Smart Strategies: Navigating Google’s School Review Changes

When you’re looking for a restaurant, a doctor, or even the best local coffee shop, where’s the first place you turn? For most of us, it’s Google, and it’s no different for prospective families considering your school. Before they fill out an inquiry form or schedule a tour, many will do a quick search to get a first impression of your school, including reading Google reviews.

This blog kicks off a short series on increasing your school’s digital presence in today’s shifting online landscape. Over the coming weeks, we’ll share quick, actionable tips on everything from boosting your organic SEO to optimizing your school website and using FACTS’ tools to uncover and promote what makes your school stand out.

Big Changes

Recently, there’s been an important update that schools need to know: Google is removing some reviews for certain types of schools. While the full reasoning hasn’t been made public, it appears to relate to a policy shift where Google is restricting reviews for organizations considered public services or government-related, including many K–12 schools.

What to Do Next

If your school has relied on Google reviews as part of your marketing or SEO strategy, you might notice a sudden drop in the number of reviews or even see them disappear altogether. Here’s what you can do right now:

• Monitor your listing: Check your Google Business Profile regularly so you’re aware of any changes.
• Focus on other review platforms: Encourage families to leave testimonials on platforms like Niche, Private School Review, Facebook, or your own website. This could be a great time to consider incentivizing these reviews with gift cards, school merchandise, or more.
• Gather direct testimonials: Collect quotes, stories, and feedback from families that you can share in marketing materials, newsletters, and online. Re-enrollment is a good time to solicit these testimonials – you can add a quick testimonial box to your re-enrollment packet! If you don’t have a dedicated space for reviews on your website, consider adding them on your homepage for perspective parents to see the value of your school.
• Strengthen your owned channels: Make sure your website clearly communicates your value with proof points, highlights your community, and shares authentic stories since it may now be an even bigger first impression than your Google listing. Examples of good proof points include how many students are enrolled, your graduation rate, your classroom size ratios, how many STEM/STEAM classes or extracurricular activities are offered, what types of clubs are available, any sports or arts activities, awards you’ve earned, and parent testimonials.

This is also a great opportunity to take a closer look at the overall marketing strategy for your school. What is and isn’t working? Just as lessons plans change or school procedures change, marketing tactics should be looked at year over year to evaluate what changes need to be made.

Don’t Forget About the Power of Good Feedback

The purpose of reviews is to show your families’ feedback, helping potential families choose their next school knowledgeably and confidently. Here are a few simple questions you can ask families to help guide their feedback and highlight what makes your school special:

• What made you choose our school, and how has that decision impacted your family?
• Is there a teacher, program, or activity that has made a meaningful difference for your child?
• Can you share a moment or experience that made you feel confident your child is in the right place?
• What would you tell another parent who is considering enrolling their child here?
• While most feedback is good feedback, helping your families make reviews that answer questions and give the best possible insight into your school as possible is key.

The Bottom Line

Marketing your school is already a big task and staying on top of changes like this can feel overwhelming, especially if marketing isn’t your full-time job at the school. With a proactive strategy, you can continue to make strong, positive impressions on prospective families, even with fewer Google reviews to rely on. While they represent one approach to SEO, there are many others you can incorporate to attract perspective families to your school.

Stay in the loop by creating a Google alert (or multiple alerts) for keywords like “school marketing,” follow school marketing experts on LinkedIn to help you stay in the know, or follow us! We can’t wait to share more of these tips with you in this Smart Strategies series!

Want to learn more? Explore our blog for more insights, tips, and strategies on all things education.

We love hearing from users about how FACTS Student Information System (SIS) has helped them save time, improve communication, and stay focused on what matters most at their schools. One of the most frequent comments we get from school leaders, however, is how they’re constantly learning new things about what the SIS can do.

While it’s great to hear that people are continuing to find new ways to refine processes and save time, we want to make sure our schools are making the most out of FACTS SIS. One of the greatest tools for working smarter instead of harder? Maintenance Manager, a hidden gem included in FACTS SIS.

What is Maintenance Manager?

Maintenance Manager is a built-in automation tool that keeps your school running smoothly behind the scenes by allowing you to set up customized email alerts based on activity in your SIS. It makes it simple to stay on top of important student data and alert the right people at the right time without adding to your team’s workload. Say goodbye to having to dig for information to keep your staff and families informed!

Set It and Forget It

If you haven’t explored this feature yet, now’s the time. Here’s a quick overview of some of the top automated alerts you can set up in Maintenance Manager:

• Attendance Notifications: Automatically alert parents or staff when a student reaches a certain number of absences. This is an easy and effective way to support early intervention.
• Behavior Updates: Send automated messages based on the demerits or merits entered into your SIS, ensuring that behavior concerns or praise don’t go unnoticed.
• Missing Attendance Reminders: Automatically nudge teachers or admins if class attendance hasn’t been submitted. That means fewer data gaps, more complete records, and no more awkward reminder emails.
• Gradebook Alerts: Keep families informed by alerting them to missing, failing, or incomplete grades as soon as they’re entered. No surprises at report card time!

No Extra Work. Just Smarter Work.

Maintenance Manager is only one example of how the team here at FACTS is constantly improving our products based on feedback from schools and their real, day-to-day needs. The best part? You don’t need additional logins or training to start using this product; it’s already included in the SIS and just waiting for you to get started!

To learn more about Maintenance Manager, visit HubHelp for a quick training overview or to learn more about setting up reports. You can also check out our latest Product Roadmap Blog to learn more about FACTS product updates.