An online education provider that provides digital courses globally approached Grapelight to help scale enrolments and control their acquisition costs. Their organic visibility for competitive keywords was very limited, while their Google Ads campaigns were generating enrolments but at an increased costs. The provider realised that their students were also relying more on AI-driven search tools and voice search, when it came to compare courses and education providers. Our challenge was to improve enrolments by improving their organic visibility, while refining their paid advertising to improve performance and reduce costs, and prepare their content for AI-driven search experiences. 

After a comprehensive audit, we created a bespoke and integrated SEO, Google Ads, and GEO strategy, designed to balance short term enrolment growth with sustainable, long term visibility. 

Grapelight focused on their SEO activity first, paying attention to strengthening their course and subject pages by improving keyword alignment, improving internal linking structures, and expanding on content depth. We also created supporting content that addressed comparison sources, accreditation questions, along with learner outcomes, guiding users through their decision making process. 

With their SEO in place, we focused on their Google Ads campaigns to identify why their acquisition costs were increasing. The campaigns were structured around high intent terms. We refined their match times, improved the negative keyword strategy, while optimising the landing pages, ensuring they aligned with user intent. We also improved their conversion tracking, ensuring it provided accurate attributions across all regions and devices. 

With the client requesting we implement GEO, we refined their content to ensure it was clear, along with structuring their formatting, and ensuring semantic relevance. We enhanced their course pages to include concise explanations, contextual information, along with clear outcomes, which improved the pages eligibility for generative search results, along with answer based experiences. 

Our reporting framework was integrated to include organic, paid, and assisted conversions, providing us with real-time insights. This was used for ongoing optimising, while ensuring we maintained complete NDA compliance.

This education provider started seeing measurable growth across enrolments and acquisitions within seven months. They were delighted that Grapelight was able to assist them within such a small time frame, as their organic visibility increased by close to 70%, and a number of their keywords started ranking in the top 10 positions. The clients course keywords achieving first-page rankings were at 19% prior to the implementation of this tailored strategy, and grew to a staggering 62% making first page rankings.

After the implementation of this blended strategy, organic traffic started increasing, while engagement metrics improved. Their average session duration rose by 27%, while their bounce rate was reduced by 20%, all within seven months.

Significant improvements were reported for their Google Ads performance, where costs per enrolment were reduced by over 30% and enrolment volumes increased by just shy of 50%. Where the client saw major improvements is that their return on advert spending was improved by 40%. This was driven by improved targeting and better alignment of their landing pages. 

The client also saw improvements in their combined organic and paid enrolments, where organic contributed to the growing share of enrolments. They also started experiencing early gains in AI-driven search visibility, which was supported by brand discovery. This positioned them for future changes in student search behaviours. 

As you can clearly see from this case study, a blended approach to digital marketing that includes SEO, Google Ads, and Generative Engine Optimisation, is an effective way for online education providers to reach their international audience, improving online visibility, reducing acquisition costs, while preparing them for the future, ensuring long-term growth.