Case Study: Online and Onsite Higher Education Institution
Background and Goals
This online and onsite higher education institution offers students flexible scheduling and the convenience of 90+ locations to earn an associate's degree, bachelor's degree, or master's degree from an accredited university.
The University's website has three key objectives: lead generation, branding, and educating potential
students and their parents. A user who clicks the Apply Online button and completes an
application form, or clicks the Request More Information button and completes an information request
form to receive a free catalog is considered a lead.
The goal for the search engine optimization (SEO) campaign was to increase the amount of traffic to the
website by 25% from February to October, and as a result, increase the number of leads by 25% for the
same time period.
The pay per click (PPC) advertising campaign had 4 goals in the period of February to October: To increase
the conversion rate (visitor into leads) by 25%; To increase the quantity of leads by 25%; To decrease
the cost per lead (CPL) on non-branded terms by 20% to $185 (from 230.34);To keep the CPL for branded
terms under $15 (beginning with $12.37 at the start of the campaign).
SEO Challenges
The content on the website lacked organization and focus. It was not designed to speak to the benefits
of choosing the University; instead, it simply illustrated the features of each major or program that
they offered. And while the objective of the site was to drive leads, the conversion paths – to
direct users to ultimately take action – were not clearly presented. In fact, the Apply Online
and Request More Information buttons were not easily found due to the lack of color contrast
between the buttons and the page background, and because their placement on the site lacked prominence.
The internal linking also needed to be improved. The top navigation was image-based, which made it
difficult for search engine spiders to understand what the "theme" of the content was on the
following page. In addition, the left-hand navigation was written in JavaScript, which was not able
to be crawled by search engine spiders.
External links needed to be improved as well, as there were few external websites pointing to pages
on the site other than the home page.
Lastly, many of the website's URLs contained a non-targeted keyword phrase, which did not allow search
engine spiders to decipher the "theme" for each page. And although the meta data was optimized for a
single keyword phrase for high level pages, keywords were not consistently included throughout the site.
PPC Challenges
The University struggled to generate traffic to the website on the non-branded keyword phrases on which
they were bidding, and their CPL for non-branded terms was well above the campaign goal of $185.
(During the previous year, their CPL hit a high of $250.) Furthermore, the campaign, which
focused on branded keyword phrases, was not generating many leads. This is not to say that it
was not building brand awareness, because clicks were in abundance, but it was not driving additional
leads – only additional cost.
Additionally, the PPC campaign was nationally focused and lacked a local campus geographic focus.
Given that, it was devoid of any geo-targeting or geo-focused ad copy. As a result, the University
was missing the opportunity to target a large segment of their potential market.
Finally, the content on landing pages was informative and educational, but did not include a strong
call to action to effectively drive users to convert into leads, and the conversion points were
nearly invisible on the page.
SEO Solutions
iProspect performed a website conversion audit during the previous year, and the recommendations were
implemented into the redesigned site in January of the following year. During this time, University
marketers also established a unique value proposition for their marketing initiatives – a slogan which
became their new marketing tagline and the focus of their website's content and offline marketing. The
new tagline was integrated throughout the website, including headers and footers, along with enhanced
content focusing on each major. These pages were optimized with targeted keyword phrases that offered the
highest potential for conversion, and all meta data and URLs were updated to focus on one to two unique
keyword phrases per page. Lastly, a theme was created for each page/section that allows search engine
spiders to more easily determine the content topic, and rank the pages accordingly.
The client/iProspect team improved the internal linking throughout the site by implementing a global
footer on every page so that the internal links for top-tier pages, such as Bachelor's Degree and Career
Education, appeared on every page of the site. This in turn would improve the internal linking structure
and search engine rankings for these keyword phrases. The team also implemented the inter-linking of
pages throughout the site to improve usability in navigating from page to page, specifically within
each section. In order to achieve this, a unique left-hand navigation was developed in HTML for each
section. This segmented the website into cohesive themes so that search engines could more easily recognize
the subject matter of the Web page content.
To improve external linking to internal pages within the website, the client/iProspect team devised a relevant
content endorsement™ strategy to drive additional traffic to multiple internal pages via links from
relevant sources such as libraries and high school websites. The team then researched and obtained Yahoo!
directory links by focusing on locations as well as degree programs. This campaign increased the number
of external links pointing to internal pages by more than 225%.
The team revised the color of the lead generation buttons to create more contrast with the background
colors on the website, and also moved the buttons to the top of the page, and placed them on every page
of the site.
PPC Solutions
The team integrated the new tagline into paid search ad copy to ensure consistent messaging. And,
after thorough research into the education industry and the behavior of search engine users,
the client/iProspect team also expanded the targeted keyword list to ensure the campaign was targeting
the non-branded search terms most used by the University’s target audiences – high school students, military
professionals, non-traditional students, graduate program students, and career-focused individuals.
The team then added a large number of "top-of-funnel" – early consideration or less brand-specific
keywords – to drive awareness, which in turn helped to increase the number of leads generated
on branded keywords.
To drive down the average cost per lead, the team focused on increasing the number of leads from
users searching on non-branded keywords. This was accomplished by removing non-performing keywords
and adding a large number of negative keywords. In addition, the team leveraged Google's content
network to drive awareness about the University and its majors on both branded and non-branded keywords.
For non-branded, the team focused on high priority majors, such as Accounting.
The campaign was expanded within Google and Yahoo! to include more than 20 geo-targeted campaigns.
These individual campaigns were implemented in order to: drive local awareness (based upon campus
popularity), work in-sync with local spot advertising, and deliver more focused ad copy to users.
The geo-targeting campaigns were set up based upon the University's locations that have
large physical campuses.
The client/iProspect team enhanced the PPC campaign's landing pages on their microsite.
The microsite – set up solely for driving paid search leads – was implemented at the
beginning of the campaign as a result of prior planning by the University. A modified layout of
these landing pages drove visitors directly to the conversion point through the prominent placement
of the Request More Information button. The change provided two things: a means for users
who were not yet ready to apply online to quickly and easily request more information; a means
for the University to collect more lead information.
SEO Results
Monthly search visits increased by 82% from February to October, far exceeding the client's goal of 25%.
Monthly leads increased by 81% from February to October, far exceeding the client's goal of 25%.
PPC Results
Monthly leads increased by 148% from February to October, including a 762% increase in non-branded leads and a 90% increase in branded leads. These results far exceeded the client's goal of a 25% increase in leads.
Conversion rate increased by 45% from February to October, far exceeding the client's goal of 25%.
CPL on non-branded keyword phrases improved by 16% to $164.78 from February to October on non-branded keyword phrases, far exceeding the client's goal of $185. CPL on branded keyword phrases improved by 32% to $8.35 from February to October on non-branded keyword phrases, also exceeding the client's goal of $15.
