AMPLIFY YOUR ACADEMICS:
HOW WE’RE CREATING A WIN-WIN SOLUTION IN A DECENTRALIZED WEB STRUCTURE
#SNT10
HI Y’ALL!
Meaghan Milliorn
@meaghanfikes | mkmilliorn@ualr.edu
RAISE YOUR HAND
Are there administrative assistants, grad assistants or student workers who are responsible (at least in some capacity) for updating/managing the content on your website?
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BACKGROUND
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AN IDEA IS BORN
BUY-IN
PLANNING & GOALS
PRODUCTION
LAUNCH & RESULTS
AN IDEA IS BORN
How did this all get started? Define the problem. Look for solutions.
“Studying at UALR”
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If that’s the best we can do, we’re failing our students.
- Noel Levitz report for UA Little Rock, 2018
If faculty are asked to develop or maintain web pages, �your site will never be good.”
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BUT HOW?
No money, no extra staff, hiring freeze...
And faculty who don’t want to give up control
LET’S CREATE A
BRAND NEW MARKETING-FOCUSED ACADEMICS WEBSITE!
Based on research and data!
With a landing page for each program!
BUY-IN
Specific reasons, backed by research and data, for why this project is crucial and necessary
PROPOSAL
Rely on your relationships with leadership
This isn’t Us vs. Them
DATA
RELATIONSHIPS
DATA FOR BUY-IN
(Faculty and administration LOVE data)
67% of seniors & 77% of juniors search college websites for academic programs and degrees (2018)
DATA FOR BUY-IN
Transform department web �pages into landing pages… consider creating specific landing pages for specific programs.”
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Top 3 things students prefer:
DATA (2019)
What is receiving the most traffic?
What are users searching for?�
What is your audience doing?�
EXAMINE YOUR OWN ANALYTICS
More than 8k users visited in Jan. 2019
�Our page was consistently in top three pages visited
Helpful for non-web people
North Park & Oswego
VISUAL EXAMPLES
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Let’s stop making it so hard for our students.
BUY-IN
Industry data
Site analytics
Visual examples
Plus - the promise that we’re not taking sites away from the deans.
PLANNING & GOALS
Map out relevant, marketing-focused content that meets your audience’s needs while ensuring the university’s goals are met
CONTENT
IS KING
This isn’t about what YOU want.
Base everything on data and research.
Let the student data inform your content decisions.
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PROGRAM PAGE MUST-HAVES:
DEFINE YOUR GOALS
More than just “create an awesome, �kick-ass site.”
Specific and measurable
GOAL: INCREASE ENROLLMENT
HIGHER ORGANIC SEARCH RANKINGS
�UTILIZE METATAGS & KEYWORDS TO �ENHANCE SEO
MORE WEBSITE VISITS
�EASY TO TRACK AND MEASURE
MORE INQUIRIES
RFI ON EACH PAGE, TRACKABLE,�USERS RECEIVE PERSONAL REPLY
MORE APPLICATIONS
ADMISSIONS HELPS STUDENT WITH THEIR GOALS, �TRACKABLE
GREATER ENROLLMENT
�WINNER WINNER
ADDITIONAL GOALS
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CONSISTENT DESIGN
MARKETING-FOCUSED
RESPONSIVE
ACCESSIBLE
PRODUCTION
Get to work. Content + design + �development + coffee
GATHER CONTENT
135 programs with multiple degrees in each
Only 30 departments submitted content.
Narrator: It was not a great idea.
Meg: Let’s get the departments to provide us with some of the content! �Adam: Sounds like a great idea!
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DESIGN & �DEVELOPMENT
Bucknell
Clemson
DePaul
Furman
North Park
Northwestern
Ohio State
INSPIRATION FROM:
Oswego
Roosevelt
Syracuse
Roosevelt
Saint Louis University
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
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DEVELOPMENT
Unable to integrate the RFI with our CRM, but didn’t want to send users off our site to the CRM
Create short, simple RFI on each program page. Submissions go to Admissions with tailored confirmation emails
Unable to have search box or filters for user to find a program
Organize programs into top-level interest groups and also provide A-Z listing of programs
PROBLEM
SOLUTION
Look for solutions without compromising the user experience.
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A BABY WEBSITE IS BORN
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THE END
Everything went perfect and there were zero complaints.
😂
Listen to the complaints, requests and feedback. Most people just want to be heard. Evaluate the requests but remember that you’re the expert. �(And remember all that data you have!)
Most importantly, remind others that this site is for prospective students.
LISTEN TO FEEDBACK
RESULTS
Measure and evaluate results, provide reports, look for continuous ways to improve
PAGEVIEWS: AUG. 16 - OCT. 4
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448% increase in pageviews
External traffic
SITE REFERRER: AUG. 16 - OCT. 4
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GOOGLE, YAHOO, BING
51,781
DIRECT
12,448
2,919
OTHER
5,213
9,621 (2018)
664,393 impressions
129,889 reach
4,142 unique clicks
FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM AUG. 30 - OCT. 10
AVERAGE PAGE LOAD TIME
2018: 3.33 sec
2019: 1.90 sec
Previously
0-1 RFI submitted per week
422 forms
in 8 weeks
422 students
in 8 weeks
5,171% �increase
THANK YOU!
@meaghanfikes
mkmilliorn@ualr.edu
#SNT10