An award-winning website

The challenge

Of the website’s 13,500 pages, just 350 drove 95% of all traffic. The rest had become a dumping ground for every audience and agenda. With student recruitment falling, everyone agreed the university needed a new website to regain its competitive edge.

What we did

• Focus on what matters. We agreed from the outset that the website had to serve the university’s most pressing goals: differentiating its brand and supporting student recruitment. Gaining buy-in to that agenda moved stakeholders away from using it for everything.
• The right partners. Our Digital Services team had the technical skills to build the site, so we brought in a digital agency for the UX and UI design expertise we lacked.
• Research first. Competitor and audience research mapped user journeys, barriers and motivators. Testing university and commercial websites with different user groups revealed the BBC website as the model our audiences loved: simple, impactful and intuitive.
• Designed and tested. We adapted that model for our audiences, developing and testing concepts and templates before handing them to Digital Services to build.
• Content where it counts. Working with academics, professional services and student support teams, we produced new course, subject and student life content in just four months, including case studies, photography and video.
• A tiered editorial approach. We focused resources on the 20 pages most critical to revenue, including 12 hero undergraduate courses that made up 60% of the annual student intake.

The results

Over two years, the university’s recruitment position was transformed.

• Firm applications up 16%, and more still for high-growth courses
• More visitors and lower bounce rates
• Significantly more time spent browsing the site