The SEO Degree Program Pages project began in 2019 with the primary goal of enhancing the university's online presence through search engine optimization (SEO), achieving remarkable success in this domain. As the first large SEO initiative of the university, it has consistently aimed to improve the visibility and accessibility of our academic programs in addition to other goals. The project has garnered strong support from various departments across campus, including endorsements from the President's Office and the Board of Trustees. Additionally, deans and directors have played a crucial role in driving this effort forward. Eventually, these pages will replace any extraneous program pages found on department and college directories, streamlining information and providing a unified resource for prospective students and stakeholders.
While there are six steps to this process, when you break it down, the majority of the project is handled by Institutional Marketing. Programs will only need to fill out a questionnaire (step 2) and provide edits to the finalized page (step 5). It is estimated that programs take less than an hour to accomplish both tasks.
Step 1
Institutional Marketing sends program questionnaire to program's contacts
Step 2
Program sends back questionnaire to Institutional Marketing
(1-2 weeks)
Step 3
Page is written by Institutional Marketing with SEO top of mind
(2-4 weeks)
Step 4
Page is built by Institutional Marketing
(1-3 weeks)
Step 5
Page is sent to program to review
(1-2 weeks)
Step 6
Institutional Marketing makes edits and pushes page live
(1-2 weeks)
More prospective students see the page
Optimizing the program page for search engines increases the number of people who see and click the page in Google and other search engines.
Cohesive website experience
When students hit these pages that all have the same look and feel, they will start to recognize these pages are here to educate them about a particular program/degree. This in turn lowers bounce rate and keeps student engaged with UW's website.
Boost enrollment
On these program pages, we will provide students with all the information they need to make a decision and enroll while being transparent about what their prospective program will entail.
Monitor and develop page while collaborating
Institutional Marketing will track your page in Moz and Google Analytics while continuing to develop the page if we see it's falling behind in SEO. You will also be able to make edits anytime - just one email away!
The University of Wyoming is excited to announce a comprehensive overhaul of our current program finder search tool. This significant upgrade will feature a fresh, modern look and a completely redesigned search system to enhance user experience. The new program finder will offer intuitive navigation, improved search functionality and more detailed program information, making it easier than ever for prospective students to explore the academic offerings at UW. This initiative reflects our commitment to providing accessible and user-friendly resources, ensuring that every prospective student can efficiently find the program that best fits their academic and career aspirations.
The new program finder at the University of Wyoming will use an XML feed, which is a special way to organize data so that computers can read it easily. Only news stories and SEO degree pages are programmed to use this XML format. This means that when the new program finder is live, any program without an SEO degree page won't appear in the search results until it gets one. The new system is designed this way and cannot use the old acalog system for displaying programs. So, it's important for every program to have an SEO degree page to be visible in the new program finder.
In our ongoing efforts to streamline our web presence and improve SEO, the University of Wyoming will be requiring the deletion of all extraneous pages containing degree information. For example, the M.A. in Political Science page under /sppais will be retired and replaced solely by the M.A. in Political Science SEO degree page. This initiative aims to promote cohesion and eliminate duplicative content, which negatively impacts our SEO performance. By focusing degree information solely on acalog and the official SEO degree pages, updates will be more manageable and efficient. If you are interested in retiring your degree pages on your directory before the official timeline, please email Shelbey Gunter at sprusia@uwyo.edu to initiate the process.
Project Start
September 3, 2024
While this project has been ongoing since 2019, the FINAL iteration of this project will officially start September 3, 2024! We will still be building pages after this iteration, but all programs listed in the 2024-25 catalog will be built by the end of this timeline.
Questionnaires Returned to Institutional Marketing
March 14, 2025
All program questionnaires need to be sent to Shelbey Gunter (sprusia@uwyo.edu) by March 14, 2025. This will allow for pages writers to have enough time to write and program contacts to have enough time to review pages. Any questionnaires that are not sent in by the program will be filled out by Institutional Marketing.
Pages Live
July 1, 2025
All pages are sent to programs for review before they are pushed live. Programs are given a minimum of two weeks to review their page(s). In order for the new program finder to be built, all degree pages will be published July 1, 2025.
Extraneous Degree Pages Deleted
October 31, 2025
All extraneous degree pages on directories that aren't under /uw/degree-programs, will be deleted and redirected by Institutional Marketing.
