Challenge
A year after Ridley College, an independent boarding school in St. Catharines, Ontario, launched an engaging new website, they approached Flywheel with a pressing assignment: to evaluate how site content resonates with new and existing parents and increase the quality of potential new families through search engine optimization (SEO).
Solution
Cracking open our textbooks. The school communicates with a very broad audience, students and parents but also faculty and staff, donors and over 8,000 alumni worldwide. Our task was to understand these groups and combine that knowledge with a comprehensive digital audit of the website, an in-depth review of competing schools sites and an analysis of an independent marketing research paper investigating the branding for boarding schools in North America. Taking note of the important facts. We identified the gaps in how Ridley was positioning itself digitally to its audience and against its competitors related to site content, search results and overall brand representation Our findings were then shaped into a sound strategy for improving results complete with new content recommendations, page mock-ups and identified actions for opportunity. A key element of the process was to educate the benefits of these actions to key stakeholders on our plan to ensure buy in. Putting our findings to the test. After extensive analysis with the school to showcase their opportunities, we developed a keyword list that targeted specific areas of interest for Ridley's audience and helped highlight the school's advantages. A content matrix was developed to show competitive opportunities along with a comprehensive spreadsheet for incorporating keywords into the website’s content management system.
Results
“Flywheel has had a positive impact on our digital identity.” That’s how our client summed up our work. We provided a sophisticated approach to web and digital strategy new to the world of independent schools. They can now be confident that their arresting site has sound inner workings that have effectuated a rise in search ranking and site usability. Our client continues to work with us on new projects today.
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