Did you know that, according to Finances Online, 60% of marketers create one piece of content at least once daily—and that, in 2016, 90% of businesses used content marketing? Content marketing, which is the creation of content such as a blog post, videos, and images, is incredibly powerful.
If you want to recruit more students, then content marketing is key to your success. It’s important for you to know what these potential students would want to see in a blog post on your trade school or vocational school website.
However, you might not be sure where to get started. You might be asking yourself questions such as:
“What topics are students most interested in?”
“Who should be writing these blog posts? Students, faculty, the digital marketing team?”
“Are there categories to focus on when publishing college blogs?”
You might be feeling overwhelmed. After all, as a blogger, you can write about just about anything. This makes it difficult to find the right topics and create a content strategy.
That’s why we’ve put together this article. By giving you an idea of what you should write about when writing blog posts, you can recruit more students, fast. Read on to learn more.
Prospective Student Advice
The first type of blog post we’ll cover is the type of content that gives prospective students advice. Usually, these are student blogs, which means that you would have one of your current students write the content. By providing potential students with this content, they will both feel informed about your school and get excited about attending.
Choosing their Track
One of the topics that can be covered in blogs for college students is how current students ended up choosing their track. They can explain what track they were planning on taking and whether there were any classes, career reasons, or professors that ended up changing their minds about which track they chose.
They can also provide the pros and cons of choosing a certain trade or vocation, and how they ended up settling on it.
Why They Chose Your School
Blog sites for students also cover another topic: current students explaining why they chose your school. This is a relatable topic to potential students since chances are they’re looking at a few different options. If they read a blog post about why a current student chose your school, they’re more likely to want to go to your school.
Ask the student to write this blog post to list the reasons why they chose to attend your school, such as courses available, great professors, and success rates after graduation.
Personal and emotional touches are great, too, since these connect with the emotional side of your readers, which can be a powerful persuasive move.
What They Learned in Their First Year
Another great topic, when you have students writing blog posts for potential students, is what they learned in their first year taking classes at your trade school or vocational school. In this blog post, you can have a student write about the challenges and surprises of their first year at your school.
They can also give advice on how to best manage the first year to new students.
Student Life and Culture
While your students will not be living on campus when attending your trade school or vocational college, prospective students will be more interested in your school if they’re excited about the vibrant campus community and culture there. Here are some examples of posts that can explore this topic—which you should have current students write.
The Best Study Spots
Is there a building that has a room with comfortable couches to sit on if students in a class want to study together before an exam? Is there a shopping area near your school that has a Starbucks where students can enjoy a Frappuccino while studying?
Have a student write a blog post about the study spots on and near campus. This will bring the student experience to life for potential students. If they’ve benefitted from joining a study group, they should write about this, too.
The Night Student Experience
Because many of your students will be working during the day and taking classes at night, a student writing about this experience will demonstrate to prospective students that it’s do-able. After all, many of your potential students might be stressed about how to juggle their work and studies.
Publishing a post like this will show them that they can make it work.
Ask the current student writing this blog post to explain how they found the time to study and other strategies. Additionally, have them write about how fulfilling the night student experience is.
The Part-Time Student Experience
This blog post would be similar to the one above. However, it would focus on what it’s like for a current student to have the part-time student experience. Maybe a student takes classes in the morning and works part-time in the afternoons. Or they work at night and have to find time to study and take classes the rest of the time.
By showing potential students that it’s possible to balance working, studying, and enjoying life, they will be more likely to enroll in your school.
Course Offerings and Career Advice
Because you’re running a trade or vocational school, many of your prospective students will be interested in your school’s course offerings and how they can improve their careers. By providing them with this information, which can be written by current students or instructors, they’ll be confident that they’ll be successful if they attend your school.
Typical Semester Schedule
By providing potential students with a sample semester schedule, they can envision what their lives might look like when they’re attending your school. We recommend having students in different tracks write these posts. Additionally, there should be part-time and night school versions.
That way, potential students interested in different subjects and with different schedules will find a sample semester schedule that they can imagine themselves having once they enroll.
Descriptions of Course Offerings in Each Industry
Is there a course that’s incredibly popular among your current students? Is there a course that all electricians have to take or that people studying to become A/C system experts have to take? By having descriptions of these course offerings, potential students can imagine exactly what it’s like to take these courses at your school.
You can have current students write these blog posts so that potential students can imagine themselves in their shoes.
Additionally, you can have faculty write these posts, too, giving potential students tips on how to succeed in the class and explaining how it will bolster their career.
Career Advice
Speaking of bolstering careers…another great blog post topic is career advice. We recommend creating a guide for each career you offer courses in at your school. These should be written with advice on what courses to take, which companies to contact after completing courses, and any other career-related advice.
Because career advice is professional, it’s best to have industry professionals write these blog posts. You might have some of these people working as teachers at your school already, so it should be easy to get in touch and ask them to write a post.
Alumni Posts
Alumni are a great resource when it comes to writing up blog posts to attract potential students. After all, alumni are people who attended your school and who are now successful. They’re evidence that investing in an education at your school pays off. Here are some example topics you might have alumni write about.
Highlights of their Career
If you have alumni writing posts, one great topic is the highlights of their career. Ask them to write about moments when they really enjoyed their job, what they have found most fulfilling about their career, and how having attended your school led to these highlights in their career.
A Typical Day at the Job
An alumni-written post about a typical day at the job will help prospective students envision what it’s like to be successful. This post can include the schedule of a typical day and what it’s like to work on a team and with customers. Ask your alumni working on these posts to include images or videos in their posts, too, so they really bring the typical day at the job to life.
Like with many of the blog posts covered in this schedule, it would be effective to have a series of posts published about the typical day at a job in every industry courses are available in your school. This will bolster your content marketing strategy.
Career Advice After Finishing Courses
Alumni can also give advice on what to do after finishing courses. This can include the best companies to work for in their industry, how to network in the industry, and how to establish industry rates when working for customers.
Have alumni in every industry put together blog posts with this career advice. In addition to helping potential students understand the importance of an education, this will also help them see your school as an authority in the industry. This will make them want to attend.
Faculty Posts
You can also ask your faculty to write blog posts. They can provide information to potential students about what courses are the best to take, how to find a job after finishing courses at your school, and how to succeed in their classes. Let’s review these now.
The Best Courses to Take
The faculty at your trade or vocational school are already making it in whatever industry they’re working in. This is why you’ve hired them to teach at your school—because they’re experts in their trade. For this reason, potential students will be interested in what courses they would recommend they take to have a successful career.
How to Find a Job
Your faculty can also write blog posts about how to find a job once students have taken courses at your school. This can be a guide that gives tips on where to find jobs, how to apply for them, and how to do well during an interview. Additionally, they can give advice on how to start one’s own business.
When asking faculty to do this, have a faculty member in each industry write a different blog post. This way, you can get interest from potential students in every industry sector.
How to Succeed in Classes
Faculty members can also put together guides on how to succeed in the classes they offer. In addition to getting potential students excited about the classes available at your school, this will also make them feel that your school offers a supportive learning environment.
Want More Tips on Blog Post Creation?
Do you need more tips on blog post creation? Maybe you want advice on how to find the right students to write blog posts for you. Or maybe you want to learn about how to use the right strategies to get your blog posts seen by prospective students once you’ve posted them.
Whatever you need, we’re here to help. At Local Finder, we’re experts when it comes to the content creation and digital marketing you need to recruit new students at your trade or vocational school. To learn more about how we can help, contact us here.