Brief

In October 2022, SALT.agency started collaborating with the University of Leeds, one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK.

The University of Leeds asked us to support them with the launch of course pages, especially from a technical perspective. One of the most important aspects was UX/UI redesign with no negative influence on the performance of the whole page. The aim was not to overwhelm the user with much content and, on the other hand, to provide all the necessary course information. Additionally, they wanted to align with all SEO best practices to maintain the website's performance.

We were looking for in-depth SEO expertise, on a short lead time, to help ensure a major website migration went without a hitch and that the technical set-up of the pages was following best practices.

 The implementation of a new web design system as part of the project meant a major change in how our pages were structured, and as the main shop window for the University we needed guidance to ensure this would maintain and improve our visibility across organic search. 

The team at Salt were excellent - responsive, clear, and constructive - working with colleagues across Marketing and IT within the project team to help ensure we could deliver the project on-time and with the reassurance from the team at Salt that our SEO performance was on-track.

– Rob Picton, Senior Marketing Manager, University of Leeds

Expertise

  • MVP Specifications
  • Technical Support
  • Core Web Vitals Competitor Analysis
  • Bespoke reporting process

Results

  • Preservation of 752 keywords in the top 3 positions in multiple countries
  • 155 keywords in the top 3 improved their position
  • Preservation of 1,846 keywords on page one in multiple countries
  • 696 keywords on page one improved their position
  • Competitive First Input Delay (FID) and Interaction to Next Paint (INP) in comparison to competitors

Achievements

SALT.agency worked alongside UoL's internal developer team to guide them through the launch process, providing:

  • Comprehensive technical MVP specifications for the website redesign
  • Competitor benchmarking for front-end SEO metrics, including speed
  • SEO technical consultancy for the University of Leeds' new UX/UI design project
  • JavaScript and DOM Analysis post-project launch
  • Bespoke performance reporting designed for multiple stakeholders

 

With the help of SALT.agency, UoL achieved technical SEO effectiveness of proposed UX/UI changes to course pages. Additionally, the close collaboration and full understanding of SEO suggestions of the developer team allowed the UoL website to minimize risk migration and, consequently, maintain the performance and avoid keyword losses in ranking positions.