Higher education landing page best practices
You spend the money. You nail marketing across paid and organic channels. Your ads are optimized. But what happens when a prospective student finally clicks on your landing page?
Landing pages are the make-or-break moment in your enrollment funnel. But, too often, higher education landing pages don’t deliver. If your landing page is all text, clunky and hard to navigate, or too bland and generic, it’s actively working against your goals.
Here’s how to build a higher education landing page that earns the click and converts the student.
Value > Volume
Prospective students today are accustomed to the speed of TikTok. That’s a nice way of saying: nobody is reading a wall of text. In fact, to hit the median conversion rate for higher ed, a landing page should clock in around 363 words. That’s not to say your content isn’t fantastic – it probably is! However, your landing page content needs answer questions, not read like a brochure. Focus on providing value like this:
Focus on the benefits, not the features: Your landing page must immediately and authentically answer the student’s core question: “What’s in it for me?” Stop describing the degree (the features) and start selling the future (the benefits).
Match the source tone: The content, tone, and visual style of your landing page must feel like a seamless continuation of the ad, email, or social post that led the user there. Any disconnect will immediately be clocked as sus, which erodes trust.
Show the receipts: Authenticity is king, and testimonials are your receipts. Real student experiences matter, with 28% of prospective students saying testimonials and day-in-the-life content from current students build trust and relatability. Use short quotes, or better yet, video clips from students or alumni positioned strategically near your conversion points. Your most credible storytellers are your audience.
Optimize the conversion path
It’s the moment of truth – when the form submission converts into a tangible lead. For users, if this feels like homework, you’ve lost the battle. Help avoid abandoned forms by following the tips below.
Reduce the fields: We know that research shows forms with 3 to 5 fields generate optimal conversion rates. Asking for too much information early on is a major deterrent. Collect only the absolute minimum information required (think: name, email, program interest) to begin the nurturing process.
Use intent-based language: Your CTAs should not have commitment issues, and ‘Learn More’ is about as non-committal as you can get. There’s no sense of urgency here. Instead, use declarative language that tells the user the next step. Examples of this are:
- Find Your Program
- Start Your Application
- Take the First Steps
- Schedule a Campus Visit
- Download the Brochure
If you’re in a CTA rut, check out our article on 5 easy tips for an effective CTA.
Sticky CTAs: Place your conversion buttons prominently above the fold. Ensure that micro-CTAs are also utilized throughout the scroll. When the user is ready to act, the opportunity should be waiting for them immediately.
Design for mobile users
Today’s students are on their phones. If your landing page is not mobile-friendly, it’s not a question of if you are losing leads, it’s how many leads are you losing? A cluttered, slow, or poorly formatted mobile experience is an unnecessary expense, and you are paying for it in high bounce rates. Design for mobile users to reduce friction and create trust.
Clutter-free flow: Remember – your landing page has a singular purpose. It is not a catch-all for everything and anything. The best landing pages ditch the corporate clutter and focus on a clean, logical, and scrollable flow.
Distinct visual hierarchy: Use bold headlines and scannable text blocks. Leverage visuals like short videos or student-driven photography, to guide the eye toward the conversion goal. Design should reduce friction, not create it. Get our four top tips for designing high converting landing pages here.
Technical integrity: Leverage performance tools like Google Page Speed Insights to guarantee rapid loading speeds and full cross-platform compatibility. Technical failures are a quick way to lose qualified leads.
Close the loop
So, you’re getting conversions from your landing pages – congrats! Something is clearly resonating with prospective students. This is where we often see marketers drop the ball. Take this win and see this success as the beginning of the lead nurturing relationship. Effective tracking and post-conversion engagement are critical to closing the loop and ensuring you have continuous leads coming in.
The Thank You Page: Don’t treat the “Thank You” page as an afterthought. This is prime real estate to deepen your engagement. Offer a clear, actionable next step, such as a direct link to book an advising session, a relevant school video, or a downloadable checklist.
Track everything: You need both your ad and the landing page to be accountable. Success requires dual-layer tracking on both the front and back end.
On the front end, track user behavior and engagement metrics (e.g., bounce rate). On the back-end, use UTM parameters and CRM integration to track the journey back to the precise campaign that generated it. This ensures you know exactly which ads are driving genuine enrollment.
By continuously testing and iterating based on data, you ensure your landing page is constantly evolving to convert at the highest possible rate, driving maximum value for your higher education campaigns.
In the competitive environment of education marketing, inefficiencies are losing you money. Treat your higher education landing page as a high-efficiency revenue asset, not a digital brochure. By eliminating friction, clarifying value, and ensuring technical and messaging consistency, you will begin to see a tangible, measurable return on every dollar of your marketing budget.
