Higher Education Marketing Education and News
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AI SEO for Higher Education: How to Get Your Institution Recommended by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Search
Half of prospective students now use AI search tools weekly to research programs. If your institution isn’t showing up in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews, you’re invisible to half your audience. In 2026, success is measured by AI citations and brand mentions within generative summaries, not just clicks. …
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Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation Partners With Search Influence for AI SEO Audit
Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation has engaged Search Influence to conduct a comprehensive AI SEO audit. This audit will focus on how the program’s academic content is represented across AI-driven and traditional search environments. As generative search tools and AI-powered summaries continue to influence how people discover and evaluate …
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30+ AI Search in Higher Education Stats [2026]
Higher education discovery is becoming increasingly more distributed, more automated, and more competitive. Students now rely on a mix of AI tools, traditional search engines, and social platforms as they evaluate programs. Institutional strategies, however, do not always reflect how these new search elements work together. Below, we’ve compiled over …
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All of Your Higher Education Marketing Questions Answered
This post was updated by Paula French on 1/22/26 to reflect current best practices. It was originally published on 11/7/25 Key Insights Half of all prospective students now use AI tools daily or weekly, making AI-optimized content and entity SEO essential for institutional visibility. Fewer than 50% of higher ed …
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90+ Higher Education Marketing Stats [2026]
This post was updated by Paula French on 12/23/2025 to reflect current best practices. It was originally published on 1/9/2025. Higher education marketers face more pressure to compete than ever before. From the demographic cliff and evolving modern learner to the rise of AI-driven program discovery, institutions must pay close …
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Search Influence SEO: Powering Your Visibility in AI and Your Enrollment Growth
Key Insights Student discovery now happens across multiple channels and moments, not a single search engine. Prospects move fluidly between platforms, which means visibility must extend across every place they form early impressions. AI summaries are becoming the new first impression for many learners. With 79% reading AI Overviews, institutions …
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AI Search Optimization for Graduate Education Marketing in 2026
What 2025 Research Tells Us About AI Visibility, Zero-Click Search, and Enrollment Strategy Executive Summary Here’s the reality: the way prospective graduate students find and evaluate programs has changed faster than most of us anticipated. Research from across 2025 — including original survey data from UPCEA and Search Influence (n=705) …
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UPCEA MEMS 2025 Recap: 11 Higher Ed Marketing Presentations That Show Where We’re Heading
This review was created with AI assistance and human guidance from Will Scott, AI SEO Expert and CEO of Search Influence. TL;DR: The UPCEA MEMS 2025 conference made one thing clear: AI isn’t coming to higher education marketing. It’s here. And institutions that aren’t actively optimizing for AI search, building …
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Search Influence Named a Finalist for Best SEO Campaign at the 2025 US Agency Awards
We’re excited to share that Search Influence has been named a Finalist in the Best SEO Campaign category at the 2025 US Agency Awards for our AI-driven campaign, The Art of AI SEO, created in partnership with Maine College of Art & Design (MECA&D). This recognition marks our second consecutive …
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Higher Education AI Search Strategy: What Students Expect vs. How Institutions Must Adapt
Key Insights Students have shifted how they search. Prospective learners now use AI tools alongside traditional search, making structured, consistent program information essential for visibility. Institutional readiness lags student behavior. Many colleges recognize the influence of AI search but still lack the systems and processes to monitor and improve their …
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