A dramatic 30% YoY decline in organic traffic fully recovered within the first 4 months.
their challenge
Anglia Ruskin University saw a 30% steep decline in organic traffic year-on-year which was gathering momentum and showing no sign of slowing down. They reached out to Sagittarius to halt this decline, driving recovery and, ultimately, growth in this important channel.
our ongoing partnership
Technical audit: a technical audit of the site revealed an array of issues; combined, these issues were harming the visibility of the site in organic search. The technical issues were promptly specified and Sagittarius worked closely with ARU and their development team to implement solutions and monitor subsequent impact.
The next challenge was ensuring the website continued to grow and reach a larger audience within the ever-competitive education sector.
Tracking and analysis: Sagittarius worked closely with Anglia Ruskin University to deeply understand their business and marketing objectives and configure tracking through Google Analytics and Tag Manager that allowed them greater visibility of their channel marketing and website performance in conjunction with these.
Keyword strategy and content optimisation: High-value courses were identified as a focus area for growth, including courses that had seen reductions in organic traffic year-on-year that were a contributing factor to declining volumes. In-depth keyword research mapped against the current content on-site provided a strategic focus for progressive optimisation and Sagittarius worked collaboratively with ARU to identify and fill content gaps whilst improving existing content to better serve the intent of their users.
All outputs from course selection, search intent, and strategy to update landing pages allowed us to present an extensive list of pages that was woven into a content optimisation roadmap.
Campaigns: The core of our work has been supplemented with strategic campaigns that tie in with key calendar events, such as Clearing, to build ARU’s authority on important topics and provide opportunities to target and build quality links to the site.
results
Our approach immediately kick-started growth.
- 30% YoY decline in organic traffic fully recovered within 4 months
- 49% of targeted terms saw improved rankings
- 17% of target keywords rose to rank in positions 1 or 2
- 22% increase in average position across all target keywords
Including both high value and year-on-year declining courses acted as a double-edged sword. We were able to halt the decline in organic traffic and use the content optimisation roadmap to gain further momentum. This saw us overcome our second challenge in continuing to grow ARU’s authority online, reaching a larger audience within the ever-competitive education sector, and ultimately fuelling growth in applicants.
who are Anglia Ruskin University?
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a long-standing client of Sagittarius’. The university began life as an art school in 1858; today it has campuses in Cambridge, Chelmsford, Peterborough and London, and specialises in the fields of health and social care, computing and technology, engineering, law, business, economics and life sciences.
