Case Study: Indiana Wesleyan University's (IWU) Online Programs: Learning to Reach Prospective Students
“After restructuring the IWUOnline site
per iProspect’s recommendations,
we are being
flooded with new student inquiries.
The site is now very well organized and we’re definitely
seeing the difference
it has made in terms
of visibility in search engines. Students, prospective students and faculty are now finding and using our website with ease.
Our relationship
with iProspect has been beneficial in
so many ways.”
Allyn Beekman Director, Center for Distributed Learning
Situation
Founded in 1920, Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU) has become one of the fastest growing evangelical Christian Universities in America. The IWUOnline distance learning program delivers college courses via the Internet using a state-of-the-art customized interface design and offers eight learning degrees. In addition to serving as a delivery method for taking courses, the website, at www.IWUOnline.com, offers instructional information to current users as well as information for prospective student and faculty visitors. Content on the site is designed for multiple audiences including current and prospective students, current and prospective faculty, alumni, and business partners.
Challenges
IWU Online’s diverse audience and multiple degree offerings resulted in a significant amount of content within a relatively small website. Consequently, content was not categorized and focused, producing very long pages. All of this made it difficult for IWUOnline to target keywords in search engines as each page had too much copy and too many unfocused keywords.
Solution
Campaign strategies and recommendations from the iProspect team included the implementation of sub-domains for each of IWUOnline’s unique programs. This allowed for the creation of separate, keyword-focused content aimed at separate target audiences. iProspect helped the client to develop and implement custom content to build out each sub-domain with keyword-centric copy. Content pages and sub-domains were also linked to each other using targeted keyword phrases to increase link relevancy and drive searchers of those keywords to those pages.
The sub-domain strategy allowed for increased directory visibility as well. iProspect’s directory submission process included a thorough analysis of all online learning, college and educational categories, the development of keyword-rich titles and page descriptions for each listing, and manual submissions for directory editor review.
Results
As a result of the sub-domain strategy for IWUOnline.com, monthly search referrals from the major search properties increased 518% 17 months after implementation.
Overall visibility for IWUOnline.com increased by 233%.
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