AI in Higher Education: UPCEA Conference Takeaways to Improve Your SEO Strategy
April 16th, 2025 by
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.
H2: Top FAQs From the AI in 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.
