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CASE STUDY: Higher Education
One-Two Punch of SEO and Paid Strategies Generates Enrollments
THE RESULTS
80% Qoq lead gen growth
68% Increase in top 10 non-branded keywords
80% Increase in organic keyword rankings
At Digital Strike, we bring meaningful strategy, innovation, and data-driven know-how to turn our clients’ challenges into results that matter. That’s what we did for one of our clients, a higher education institute that offers both in-person and online enrollment options. In January 2025, they approached us to increase enrollment in their online degree programs by strengthening their online presence.
The Problem
This client was trying to grow their online programs, but their general brand awareness marketing efforts were falling flat. The competitive landscape for online higher education was expanding, making it increasingly harder for our client to stand out. The client’s online programs had little to no awareness beyond their existing audience. This low brand awareness resulted in very poor rankings for non-branded keywords.
Another challenge our client faced was that their website was not in a position to attract new students; it was primarily a resource for current students and alumni. The site had a poor user experience and was not set up to properly track leads when potential students interacted with it. The website’s condition made it hard for the client to rank organically for high-value keywords.
So, the three significant challenges that this client faced were:
- Limited organic visibility for the website, leading to poor brand awareness.
- The site faced user experience challenges that reduced engagement and conversions, and had gaps in lead tracking that limited optimization insights.
- Highly competitive industry where generating enrollments was difficult without an established brand presence.
That’s where Digital Strike - Targeted Marketing comes in.
The Solution
After reviewing these challenges, our team developed a customized strategy to improve their website and online presence, resulting in increased enrollments for their program. We knew we had to improve the site’s user experience and content so they could start ranking for high-value keywords. We also needed to establish data-driven advertising to reach their target market efficiently. Finally, we needed to develop advanced data tracking to track the leads that we were generating properly. We developed a customized strategy made up of three parts:
Part 1: SEO Optimized Content
To rank well in a hyper-competitive industry like online higher education, keyword-optimized content is essential. We crafted a plan to publish four optimized content pieces a month to start ranking for high-intent keywords that the target audience was searching for.
Part 2: Data-Driven Ad Campaigns
To effectively engage prospective students along the customer journey, we recommend a combined approach: paid social campaigns to reach hyper-targeted audiences by job title, industry, seniority, and geography, build brand awareness, and create disruptive touchpoints; alongside paid search campaigns to capture users actively searching for the programs our client offered and who are closer to taking an action to apply or request more information.
Part 3: Technical and User Experience Recommendations
For our marketing efforts to move the needle and increase enrollment, we needed to send prospective students to a website with a good user experience. We would also need to set up advanced tracking to properly assign leads to the different marketing efforts and determine whether the leads generated were qualified.
The Results
Before these three strategies were implemented in January 2025, the site was ranking organically on the first page for 471 non-branded keywords. This is a snapshot of how the university performed among users who weren’t already familiar with its brand. By November 2025, the data looked a lot different. With our keyword-optimized content and technical recommendations, the site ranked for 794 non-branded keywords.
Of those non-branded keywords, 74 were our target keywords. These target keywords were high-value and high-intent. The site previously did not rank for these target keywords, and by November, the site was on the first page of search results for all of them. This growth represented new visibility among prospective students who were not previously familiar with their brand, directly aligning with the client’s goal of expanding the brand recognition beyond their existing audience.
Non-Branded Keyword Growth:
Improving their brand visibility was only half the battle; we needed to find a way to generate enrollments in the hyper-competitive landscape that is online higher education. Enter our paid search and paid social campaigns. We deployed paid search campaigns on Google to target prospective students’ search queries. This paid search strategy was coupled with a paid social media campaign on LinkedIn. This data-driven LinkedIn campaign targeted prospective students by job title, industry, seniority, and location, ensuring every ad dollar was spent on the target audience.
To properly track these campaigns, we established advanced lead tracking, which gave our client detailed insights into the true lead quality and conversion potential of each lead. This data enabled us to make informed decisions, optimize campaigns more effectively, and gain a clear understanding of which messaging and channels resonated with their target market. Over 11 months, these campaigns generated 48 qualified leads, an 80% quarter-over-quarter increase from our client’s previous efforts, creating a steady stream of opportunities for the admissions team.
This case demonstrates how the right SEO strategy, paired with data-driven paid search and paid social, can generate qualified leads for a business. A keyword-optimized, user-friendly website will grow a business’s online presence and visibility among target markets. Data-driven paid campaigns will efficiently generate leads, ensuring every ad dollar is spent within the target market.
Digital Strike can deliver results like these for your business through meaningful strategies customized to your business, goals, target market, and budget. Let’s boost your visibility and start generating the leads your business deserves. Connect with us today!
“Our client partnered with our data-obsessed Paid Ads Team to deliver an 80% QoQ lead-gen growth for their highest-priority service. We accomplished this lead gen slam-dunk by identifying an opportunity for better business insights by thinking beyond the role of a traditional client/agency relationship, and functioning as a true collaborative partner.”
– Kim Brown
Paid Search Strategist
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