Search Engine Optimization for Higher Education Institutions

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)