywords (Beel, 2009). Not only the links
but also an overview of the website, and naturally the webpage titles, are included in the list.
A single page of connections transferred through a request or the full number of connections
returned, may be used for the word "results page for search engine."
According to Moz, 2017, the title tag is an HTML element that specifies the title of a
web page in SERPs. During the website analysis, it was discovered that Oamk was not using
search engine friendly titles and descriptions (Meta Title and Description tags) on the main
English webpage (www.oamk.fi/en). These tag elements are of extreme importance, because
they will be the title and description of the company/page in SERPs and are the first thing a
searcher will see in a SERP. Title tags are the clickable headline for a given result of a Search
Engine query, and are
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important for usability, SEO, and social sharing. The title tag of a web page is meant
to be an accurate and concise with the description of a page's content and it will be the blue
link in the SERPs. Moreover, Meta descriptions are HTML attributes that provide concise
summaries of webpages. They commonly appear as a short grey sentence underneath the blue
clickable links (titles) in a SERP (Moz, 2017). Still, another important concept related to
SERP and relevance, is the meta-tags concept: Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a
page’s content; the meta tags don’t appear on the page itself, but only in the page’s code. It is
little content descriptors that help tell search engines what a web page is about (WordStream,
2017).
In the evidence below, the Oamk’s main English page appears in Google SERPs with
a misleading meta-description about Oulu Entrepreneurship Society. Moreover, in some
English pages, Oamk was using the meta-keywords which are not recommended for SEO in
2017 anymore (Yoast,2017; Moz,2017) with words in Finnish language. This can make the
website hard to find by search engines, as the language tag of the website’s English version is
English.

Figure 6 - Detail of Google search results for “Oulu University of Applied Sciences”,
retrieved from Google on 9.11.2017
Still, a print screen of the Oamk main English page was taken (see the next picture),
showing that Oamk was using the same Meta-description and Meta-title “Oulu University of
Applied Sciences” for the English main webpage of the website, without mentioning Oamk
nor any focus keywords, which can make harder for search engine’s users to understand what
the content of the page is about, affecting relevance and readability. Focus keyword is the
search term that a company most want their page to rank for, so when people search for that
keyword or phrase, they should find the company (Yoast, 2018). The focus keyword should
appear in title, description, H1 & H2 tag, body, and other elements of the webpage. as
demonstrated by the next figure:

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Figure 7 - HTML Code detail from www.oamk.fi/en with same Meta-Description and
Meta-title: “Oulu University of Applied Sciences”, without mentioning Oamk nor any
keywords. Retrieved on 07.12.2017.

As an evidence for the lack of search engine friendly titles and descriptions (Title and
Description tags) on the main English webpage, Print Screens from Google search engine
results pages (SERPs) were taken:

Figure 8 - Google search results for “Oulu University of Applied Sciences” showing
misleading description of Oulu Entrepreneurship Society, retrieved on 29.10.2017
Another example of the lack of search engine friendly titles and descriptions, is when
Oamk uses the school name in Finnish in the title of an English page, and does not use any
meta description containing focus keyword, as demonstrated by the next the next figure:
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Figure 9 - Example of page where Oamk uses the school name in Finnish in the title
of an English page, and does not use any meta description containing focus keywords.
During the situational analysis it was found that many pages in English contained
Meta-keywords, as demonstrated by the following picture:

Figure 10 - Example of the use of meta keywords (outdated) in Finnish language on
an English webpage.
Meta-keywords are a meta tag hidden in the HTML (<meta name=”keywords”
content =”) that were used in the past to list keywords relevant to the page’s content, but, that
nowadays are found to bring spams to the websites and have no positive relation with search
engine rankings anymore (Yoast, 2018).
Still, a print screen of the Oamk main English page was taken (see the next picture),
showing that Oamk was using the same Meta-description and Meta-title “Oulu University of
Applied Sciences” for the English main webpage of the website, without mentioning Oamk
nor any focus keywords, which can make harder for search engine’s users to understand what
the content of the page is about, affecting relevance and readability. Focus keyword is the
search term that a company most want their page to rank for, so when people search for that
keyword or phrase, they should find the company (Yoast, 2018). The focus keyword should

appear in title, description, H1 & H2 tag, body, and other elements of the webpage as
demonstrated by the next figure:
HTML Code detail from www.oamk.fi/en with same Meta-Description and Meta-title:
“Oulu University of Applied Sciences”, without mentioning Oamk nor any keywords.
Retrieved on 07.12.2017.
As an evidence for the lack of search engine friendly titles and descriptions (Title and
Description tags) on the main English webpage, Print Screens from Google search engine
results pages (SERPs) were taken.
Readability
Concerning content quality and length, that is, Readability category, a Benchmarking
analysis was done about search engine results targeting focus keywords. As abovementioned,
Focus Keywords are the search terms that a company most want its page to rank for and are
relevant for SEO and content creation. That is, when people search for that keyword or
phrase, they should find that company’s website (Yoast, 2018).
A Benchmarking analysis consists in comparing one's business processes and
performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies. In this
specific Benchmarking, Oamk was compared to other multidisciplinary universities of
applied sciences, which were informed by Oamk’s Marketing and Communications Manager.
Sample focus keywords were chosen and then used in a trusted SEO Report tool, called SEO
Report card. Sample focus keywords chosen were “Study in English in Finland” and
“Bachelor’s Degree in Finland”. After the analysis was performed using the abovementioned
keywords, it was discovered that Oamk was appearing on 95th position of Google Ranking
for the search “Bachelor’s Degree in Finland”:

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION STRATEGY
The SEO strategy for Oamk aims to provide a plan of action designed to help the institution
to achieve the SEO and internationalization goals. The target audience, the value proposition,
as well as the main benefits of SEO were created to build the SEO strategy, as follows:
This SEO implementation plan aims to position the Oamk’s website content on the SERPs in
response to a search for a relevant keyword phrase. Someone interested in the information
will click on the links on SERP listing. Visitors will then arrive on Oamk’s website, research
their options, and gain trust in the company’s ability to help. Finally, visitors might fill out a
form, call, apply to something, or otherwise take an action that moves them further down the
path toward becoming an international student in Oamk. This frequently doesn’t happen on
the first visit. (Mheda Journal, 2013).

Content development for SEO, must be based on which topics does the commissioner
wants to be found for, must anticipate the audience’s intention and should be better than
current SERP winners. Busche, 2017, stated that higher-quality content is the number one
source of satisfaction for any visitor, and that it is important to define which words will be
used on each page, as well as the distribution of all words through the site content. Although
there is no such thing as an ideal content length that will get a website in the first position in
search results, many experts have noticed patterns in the top-ranking and high-quality content
pieces: Social shares, shareability, time on page, language neither too simple nor full of
industry jargon, written to its audience, not for peers, and linking improving with long-form
content, may end up ranking better in search. (Busche, 2017)
Domain authority
The Domain Authority (DA) is a Moz search engine rankings which predict how highly a
website ranks at the results pages of the search engine (SERPs). A score of a domain
authority is between one and cent, with higher results that match higher ranking capacity.
(MOZ, 2017). The Oamk’s MOZ Domain Authority rank is shown below:
The site’s overall reputation can send positive or negative signals to search engines
(Busche, 2017). As the commissioner’s content helps establish its brand’s authority, the site’s
“search prestige” rises. Similarly, if the commissioner’s site is a creditable source within its
niche, that will give any content published by the commissioner an extra boost. The backlinks
we just analysed contribute greatly to a certain domain’s reputation. Having authoritative
backlinks, meaningful internal linking, and removing unnecessary or spammy links, are all

essential tactics to improve the commissioner site’s domain reputation over time (Busche,
2017).
Images File name and Alternative text
Images, when added with a certain consideration, will help readers understand
website’s contents better. “A picture is worth a thousand words”. As confirmed by Busche,
2017, images and other media types receive special treatment when crawled by search
engines. According to Moz, 2018, alternative text and images file name are description of a
graphic, which usually isn’t displayed to the end user. A good Meta description should be
exciting and easy to comprehend and visualize, an active voice should be maintained in
writing a Meta description.
A language that persuades the users to take the next step is vital, incorporating an
offer within the Meta description is a persuasive way of increasing the clicks, I will also offer
an answer to curbing the competition. Pages targeted should be selected carefully and
included in the Meta description. Google is more inclined on use of Meta description and
highlights it in results of the search. Users should know at a glance what your site is all about
when the read your keywords. Meta descriptions should be unique; phrases should not be
continuously repeated hence creating redundancy. A good Meta description is written while
considering what the final users would think.

References
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marketing. Marketing Science, 32(4), 644-651.
Furnell, S., & Evans, M. P. (2007). Analysing Google rankings through search engine
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Grappone, J., & Couzin, G. (2011). Search Engine Optimization (SEO): An Hour a Day. John
Wiley & Sons.
Busche, L. (2017). Powering Content : Building a Nonstop Content Marketing Machine.
Sebastopol,CA: O'Reilly Media.
Clay, B. (2015). Search Engine Optimization All-in-One for Dummies, Third Edition. John
Wiley & Sons.
Google Developers. (2017). Introduction to Structured Data. Retrieved from
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data
Investopedia.(2018). Internationalization. Retrieved from
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/internationalization.asp
Mediative. (2018). Trends for Marketers to Prepare for in 2018: #2 Voice Search.
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Mheda Journal. (2013). Search Engine Marketing Value Proposition. Retrieved from
https://www.themhedajournal.org/2013/04/16/search-engine-marketing-value-
proposition/ MOZ. (2016). Revisiting "Navigational," "Informational," &
"Transactional" Searches in a Post-PageRank World. Retrieved from MOZ:
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post-pagerank
Neil Pateil. (2018). 11 Reasons You Need to Focus on Long-Tail Keywords for SEO.

Retrieved from https://neilpatel.com/blog/long-tail-keywords-seo/
Search Engine Journal. (2016). How Important Are Tags for SEO? Retrieved from
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Shenoy, A., & Prabhu, A. ( 2016). Introducing SEO: Your Quick-Start Guide to Effective
SEOPractices.
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Yoast. (2017). Image SEO: Optimizing images for search engines. Retrieved from
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Yoast. (2018). Retrieved from Meta keywords: Why we don't use it and neither should
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A Provisional timetable for the proposal –Gantt Chart
Project Activities 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1
0
1
1
12
Course study project planning
Formulation of and Implementation of the study modules, In-
depth analysis of the research topics
Data collection
Data analysis
Preparation and drafting of Literature review, computer-
mediated dissertation research, and analysis
Assessment methodology & prototype development/refinement
and final interface development
Case-study applications modifications and completion of a
comprehensive assessment of literature and theoretical
hypothesis framework.
Policy workshop and formulation of policy recommendations
and meeting with the course supervisor to discuss the general
framework and preliminary data analysis of the whole research.
Updating of proposal chapters for dissertation and submission
of the final draft report
Begin planning to write up
Final write up begins with final report and project
recommendations and professionally printing the proposal from
word processor.
Completion of final Write up and making minor revisions if
required