Master the Curriculum is an educational resource website with resources for primary-level maths. Their extensive collection of high-quality and fun learning materials includes maths worksheets and activities. They design their resources to excite and inspire young learners to explore the wonderful world of numbers.

Our Objective

The original website was clunky with a less than ideal user experience for site visitors and a limited ability to drive sales. Having been disappointed by multiple third-party developers who added custom code that proved impossible to maintain, Master the Curriculum approached Thinkplus to redesign and rebuild their website.

The key objectives of the website development project were to:

• Expand the subscription-based model for users
• Improve the website administration for non-technical team members
• Redesign the website to increase conversions and, ultimately, sales.

How We Achieved It

The Package

The client initially started on a medium-sized SEO and Content Marketing campaign. They allocated a monthly campaign budget for rebuilding their website to expand their subscription model. We built the website using the WordPress CMS. After the site launch, the client continued their SEO, Content Marketing and Email Marketing campaign to promote the website.

The Strategy

During the speccing process, we identified that the main challenge of this project was the extremely high volume of existing data in the form of orders, users and products. Not only did these need to be migrated to the new website, but also retrofitted into the new subscription model. To achieve this, we needed to ensure that all existing users were migrated to the new website and assigned the correct membership.

In close collaboration with our client, and after extensive research of the technical solutions available to us, we decided that the WordPress platform offered some excellent plugins to help us reach Master the Curriculum’s objectives — allowing us to both migrate and provide a user-friendly interface for non-technical staff members. We were able to successfully migrate this data into the new platform.

As their website generates a high amount of activity, the client must work on it frequently (several times a day) to upload new resources. A week before go-live, we required the client to suspend any updates on the old website, so we launched the new website with up-to-date data. We planned the website launch during February’s half-term week (as most teachers would not be working and, therefore, wouldn’t have needed to access the website).

To further assist our client, Thinkplus created a library of training videos explaining how to use the new website’s backend for their team.

The Results

During the website build, we imported 27,000 existing customer accounts and transferred 3,200 existing individual products onto the new website successfully.

Following the launch of the website, client feedback was positive. The simpler CMS interface paired with the training Thinkplus provided meant their staff could edit and update the website themselves rather than relying on external developers for small changes.

Since launching the website in March 2021, the site has attracted 200,000 visitors — a 70% year-on-year increase in organic traffic! In addition, the new subscription model has proven a great success, popular with both teaching professionals and parents alike.

The post Redesign and 70% Organic Traffic Increase for Master the Curriculum appeared first on Thinkplus.

When Debra, the founder of Dyslexia Deb, worked as a University lecturer, she found that fewer dyslexic students were making it to higher education. This led her on a quest to discover why and compelled her to become a specialist in dyslexia assessments.

Debra discovered dyslexia just wasn’t being diagnosed early enough for most students, which meant they weren’t getting the additional support they needed to enter university.

Fast forward to 2020 and Debra had a thriving business diagnosing dyslexic students and helping them study. Her business had something none of her competitors could offer: herself. Debra has over 15 years of experience assessing and assisting dyslexic children, along with a background in primary, secondary, and higher education. Debra prides herself on her personal and in-depth approach to dyslexia assessments.

Debra had some great client testimonials and a wealth of knowledge and experience — but her old website wasn’t polished and didn’t reflect her fantastic, personable service and in-depth understanding of her field. So she approached us for a refreshed website that would reflect her professional and personalised approach to dyslexia assessments.

Many of Debra’s referrals came from word-of-mouth recommendations, which is always fantastic as they tend to have a high conversion rate — but Dyslexia Deb’s website was underperforming. Users were finding the site — but only around a quarter of Debra’s leads would convert. What Debra needed was a website that showcased her skills and service — and set her apart from competitors such as the British Dyslexia Association (BDA), a giant on the scene.

The Objective

We knew we needed to build a new lead-generation website that converts for Deb! While it’s difficult to match the strength of a word-of-mouth recommendation, we wanted to utilise Debra’s incredible background story and the personal touch she gives to assessments to give potential clients the confidence to get in touch and book with Dyslexia Deb.

With this in mind, we set to work building Deb an incredible website.

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How We Achieved It

The Strategy

Above all else, we needed a strong call to action — above the fold and on the homepage — that would make booking with Deb irresistible. We knew this call to action needed to direct potential clients to Debra herself because it’s her wealth of knowledge, experience, and personable attitude toward assessing that would lead to a conversion. If word of mouth was working for Deb, we needed an online equivalent, and this was it.

We all know that parents are among the busiest people out there, so the process of booking with Deb needed to be easy and relatively commitment-free. Following a call with Deb to chat through her requirements, our dedicated development Project Manager decided a form offering a free 15-minute assessment would be the ideal solution. This quick, personal assessment would allow Deb to showcase the added value she can offer to potential students and parents in return for just a quarter of an hour of their time.

At Thinkplus, we recognise when our clients already have incredible assets — and in Debra’s case, we loved her brand. We kept costs low for her by utilising the bright and education-focused colours she already used and kept her warm, friendly tone of voice in all the copy. Of course, in true Ninja style, we optimised it for SEO using keywords so that new potential clients could find her.

The Package

Dyslexia Deb was a lead generation site — a templated website following a conversion rate optimised structure that Thinkplus has developed by selecting the highest converting elements from its best performing websites over the years. Though aspects of the website are templated based on our conversion principles, the site’s colours, images and search engine optimised content are all bespoke to the client. These sites are cost-effective and high performing, so they’re a perfect option for those on a budget or for straightforward sites where complex functionality isn’t a requirement.

The Results

The Dyslexia Deb website is now professional, personable, and full of fantastic information — a perfect reflection of Debra herself.

Contact details are easy to find at the top of the page for those who prefer to use them but ultimately, that compelling call to action is clear and easy to locate across the entire site, allowing users to book their call at any stage of the user journey.

While this site is relatively new, the first few months of data show the site was converting at a whopping 13.34% — significantly higher than the 2.9% industry average.

Deb’s old website looked out of date and didn’t feel enticing.

A professional-looking website with a clear CTA that still reflects Deb’s warmth.

The post New Website Improves Customer Journey, Increasing Enquiries appeared first on Thinkplus.

Between November 2013 and July 2017, Thinkplus continually worked on a prolonged marketing campaign which focused entirely around onsite SEO guidance for their internal Development team, content creation for their internal blog, and a continued Content Marketing campaign which focused around outreach to associated publishers within or related to the education sector.

The following metrics mark the significant impact the financial investment into an ongoing SEO and Content Marketing campaign can have on improving ranking, traffic, and conversions.

• Keyword visibility increased by 850%
• Total number of keyword phrases within the top 20 positions increased from 64 in November 2013 to 545 in July 2017
• Estimated traffic increased by 3775%*
• Traffic estimate for November 2013 was 386 potential users. In July 2017, that estimate is 15,101 potential users*

*Due to legal agreements, we’re unable to share exact traffic, lead generation, and sales numbers (and their percentage increases). Some data will be as estimates only.

850% Increase in Total Keyword Phrase Visibility

One method in which we measure search visibility increases is to measure the total quantity of keyword phrases a website appears for within the first 10 or 20 positions of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). With 10 links per page, this represents the first two pages.

The closer to the first position, the higher the click-through rate to the website on the other end of the URL. In 2017, the first position is estimated to earn 21.12% of all clicks made on the first page. The second position is almost half of that, estimated to be 10.65%, the third 7.57%, and the click-through rate percentage continually gets worse the further down the list of URLs you go (the 20th position is estimated to earn as little as 1.26%).

Earning top three and top ten positions is the focus of all of our campaigns. For this client, there was no exception.

In November 2013, the website was visible for only 64 positions, with only a quarter of those on the first page.

In July 2017, the ranking visibility is almost unrecognisable, having increased by 850%, totalling at 545 keyword phrases.

Of all these high-ranking phrases, 48.07% of them are on the first page, and of those, 73 phrases are within the first three positions (with the highest click-through rate).

The method of achieving this incredible rise in keyword visibility has been through the continued support of the client’s internal Development team – to ensure that the website is healthy and fully functioning – and the build-up of off-site SEO elements such as backlink creation through outreach work and continued article publication on the core importance topics the website has expert knowledge on.

3775% Increase in Estimated Google Traffic

Whilst the client’s own offline campaign was working very well and beginning to gain a national foothold within the education sector, it wasn’t always transforming into the quantity of traffic they desired and required to hit their internal sales goals.

Our goal was to increase this number through the promotion of both the website and the brand as a cornerstone of expertise in the education sector, thereby putting their brand name on the lips of educators and administrators when considering which training resources to invest in for the forthcoming financial year.

The approach we took was to ensure that the website itself was well optimised so that it was healthy and viable as a high-ranking website. To do this, we continually audited the site and forwarded our recommendations to their Development team, who put our list of fixes into action – with the resulting ranking improvements backing up the importance of streamlined and smooth SEO-to-Developer relations.

In partnership with the client, we also provided guidance on internal copy so that it not only utilised their expertise on the subject, but also followed internal and community-verified best practices for SEO. This incorporated keyword research and guidance on how best to use this information, plus recommendations on improved internal linking.

Our own Content Marketing team was tasked with easing the workload of the client by taking on Digital PR and outreach efforts. This was made up through the combination of content creation for publication on educator publishers and relevant sector publishers – imagine a venn diagram in which we contact the publishers which cross over between two sectors, with whom we’ll tailor content which directly suits them.

Work was also spent interacting with others in the sector over social media so that any last minute or future developments in the sector would present an opportunity for comments and expertised-based thought pieces from the client could be shared.

As the campaign progressed, the SEO team would continually monitor, review and alter the keyword strategy for the campaign, so that it met the continually changing landscape and move the priority from keywords to gain movement for new keywords once the first set were ranking on the first page.

On top of this, the SEO team were regularly reviewing and optimising aspects of the website, so that they were in adjusted to changes in the algorithm or optimised further should the first optimisation effort of that particular element not move the needle quite enough.

One example of this would be the metadata for the core services of the website. These were revisited every few months or every other quarter, so that an increased click-through percentage could be gained from the increased ranking position it had earned.

The reason for doing so also has another purpose

Google’s algorithm measures the click-through rate and compares it against the bounce rate for the page linked to. Bounce rate is the percentage of users who leave the website completely or return directly back to Google to try another site.

By improving the click-through rate, Google has more opportunities to review and rate the user journey on the site and how high the bounce rate is. If the number of users returning to Google is high, (with the purpose of trying another site or altering their search phrase) then Google will limit the ranking potential of that site.

Continually returning to this process enabled us to directly affect how Google reviewed and rated the website, therefore enabling us to fashion the best website possible for ranking.

By July 2017, the estimated traffic* for the website had increased by 3775%, up from 386 potential monthly users in November 2013 to 15,101 potential monthly users.

The generation of this incredible increase in traffic is largely the result of two significant results:

1. Increased brand awareness and average monthly searches for the brand name (due to earned respect within the sector).
2. Increased keyword visibility for related phrases (due to increased onsite copy and offsite content work).

* Due to legal agreements, we’re unable to share exact traffic, lead generation, and sales numbers (and their percentage increases). Some data will be as estimates only.

The Key Fundamentals for Campaign Success

The key to success with the campaign can be attributed to a number of factors, all of which are crucial to the success of any digital marketing campaign and the achieving of targets set out both by the client and our own high internal goals.

These fundamentals include:

1. Shared vision and willingness to implement all recommendations
2. Open sharing of expert knowledge to aid content creation
3. Sufficient budgeting in place to support the continued brand awareness efforts of the Content Marketing team
4. Ease and openness of the Development team to implement changes and fixes when requested
5. Eagerness and willingness to constantly change with the tides and react to the unexpected
6. Fast approval and resolution on Thinkplus’s requests

Through the combination of the above, almost anything is possible for a campaign of this nature and size, with fast approval and resolution amongst the most valuable to a campaign, as this enables all of our teams to complete work which will become the basis of ranking and traffic success.

To put the above into context, we find that the best results from work completed today is typically delivered with strong results 12 months from now. Therefore, immediate action and approval of SEO and Content Marketing work is incredibly important so that we’re not delaying the high-value results Thinkplus has been consistently delivering year after year.

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The post 3775% Increase in Estimated Search Traffic for E-Learning Platform in the Education Sector appeared first on Thinkplus.