Case Study: One of the Nation’s Leading Originators and Holders of Student Loans
Situation
One of the nation's leading originators and holders of student loans, this client's website provides general information on everything from planning for college to repaying loans. The site also allows students to apply for loans, as well as manage their accounts online.
The goal for the search engine marketing campaign was to increase the website's visibility in the major search properties, and thereby attract a larger volume of qualified visitors to the website.
Challenges
The website utilized a frames page structure to divide its content into multiple, scrollable regions. Frames are used for simultaneous loading of two or more Web pages within the same screen. This creates a problem with search engine spiders because they are only able to read the frame source page, which usually contains very little content - with most of the content being placed within the second frame. As a result, the use of frames on the website posed a big challenge, as search engine spiders were not accessing the majority of the site's keyword-rich content. The company's online marketers, however, did not want to eliminate the frames because they preferred the aesthetic design.
Solution
Because the client felt strongly about keeping the frames page structure, iProspect suggested the use of JavaScript to include the content of the frames pages within the meta data on the frames source page, so that search engine spiders would be able to view it when pages were submitted to the major search engines. The client was pleased with this method and agreed to incorporate it into the site.
Additionally, iProspect performed a thorough keyword investigation into the searcher behavior of search engine users looking for information on college planning and educational financial assistance. The team then worked to optimize the site and make manual submissions to the major search properties. Additionally, iProspect implemented an aggressive directory strategy consisting of a thorough analysis of educational loan categories, the development of keyword-rich titles and page descriptions for each listing, and manual submissions for review by search directory editors. Subsequently, a relevant content endorsement™ strategy was developed and implemented so that the site would obtain links from other relevant websites that would bring additional visitors to the site.
Results
At the outset of the campaign, only 1.95% of traffic to the website was from search. Currently, 45% of traffic to the site is from search.
The overall number of search referrals has increased 658%.
63% of the website’s rankings are visible on the first page of search results.
The client has surpassed all competitors in terms of overall visibility. The website outranks its closest competitor by 46%.
