Improving Delta State Polytechnic Ogwashi-Uku (DSPG) Website for Effective Marketing Cum Global Ranking

Abstract

The focus of this paper is to provide a guide for the improvement of the Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku (DSPG) website for effective marketing cumglobal ranking. The paper specifically examined the roles of websites in higher education; analyzed the web presence and visibility of DSPG and also identify guidelines for improving the design, content and value of the website. The paper adopted both the quantitative and qualitative methods. Primary information was obtained from four major Search Engines Optimization (SEO) namely, Google, Google Scholar, Bing and Yahoo. Result of Google search shows that DSPG recorded 66,600 Hits in 2019 and 107,000 in 2020; Google Scholar search recorded 318 Hits in 2019 and 395 hits in 2020; Bing recorded 58,800 Hits in 2019 and 52,300 in 2020; while Yahoo! recorded 87,000 Hits in 2019 and 76,300 in 2020. The paper concluded that the institution’s current Webometrics ranking of 213 out of the 249 Nigerian institutions ranked will experience a tremendous improvement in both linkage operations and global competitiveness when the recommendations of this paper are carefully considered and implemented. Thus, it is recommended that a team comprising ICT experts, sound academics and web developers should be set up to oversee the management of the DSPG website for excellent results. In addition, the paper recommends that DSPG Management should encourage lecturers to publish their papers in highly rated open access journals in their various fields and also reconsider using www.ogwashi-ukupoly.edu.ng as the official web address in place of www.mydspg.edu.ng as it is amore fascinating, generally acceptable and effective web address that can leverage DSPG overall performance in line with global academic best practices.