{"id":23795,"date":"2025-09-19T12:32:42","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/?post_type=cases&#038;p=23795"},"modified":"2025-10-07T14:02:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T12:02:14","slug":"more-organic-traffic-for-windesheim-university-of-applied-sciences","status":"publish","type":"cases","link":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/cases\/meer-organisch-verkeer-voor-hogeschool-windesheim\/","title":{"rendered":"30% more organic traffic for Windesheim University of Applied Sciences"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"background:linear-gradient(135deg,rgb(238,238,238) 100%,rgb(169,184,195) 100%)\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">At a glance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Challenge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Improving positions on specific search terms within technical courses<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>No direct correlation between SEO efforts and rankings <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>30% increase in organic traffic vs last year (March to July 2025 vs last year)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>63% increase in organic conversion vs last year<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>32% increase in organic clicks (Search Console)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br>Starting point<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Windesheim's corporate marketing team knocked on our door in September 2024. There was already a fairly full technical SEO backlog and in the previous months a lot of energy had been put into the structure and content of training pages.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We agreed to launch a SEO pilot, focusing on:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Specific technical SEO improvements, platform wide<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>To further improve all pages in and around the technical training cluster, in both layout, structure, On-page SEO and content. So a clear scope in terms of training<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">SEO strategy \/ SEO audit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A SEO audit has acquired a somewhat negative sentiment somewhere in recent years, as there is a perception that an audit is just a list of some isolated SEO areas for improvement. Zonder prio. Zonder estimates. But that, of course, is not the case.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A SEO audit is equivalent to a SEO strategy at Onder. For example, we have two issues in this case, written down from team Windesheim:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>We have technical SEO capability, but would like to seek advice on where best to set our arrows and in what order\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The issue: deploy dev. capacity as efficiently as possible and brief the right technical SEO improvement points to have maximum impact<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We want advice on how to further improve positions of specifically engineering courses\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The issue: analysing how technical courses rank better (in breadth)&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This was a pilot project for both us and team Windesheim, so that we could properly evaluate both result and cooperation afterwards. We are happy to prove ourselves!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Audit content\/strategy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The analysis and strategy roughly consisted of four steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Cluster analysis of technical courses (what does the search query look like, what is important for students, what are frequently asked questions, etc.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Zero measurement vs. competition<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Technical SEO analysis + briefing<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Content analysis + briefing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Technical SEO analysis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/windesheim.nl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Windesheim.co.uk<\/a> is a fairly compact website with a lot of traffic. In terms of technical SEO and crawling\/indexing, our focus is therefore mainly on the technical setup. Think of improvements in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Robots.txt modifications so that certain filter pages do get crawled<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Canonicals and paging resolution<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Direct internal link structure improvements<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fixing Canonical issues<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Add structured data in the template<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The underlying goal we had with these technical SEO enhancements was not only to improve the efficiency of Windesheim's in-house developers, but more importantly to provide a particular set of pages on <a href=\"http:\/\/windesheim.nl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Windesheim.co.uk<\/a> very important, so that Google sees that it means business. You can focus crawl budget pretty well on that in terms of signals, and it worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Content &amp; training<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Training pages are quite complicated in terms of content:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You often target multiple audiences: students, parents, the professional field, teachers. These target groups differ not only in terms of intention or information needs, but also in terms of age<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There are many different types of information you can put on such a page at all. Think curriculum, student experiences, open day information, etc.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Text is not the only content form for 'training in the broadest sense'. Video also generally does very well on these types of pages<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In terms of comparing with competitors, these pages are well-organised: we know exactly which courses are comparable and in which cities\/institutions the course also occurs. In addition, through (especially) ChatGPT, there are many such courses to compare.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We compared and analysed all the elements you see above so that we could give team Windesheim a concrete improvement plan for the technical training pages.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Key areas for improvement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Maximising internal linking to make training pages stronger<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enriching training pages<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Enriching the interest area pages<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Implementation and outcome<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We presented the SEO strategy from the pilot to team Windesheim. We then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Technical areas for improvement checked and adjusted&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Implementation of content advice monitored particularly around internal linking&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Content advice tightened where possible and discussed with stakeholders<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We slowly saw nice results with many rising positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Technical training: + 32% organic traffic vs last year<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The other courses: +8.5% organic traffic vs last year<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This showed that the pilot was definitely successful and, above all, the implementation from team Windesheim was really excellent!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, organic traffic grew by +30%:<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n<div id=\"tf-image-block_ca60911e27f6d56f5e1997573161c1b7\" class=\"block100 tf-image tf-image alignfull tf-image-autowidth tf-image-left\">\r\n\r\n    \r\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/onder.nl\/site\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Windesheim_SEO_case_-_Google_Docs.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onder.nl\/site\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Windesheim_SEO_case_-_Google_Docs.jpg 580w, https:\/\/onder.nl\/site\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Windesheim_SEO_case_-_Google_Docs-460x220.jpg 460w, https:\/\/onder.nl\/site\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Windesheim_SEO_case_-_Google_Docs-18x9.jpg 18w, https:\/\/onder.nl\/site\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Windesheim_SEO_case_-_Google_Docs-110x53.jpg 110w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\">\r\n\r\n    \r\n    <div class=\"clearboth\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to proceed now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>These are great results that are not a drop in the ocean, but actually help Windesheim in new applications of students within the technical programmes. This was of course a pilot project, but eventually led to a larger collaboration between Windesheim and Onder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wondering if we can do something for you too? Then feel free to contact us!<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n<div id=\"tf-buttons-block_d1998b1f1738524d8b5f24a503694c79\" class=\"block100 tf-buttons tf-buttons alignfull\">\r\n\r\n          <a class=\"btn  btn-turq\" href=\"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/contact\/\" target=\"\">\r\n           <span>I want to cooperate!<\/span>\r\n       <\/a>\r\n   \r\n    \r\n    <div class=\"clearboth\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":23884,"template":"","class_list":["post-23795","cases","type-cases","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cases\/23795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cases"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cases"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cases\/23795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25408,"href":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cases\/23795\/revisions\/25408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onder.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}