An online higher education powerhouse

Goals

The client’s goals were straightforward:

1. Increase organic traffic to the USD PCE website
2. Increase leads for course and certificate purchases to drive positive return on investment (ROI) from both the website build and the digital marketing program

Challenges

Increasing organic traffic and leads for higher education institutions are two of the things Vital does best. And, as a top WordPress web development and design agency that frequently handles integrations with proprietary higher ed CMS’ like Destiny One, we understand how critical a college or university’s website is to their digital marketing goals. So when tried-and-true digital marketing tactics weren’t working as well as they should have for this higher ed client, we performed a full website audit. 

We discovered that the site’s URL structure was making it next to impossible for them to rank organically for critically important keywords. The problem? Their URLs were generated dynamically and didn’t contain keywords, so Google wasn’t able to classify the site’s structure and content.

In addition, when we started our engagement, the site didn’t have SEO-rich blog content — so while our developers got to work on the technical issues, our digital marketing and content strategy teams dove into keyword research, subject-matter interviews, and writing posts that would both rank for search and add real value for the client’s ideal audience.

Solutions

Website Rebuild: WordPress & Destiny One (Modern Campus)

The higher education market is filled with proprietary CMS platforms like Destiny One from Modern Campus, among many others. These platforms offer robust out-of-the-box functionality tailored to higher education — like easy integration with ERPs, CRMs, and SIS’ — but they often pose challenges that can negatively impact SEO when it comes to backend site structure.

In our decades-long experience building websites for higher education institutions, we’ve learned that a “best of both worlds” approach that integrates WordPress with a proprietary CMS such as Destiny One enables clients to keep the industry-specific functionality they need, while incorporating technical SEO best practices and improving both backend and frontend usability.

Vital got to work on the site rebuild while continuing to create SEO content through our digital marketing program. We understood that we wouldn’t see much impact until we fixed the underlying issues with the site, but we were able to get a massive head start on SEO-rich blog posts and premium content downloads.

Search Engine Optimization

Following the site launch with the new and improved URL structure, we turned our attention to generating organic traffic with our trove of search engine optimized blog posts. Once the site’s traffic started to gain momentum, we added a push to generate early-stage leads with premium content downloads.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Our strategists identified the most successful blog posts and used those topics as a jumping off point for creating relevant, practical content that prospective students would be willing to trade contact information for. These early-stage leads have driven significant increases in certificate and course purchases on the website.

Results

Website Traffic

Following the new website launch, organic traffic is up 653% year-over-year, with total sessions up 306% year-over-year.

And that’s just the average. The program’s highest-performing blog posts rank for hundreds of keywords and generate more than 9,000 organic sessions per month. These superstar posts have seen up to 20,000% increases in organic sessions year-over-year.

Early-Stage Leads

With blog posts targeted toward Education Certificate prospects performing particularly well, Vital strategized, created, and launched a free downloadable resource aimed at this audience. We added a call to action to download the resource in exchange for contact information on related high-traffic blog posts. Within six months, this resource was generating 347 leads per month — a 1,288% increase.

This premium resource is a huge hit, but it’s not the only early-stage lead success story for USD PCE. Leads from downloads are up across the board.

Conclusion

The USD PCE program is a perfect illustration of one of Vital’s core principles: your higher education website is the foundation for digital marketing success. A solid foundation plus a killer higher education digital marketing strategy leads to amazing growth in traffic and leads that ultimately drive conversions, enrollment, and revenue.

“I have worked with Vital for a little over four years. In that time, I have been paired with multiple project managers, each knowledgeable, attentive, and willing to go the extra mile. Though Vital may be an outside agency, the care and attention they provide makes it feel as if they are a part of your organization rather than a contracted agency. In addition, to the quality of their service, the success we have experienced with Vital’s help cannot be understated. In the past four years our website traffic and early stage leads have grown exponentially. Our site would not be where it is today without Vital’s hard work and dedication.”

-Will Meron | Marketing Manager, University of San Diego Professional and Continuing Education

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