Case Study - Scaling Course Enrolment Through Strategic SEO and Digital Marketing

The Challenge

When we began working with this professional training provider, they faced a common problem: excellent courses and training expertise, but limited visibility in a highly competitive online market. Most potential learners were finding competitors first through search engines. While they had a website, it wasn't optimised for search, course discovery was difficult, and they were losing potential enrolments to better-ranked competitors.

Additionally, their paid advertising campaigns were running without strategic integration with organic search efforts. Budgets were being spent without maximizing the synergy between channels—meaning wasted opportunity and inflated cost per acquisition.

The training landscape was evolving rapidly. They needed to:

• Establish authority and trust through organic search visibility
• Create clear pathways for different learner personas to find the right courses
• Optimise the cost of customer acquisition through integrated organic and paid strategies
• Build a sustainable, long-term growth engine that didn't rely solely on paid advertising spend

Our Strategy

Phase 1: Foundation & Research (Year 1)

We started with a comprehensive audit of their website, competitive landscape, and target market. We identified the keywords their ideal learners were searching for and discovered significant opportunities—many high-intent keywords with manageable competition.

Key actions:

• Audited existing site structure and identified technical SEO issues
• Conducted keyword research across all course categories
• Analysed competitor positioning and content strategies
• Created detailed buyer persona research for different course segments

Phase 2: Website Optimisation & Restructuring (Years 1-2)

We restructured their website to make course discovery intuitive. Each course got a dedicated landing page optimised for its specific keywords. We improved site speed, fixed crawlability issues, and implemented schema markup to help Google understand their content structure.

Key actions:

• Redesigned information architecture for better course navigation
• Created optimised landing pages for each major course offering
• Implemented course schema markup for rich search results
• Improved page load speed and mobile responsiveness
• Fixed technical SEO issues (crawlability, indexation, site structure)

Phase 3: Content Strategy & Expansion (Years 2-4)

Beyond the course pages themselves, we developed a comprehensive content strategy. We created detailed course guides, comparison articles, and educational content that addressed learner questions at every stage of the buying journey.

Key actions:

• Built a content calendar addressing learner intent at each stage
• Created comparison guides ("Certification A vs. Certification B")
• Developed educational guides and learning path articles
• Optimised all content for E-E-A-T signals (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness)
• Established internal linking patterns to guide learners through the site

Phase 4: Continuous Optimisation & Integration (Years 4-10)

Over the following years, we continuously refined and optimised. We incorporated Google's evolving algorithm changes, tested new content formats, and increasingly integrated their organic strategy with paid advertising campaigns.

Key actions:

• Monthly performance reviews and optimisation cycles
• Ongoing keyword tracking and expansion into new course markets
• Integration of Google Ads campaigns with organic strategy
• Testing and refinement of landing page copy and CTAs
• Regular content updates to maintain freshness and authority

The Results

The numbers tell a compelling story of sustained, integrated marketing success.

Organic Search Performance

Traffic Growth: Our 10-year partnership has resulted in consistent year-over-year organic traffic growth, with the site now generating over 300% more organic traffic than when we started. This wasn't a spike—it was steady, sustainable growth built on improving rankings, indexation, and topical authority.

Keyword Rankings: Today the site ranks in the top 3 positions for 40+ competitive training-related keywords, with multiple #1 rankings for primary course offerings. These aren't niche keywords—many are high-intent terms with significant monthly search volume.

Conversion Impact: Beyond traffic, we optimised the conversion path. Users landing from organic search now convert to leads at a significantly improved rate, with course landing pages achieving 7-12% conversion rates depending on the course type. For a training provider, this means every 100 visitors from organic search translates into 7-12 qualified course inquiries.

Business Impact: Course Enrolments

The organic traffic improvements have directly translated to increased course enrolments. With better visibility, improved landing pages, and trust signals from strong search rankings, the company has seen:

• Consistent year-over-year enrolment growth from organic search
• Higher lifetime value enrolments from organic channel (more likely to complete courses and recommend)
• Reduced reliance on paid advertising for baseline demand
• Improved overall customer acquisition economics through better organic channel contribution

Paid Advertising Performance: Google Ads

The integration of organic and paid strategy has been particularly powerful. Their Google Ads campaigns now complement organic efforts rather than competing with them.

Campaign Metrics:

• 2,173 clicks from 15,309 impressions
• Click-Through Rate: 14.19% (exceptional for the training industry, where average CTR is 2-3%)
• 211 tracked conversions from paid traffic
• Conversion Rate: 9.71% (well above industry average of 3-5%)
• Cost per Conversion: £55.17 (sustainable acquisition cost for professional training)
• Total Ad Investment: £11,640
• Estimated Gross Revenue: £146,138.60 from paid campaigns

This represents an exceptional return on paid advertising spend, with every pound spent on ads generating approximately £12.57 in estimated revenue.

Synergy Between Channels

The most important insight emerged over the 10-year period: organic and paid channels work best together.

• Users who see organic search results AND paid ads develop stronger trust and credibility signals
• Organic rankings reduce the CPA for paid campaigns (users convert faster when they see the site ranks organically)
• Paid campaigns support brand awareness for new course launches while organic traffic handles the baseline demand
• Combined messaging across both channels creates consistent, reinforced messaging
• The data shows users from organic often convert faster and have higher lifetime value than paid-only users

Long-Term Partnership Value

Working with this client for 10 years has yielded insights that wouldn't be possible with a shorter engagement:

Sustained Growth: Rather than a spike followed by decline, we've maintained consistent growth. This demonstrates that SEO, when done right, compounds over time. Year 5 efforts build on year 1 foundations. Year 10 campaigns benefit from 9 years of authority and trust signals.

Algorithm Resilience: Over 10 years, Google released hundreds of algorithm updates. By maintaining focus on user value, content quality, and sustainable practices, the site has weathered every major update and consistently improved rather than lost rankings.

Competitive Advantage: Early investments in SEO 10 years ago created a durable moat. New competitors can't easily duplicate a domain's 10 years of topical authority and backlink profile. This investment pays dividends indefinitely.

Market Adaptation: Over a decade, the training market evolved—new certifications emerged, learner preferences shifted, remote learning exploded. Our SEO foundation was flexible enough to adapt to each shift while maintaining the core strategy.

Key Takeaways

1. SEO is a 10-year asset, not a 6-month project. The most valuable results come from sustained, strategic effort over years, not campaigns.

2. Organic and paid work best together. The most successful digital marketing strategy integrates both channels, with each making the other more effective.

3. Consistent optimization beats massive campaigns. Steady, monthly improvements compound into exceptional results over time.

4. Technical foundations matter. The 10-year relationship's success was built on solid technical SEO from year 1.

5. Content strategy requires buyer journey thinking. We didn't just optimize for keywords—we created content for every stage of the learner's journey.

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Services Provided