Denver Seminary Improves
Organic Search Rankings

Goal

Improve organic rankings for targeted search terms and website visibility.

Challenge

Denver Seminary’s core KPI is to attract relevant organic traffic to graduate degree program pages. While all the elements needed to attract the right audience were present, users were not finding the most important pages through search.

1. Lack of internal linking and CTAs created a poor user experience.

2. The website was attracting the majority of organic traffic from irrelevant keywords.

3. Program pages were not earning relevant keywords.

4. Program pages were not ranking in the top 10 positions.

Solution

Focusing on our core KPI, we identified the gap between the keyword each page earned and the best term and evaluated on-page SEO elements, content, and schema.

Page by page, we created a plan to implement the missing elements each page needed to rank in search for the search terms the Seminary’s target audience is using. Simultaneously, we completed a content audit and deployed a muti-step strategy to remove irrelevant content and elevate helpful pages.

We began with an SEO audit of the entire website, identifying gaps in SEO best practices. Then, we laid a solid SEO foundation, including updating title tags, meta descriptions, correct schema, and on-page SEO structure.

Next, we completed a content audit and created a plan to remove irrelevant content that attracted the wrong audience. We also optimized relevant content to increase visibility for the right audience.

After that, we leveraged our audits to strengthen internal links throughout the website, finding opportunities to connect digital entities such as Denver Seminary’s podcast and YouTube videos.

Finally, we analyzed each program page, noting UX, SERP match, and on-page SEO gaps and opportunities. We created an individual strategy to customize each page based on what the data identified as important page elements.

Results

We prioritized the client’s KPI of increasing its target audience through organic search and developed a custom strategy that layered SEO and content marketing strategies. 

Our strategy shifted the way people find the Denver Seminary website. Rather than entering through an irrelevant content page, the majority of traffic now enters the website through the home and program pages when searching keywords related to the graduate programs the seminary offers. 

We ensured that traffic and conversions came from the correct target audience by improving overall website rankings for relevant keywords and program page rankings.