Case Study: A Sub-Domain Strategy for an Online University
Situation
This international university launched a web-based virtual campus to offer accelerated degree programs in business, information technology, healthcare management, visual communications, marketing, criminal justice and education. Students could study online to achieve their Associate's, Bachelor's or Master's degrees.
The site's marketers had been purchasing links on external sites in an effort to drive traffic. However, they soon realized there was a huge market of potential students using the major search engines that they still were not reaching. They wanted to be able to take advantage of the search engines and drive that traffic directly to the degree pages on the website.
Challenges
Attracting qualified visitors and creating brand awareness for the university online required a significant presence within the major search properties. However, the website consisted of one large domain that detailed numerous programs and attempted to simultaneously speak to many different target audiences. Furthermore, the large volume of content was not categorized and didn't focus on specific areas. Because of this, the site's marketers could not target specific keywords on individual pages (or sections) and were therefore unable to gain visibility with the search results on relevant search terms.
Solution
iProspect initially studied the online education industry, the search behavior of potential students and parents looking for online degree information and programs, as well as a number of competitor sites, in an effort to enhance the client's existing keyword list and ensure they were targeting a robust group of relevant terms.
At the recommendation of iProspect, the client implemented separate sub-domains - with keyword centric URLs - for each of their online degree programs. Content was re-written and categorized so that the client could target separate, unique groups of users, rather than just one general audience. This way, website visitors could find information more quickly and easily, and the client's website was better at meeting their needs. Keyword-rich meta data was then implemented for all the top level pages of these sub-domains, and directory listings were identified and successfully obtained within Yahoo!, Business.com and Looksmart for each sub-domain.
Results
As a direct result of the sub-domain implementation, overall online visibility for the website has increased by 299%. Position one rankings alone have increased by 167%, allowing the site to be found more easily by students and parents searching for online degree information and programs.
At the start of the SEM campaign, the visibility of the client's site was compared to their top competitors. The site currently outranks its closest competitor with 833% more visibility on non-branded keyword phrases.
When the client came to iProspect, just 36 keywords were generating top-30 rankings, 41% of which were branded phrases. Currently, there are 114 target keywords generating top-30 rankings - 85% of which are non-branded phrases. The client's website can now be found on a more diverse set of keyword phrases, making it much easier for prospective students to locate them within search engines.
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