How to Evolve Your School’s Search Strategies in an AI World
Think about the last time you searched for information online.
If you’re like many people, you might have started with an AI tool instead of Google – or if you did choose a search engine, you likely saw an AI overview at the top of your results.
In just a few short years, our search behavior has evolved dramatically, so it’s important that our marketing strategies and tactics also evolve.
Our marketing experts have been tracking these changes closely – figuring out the best way to not just keep pace but to stay a step ahead. Take a look at what we’ve learned so far, and how it can help your school pivot its strategy to continue to be found by right-fit families.
Focus on Visibility, Not Rankings
A high SERP (Search Engine Results Page) ranking has been and always will be crucial. It increases visibility, boosts credibility, and drives traffic. And while a high ranking remains a key goal for search-based marketing, it is now equally (or perhaps even more) important to make sure your strategies consider AI overviews, which appear at the very top of the SERP.
Here are some tips you can use to make sure your website and landing pages appear in these AI overviews:
- Clarity and accessibility: AI tools frequently extract bullet points, lists, or other easy-to-access content (such as FAQs).
- Get to the point: Make sure your content provides direct answers to common questions.
- Speak with authority: Comprehensive, in-depth content that signals experience, expertise, and topic depth will perform better than generic content.
- Data matters: Whenever possible, reference, credit, and link to reputable sources and industry experts to validate your content.
Of course, producing quality content is that much easier when you have a fully formed brand.
Own the Topic
Search engines like Google increasingly prioritize sites that exhibit deep subject matter expertise on a specific topic.
Here are some topics that come up frequently in our interviews with private schools just like yours:
- Affordability: Budgets and price points are common concerns, especially during periods of economic uncertainty, so your private school might consider focusing on a message of financial accessibility.
- Outcomes: Uncertainty about the future is always on parents’ minds. It’s a good idea to highlight how your students are prepared for further education and the world at large.
- Support: Families today are far more aware of and concerned with mental health and overall wellbeing. They want safety and whole-child development – important topics to promote.
From there, you can take intentional steps to own your topic.
- Identify sub-topics: Think of all the possible ways that topic can branch out – start by thinking about potential audience questions and intent.
- Create content: Make sure your topic-specific content populates multiple pages across your digital footprint.
- Keep it connected: Link your content to other pages within your brand or to other industry authorities on that topic.
Remember, much of your success through this strategy will come from topic selection, so it’s important that you know your audience, whether they’re Gen X or Millennial or another demographic.
Try New Tools (and Keep What Works)
Google remains the most-used search engine, but that platform’s grip on the top spot has been undeniably weakening with each passing quarter and year. Between 2024 and 2025, the number of people searching for “private kindergarten” and “best private high school” dropped by 91% and 76%, respectively. This can indicate that while these audiences are still active, they’re doing research on platforms other than Google.
Consider diversifying your strategy to include the following:
- Bing and DuckDuckGo: These tools offer more security protection, which has them growing in popularity. In fact, since 2020, DuckDuckGo’s daily queries have nearly doubled.
- Reddit: Audiences value the credibility that comes from personal, firsthand experiences like those shared on Reddit, which houses 100,000 different unique forums and added more than 18 million new daily active users from 2024 to 2025.
- Performance Max: This Google offering uses machine learning to adapt and optimize ads across Google Search, Display, YouTube, and Discovery. When used by experts who can configure it correctly, it can lead to as much as a 76% increase in conversions.
- ChatGPT: Once a larger volume of data is available, testing out ads directly on the world’s most popular AI tool – which more than tripled in weekly active users from 2024 to 2025 – could lead to exciting opportunities.
For any new platform, be sure that data tracking is set up appropriately so you can see which is worth further effort – and which isn’t. That way, you know where to allocate your budget (and have the numbers needed to advocate for a bigger one).
Get a Bit More Personal
As audiences are becoming more and more accustomed to AI, the way they approach online research is changing. Search queries are becoming a lot longer – and a lot more specific. For example, instead of searching for “private school science california,” they are more inclined to enter “what is the best private school for STEM near san jose.”
Here’s how you can take action to address this change in audience behavior:
- Longtail, high-intent keywords: Over 50% of all searches contain four or more words. Experiment with longer phrases that signify a desire to convert (e.g. “open houses for midtown manhattan private elementary schools that focus on math”).
- Geography and landmarks: Nearly a third of all mobile searches are related to a location. Audiences expect hyper-specificity around locations. This can also take the form of landmarks or neighborhood names.
- Landing pages: Personalized CTAs convert 202% higher than non-personalized CTAs. It’s worth it to build a dedicated landing page that focuses directly on your campaign goals.
Search campaigns that include these considerations – and can be optimized as needed by experts – really do widen the top of your funnel. We’ve helped private schools achieve a 96% increase in open house registrations and a 60% increase in tours.
Follow the Data
AI’s ongoing impact on search means that reliable, relevant data is more important than ever.
Guessing at what may or may not be working will lead to you being left behind.
You need to be able to collect and analyze reliable data that highlights how, where, and why your target audiences are using AI to find and research private schools.
- Search visibility: How often is your school being mentioned in LLM outputs as compared to your closest competitors as well as the industry average? It’s important to know where you stand before you make any adjustments.
- Distribution: Which LLMs are most frequently mentioning you or leveraging information from your website pages? Knowing this can help guide your focus.
- Mentions & citations: Are you appearing more or less frequently in LLM outputs? If a trend emerges, you need to be able to spot it and course correct, if need be.
- Session source: Once your audience finds you via an LLM, which website page are they most often landing on? This gives you insight into what information people are looking for and interacting with.
Through in-depth reporting, our experts can help you transform non-existent, confusing, or disconnected AI search data into actionable insights.
How prepared is your private school for AI’s rapid and institutional effect on SEO? Is your search strategy ready to adapt? Are you confident that your right-fit families will continue to find you?
Our digital marketing experts can help you succeed – no matter what the future holds.
Keep Learning
- What Are Other Schools Spending on Digital Marketing?
- Reaching Parents at the Awareness Stage
- How to Discuss Your School’s Approach to AI with Current and Future Families
At Metric Marketing, we develop measurable and practical strategies to help private and independent schools like yours to make the most of your marketing efforts. We’d love to discuss your private school’s marketing requirements with you. Contact us today to speak with our marketing professionals or use the form below to sign up and receive more marketing tips in your inbox.
