14,000
students
CASE STUDY
Making the grade with a single tool
Established in 1883, six years before North Dakota became a state, UND has deep roots in history as the oldest and largest university in the state. While its competitors struggled with declining enrollment, UND pulled off a minor miracle: dramatic increases in organic search results and undergraduate inquiries, all thanks to an aggressive SEO strategy.
225 +
fields of study
149
unique online programs
The problem
When a university's number one recruitment tool is their website, pulling out all the stops with a flawless user experience and aggressive SEO is non-negotiable. Faced with the threat of declining enrollments and the sudden spike in online learning, UND's journey with Siteimprove started in 2018, when they rebuilt and launched an entirely new website and relied on Siteimprove for quality assurance.
But a dip in traffic after launch meant UND had to act fast to ensure that prospective students found the site to begin with — and that they would be drawn in by an interactive tool designed to help them identify an exciting path for their undergraduate studies.
We knew we needed to have some checks and balances and Siteimprove helped us flag things that needed to be corrected.
Tera Buckley
Director of Web & Multimedia Marketing
The solve
Siteimprove's tools were initially key to ensure UND's new site was free of broken links, bugs, and errors. The next order of business was investing in tools that boosted SEO so that individuals seeking programs and curriculum offered by UND would be directed to the UND site.
The rollout of "Program Finder," an interactive hub for students to discover academic programs that fit their interests, was paired with a keyword activity plan that tracked sets of targeted non-branded keywords for each academic program.
The results were sheer magic: Niche areas of study, including those with competitive SEO terms like "computer science Ph.D.," saw staggering growth in organic traffic, and search traffic for departments skyrocketed.
The results
1,517%
YoY organic traffic growth in top-performing academic programs
16.5%
gain in Program Finder traffic
62%
growth in applicant inquiries
Discover the Siteimprove effect
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