A small private liberal arts college in a large metro had a hard time getting organic traffic to its website. They were investing heavily in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to be a sponsored result for keywords, but that was getting expensive and search engine optimization (SEO) would be a great way to get additional traffic through organic search.
School
Small private liberal arts collegeServices
SEO
The challenge
SEO was broke and the school was being out ranked on Google by competitors in keywords
The college’s website failed to rank in the top 15 results for keywords except when someone Googled the school’s name. All other search results for keywords showed other colleges and universities.
The marketing team was small. Everyone was an expert in his or her responsibility, but SEO was a daunting task that required a full-time or part-time employee seat which frankly was not an option. Outsourcing was cheaper and brought expertise.
Tools
Google Analytics
Yoast SEO
Search Atlas
WordPress
Fun fact to know about SEO
There are technically 3 different types of SEO that go into the general term SEO.
1. On-page SEO
This is editing content to meet SEO standards including word count, how often the keyword is used, if it’s easy to read, etc.
2. Off-page SEO
This includes things like link building, profile updates (Google, LinkedIn, etc.), mentions on credible websites, etc.
3. Technical SEO
This is adjusting the meta data, setting header tags, optimizing page load speeds, site mapping, etc.
The solution
Improve SEO on a tight budget and no RFP is needed
The college had a tight budget, but wanted to invest in marketing that would move the needle for measurable KPI’s like website traffic. We worked with the Director of Marketing to come at budget. As a bonus the amount did not require an RFP which enabled us to get moving on this project and saved everyone headaches.
We ran an SEO analysis on the websites for the college and on its competitors first determine where the school’s site was failing. We also looked at the school’s core competencies and differentiators. For the first round of edits we wanted to focus on 5 pages that we believed could lead to quick wins that would increase traffic and also the page authority (PA). Having a strong page authority is a way for Google to trust all pages on a site, because Google knows you make good content.
01 Set benchmarks
Benchmark where the school's site is currently ranking and all other important metrix to measure success.
02 Research
We evaluated the school's website and did research on competitor sites to strategize how we could improve SEO.
03 SEO work
We got to work and fixed the technical and off-page SEO. We also worked with the college's writer to improve on-page SEO by assuring the content supported the keywords we were targeting while still staying relevant to the page audience.
04 Measured success
A monthly report was created to measure SEO results against KPI's
05 Ongoing SEO
SEO efforts are ongoing, so each month we monitored the traffic and ranking of the site on all keywords and made updates to stay as the top result.
The results
Increased traffic, student engagement, and leads
The SEO was successful and the college ranked higher on keywords. The college was able to become the top ranked school in the area on two keywords associated with its strongest programs. This stronger SEO resulted in more organic traffic, more total traffic, and an increase in leads generated from the website.
The marketing leadership was impressed with the results and loved that the SEO increased traffic and leads – earning the marketing team some brownie points with admissions. There was a 20% increase in organic traffic and a 4% in website lead generation over the first three months.
20
more organic traffic after 3 months
4
more website leads after 3 months
2
pages ranked #1 for keywords after 3 months