6 Step Process
Step 1
Institutional Marketing sends program questionnaire to program's contact(s).
Step 2
Program sends back questionnaire to Institutional Marketing.
(1-2 weeks)
Estimated time to complete: 15-45 minutes
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)
Estimated time to complete: 15-60 minutes
Step 6
Institutional Marketing makes edits and pushes page live.
(1-2 weeks)
Takes Less Than an Hour of Your Time
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.
What Institutional Marketing Needs From You
- Dedicated points of contact for each program/degree
- Meet deadlines
- Collaboration and communication
- Some of your time to fill out a questionnaire and send edits
What Institutional Marketing is Doing For You
- Researching keywords for your program/degree
- Writing you a page with SEO top of mind
- Creating a page for your program/degree
- Photo selection for your page(s)
- Making future edits to your page, including any SEO or information updates
- Monitoring SEO and page performance over time
- Collaborating and communicating with you
Why Do These Pages Exist?
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.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Why SEO Matters
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) AKA "how to rank the highest on Google" is vital for improving a website's visibility, driving organic traffic, enhancing user experience, building credibility, staying competitive and achieving long-term marketing success. If you're interested in learning more about SEO or implementing SEO into your website strategy, we dedicated a whole webpage dedicated to search engine optimization at UW.
How These Pages Are Different
When most people sit down to write content for a webpage, they often write to get the correct information out there as soon as possible or to check boxes. People writing this content rarely put themselves in the shoes of their audience and just think about what they want or their supervisor wants on the page. What makes these degree pages different are that they are written with SEO and our audience (prospective students) top of mind. From the way these pages are templated to the headings, Institutional Marketing made SEO the backbone of these pages and we can show for it too, just check out our stats at the bottom of this page!
Project Goals
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!
Deletion of Extraneous Program pages
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. 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.
In late 2025/early 2026, site editors were previously notified of extraneous degree pages slated for removal and given the opportunity to request content transfers or updates. Moving forward, these pages will be deleted as part of ongoing maintenance without additional communication. You can learn more about this project here.
Deletion Criteria:
- Degree Information. If your page mentions specifics about a degree, which can be put on an SEO degree page, it will be deleted. A sentence or two is fine if it is linking to the corresponding degree page.
- Listing Courses & Curriculum. Courses and curriculum information are linked on SEO degree pages through acalog.
- Short Career/Alumni Outcomes Pages. There is a whole section dedicated to career outcomes on SEO degree pages. If you have a well-fleshed-out career outcomes/alumni outcomes page, that’s fine, but we need to try to get this information on the SEO degree pages.
- QuickStarts/Minors/Certificates. Programs and degrees outside of the traditional bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate need SEO degree pages as well.
Gateway Pages/Sections
- Pages can list degrees and programs and link to the corresponding SEO degree page.
- Describing a degree program with a couple of sentences and then linking to the SEO degree page is 100% okay and encouraged!
Well Fleshed-Out Alumni Pages
- Pages that contain alumni profiles/long-form information about alumni are completely okay and encouraged.
Detailed Admission Pages
- While we encourage admission information to be found on SEO degree page, we understand that some programs have admission processes that can't be explained in 1-2 paragraphs.
- DO bookmark your Department's/Program's SEO degree pages link to them.
- DO bookmark this page so you can easily access information and help when you need an edit or have a question about SEO degree pages.
- DO reach out to Shelbey Gunter (sprusia@uwyo.edu) for any questions about this project.
- DO reach out to Shelbey Gunter (sprusia@uwyo.edu) for any edits on your SEO degree pages.
- DON'T rebuild degree pages or pages containing degree information in your directories (they will be deleted without notice and we are monitoring directories).
- DON'T be afraid to reach out to Shelbey Gunter (sprusia@uwyo.edu) for edits on your SEO degree pages.
Institutional Marketing has conducted many focus groups with first-year, current, transfer and graduate students. This is what they had to say about our SEO degree pages/the UW website experience:
- Like the conciseness of SEO degree pages. Students were shown the new template for degree pages and had high praise for the design and conciseness of content.
- Don’t enjoy being on an “endless loop." Students noted having difficulties navigating our website. Providing students with a one-stop shop will lower the chance of them being in an endless loop on our website.
- Degree/program information is hard to find. Our students said they found it hard to find degree information on the website and would’ve loved to have landed on an SEO degree page.
- Search generation. During all the search exercises focus groups were put through, almost every student used Google or our internal search to find the information they were asked to discover.
Achievements & Stats
2025 Stats for SEO Degree Pages & Program Finder
FrEquently Asked Questions
Access to these pages is limited to a few people in Institutional Marketing. Site editors outside of those select few in Institutional Marketing, will not be granted access to these pages at any time.
Website Strategist Shelbey Gunter (sprusia@uwyo.edu) is the main site editor for these pages and edits to these pages get top priority! We also make yearly edits to aspects of the page like tuition. We want to be as collaborative as possible.
Email Shelbey Gunter (sprusia@uwyo.edu) with any edits you have to your page(s) and she will make them at her earliest convenience. Please be sure to send the URL of the page you're needing edits on and be specific which areas need updated on the page!
Absolutely nothing! Any funding costs for this project will be provided by Institutional Marketing. We just ask for a little bit of your time!
We would love nothing more! The point of these pages is not only SEO but to centralize our degree program pages. If you have another program you'd like a page for, email Shelbey Gunter (sprusia@uwyo.edu). This goes for future programs as well.
While it's not a requirement for you to link to these pages on your site, it is encouraged! Linking is a huge part of SEO and it would be beneficial to have complete degree information on your site.
Absolutely! These pages are for you to use and we encourage using these pages when promoting your program(s) as they are up-to-date and accessible.
All programs and degrees at the University of Wyoming must have an SEO degree page to ensure visibility in the new program finder. The program finder only displays information from these pages, so degrees without them won't appear in search results. This centralization improves user experience, enhances SEO, and eliminates duplicative content, ensuring that prospective students can easily access accurate program information. Read more about this in our future plans section of this webpage!
On the career/job section of the degree pages, the component containing current employment, average salary and job posting information is an exclusive module used just for degree pages.
We are closely monitoring the status of each and every program and its SEO degree page. If you're interested in seeing if you have a program page live, your page is in progress or if you program page is at a stand still, we have a spreadsheet for that!
We are excited to announce the overhaul of our current program finder search tool. This significant upgrade features a fresh, modern look and a completely redesigned search system to enhance user experience. The new program finder offers 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.
Interested to see how your SEO degree page is performing? Learn more about Google Analytics and request a report today!
If SEO sounds interesting to you and you're ready to start implementing search engine optimization strategies of your own, check out the resources available to you!
If you have any questions about this project or need edits to your /uw/degree-programs/ page, please email Shelbey Gunter directly at sprusia@uwyo.edu.