Maximizing Your Website’s Conversion Potential: Data-Driven Strategies for Graduate Admissions Professionals

Presented by Dallin Palmer, Halda; and Keith Ramsdell, Ashland University

Reported by Melanie Steele, MBA, Ursuline College

Research conducted by Dallin and Keith brought to light some interesting information regarding higher education websites, including:

• GEM professionals report that their number one priority for their website in 2023 includes better datadriven decisions.

• 76% of graduate prospects reported visiting a university’s website on day one of their program research.

• A desktop is still the most used device for higher education searches.

• 49% reported it was somewhat easy to find information on an institution’s website.

• 61% of prospective students report that they use a university website to gather details to compare and contrast graduate schools options.

With this understanding, Dallin and Keith provide several tactics to optimize website content and design to improve conversion rates. One tactic is to focus on organic traffic because it increases page views per session. Organic traffic to the home page has an average of nearly 2.5 page views per session and organic traffic to a secondary page has an average of two page views per session. The number of views is significantly higher than paid traffic, which only sees one page view per session on average. When it comes to paid media, TikTok and Google perform