Menlo Coaching helps applicants win admission to HBS, Wharton, Stanford, and other top MBA programs. We started working with them in February 2019, right when they were re-launching their website.
In the mids of redesign and content pruning, the domain was mostly a blank canvas, and the goals were very clear:
Menlo Coaching was ranking mostly for branded searches, and they needed to change that to be able to grow. They also needed to outrank competitors for the trophy keywords in the niche to greater visibility and market share. As their admissions coaching service is very thorough and collaborative, they needed to target potential clients early on their customer journey. They were determined to make organic their lead generation channel and were ready to do what it takes.
Menlo Coaching was looking for an agency to augment their small team’s marketing efforts. “We were looking for the ‘unicorn’ marketing agency that is both affordable and high-quality,” said David White, CEO of Menlo Coaching.
The SEO audit helped identify and resolve any technical issues with the new website. We mapped pages for redirects, added breadcrumbs and schema navigation, and made sure the website’s technical SEO is bullet-proof.
We dived into extensive keyword research to discover the best organic ranking opportunities for all main pages. Next, we mapped out top keyword opportunities to existing pages and suggested some changes to the website structure.
With Menlo Coaching’s Content strategy, we applied the pillar-cluster mode – we organized the website’s current and future content around several main topics hubs, i.e. MBA programs and the admissions process.
From the keyword and target persona research, it became immediately apparent that we need to create individual business school pages and provide answers to all the questions people have when applying to a particular MBA program.
While the schools’ MBA pages would always outrank us for these queries, adding similar pages to Menlo Coaching would benefit the user and satisfy their information needs. It would also help search engines understand what topics Menlo Coaching has authority on.
We also created an extensive pillar page – an MBA admissions guide – to serve as an umbrella for all admissions-related topics, from early admission to essays and GMAT scores. With a 6-months editorial calendar, we started developing the content for each of these sub-topics. We supplied keyword research, search intent insights and outlines, while David White, Menlo’s founding partner, was crafting the copy himself.
In the first few months, we were seeing growth only with impressions and not clicks. Once enough many pages were built, and the website gained topical authority, it all clicked into place.
A year into it, Menlo Coaching saw what every marketer wants to see: a steady upward trend in organic performance, bringing 82% of all website conversions.
Menlo Coaching’s rankings quickly soared from a baseline with only their brand name to hundreds of relevant searches. The brand dominated Google Search for industry trophy keywords such as Wharton interview acceptance rate, Stanford MBA essay, is 740 a good GMAT score, MBA interview coaching, what do you need to get into MBA programs, MIT EMBA interview, MBA score chart, and MBA reapplicant.
