The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK online learning providers has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK online learning providers perform across the digital space.
The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK online learning providers has just been published. It covers the largest 11 national online learning providers, including Open Study College, Oxbridge, Online Learning College, ICS Learn, Learndirect, Udemy, FutureLearn, Stonebridge College, NCC, Avado, and LearnPac - it highlights year-on-year digital performance, plus winner and loser comparisons in 20+ online performance metrics.
The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online and quantifies the gaps, risks, and missed opportunities for other UK online learning companies to develop their brand’s voice, assess and up-level their domain authority score, track their organic traffic performance, and more. This report highlights the areas where brands are succeeding and categories where they could make improvements.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key take-aways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 online learning providers on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing online learning providers, or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.
Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will under-perform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing. Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.
Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. UK online learning companies should aim to make their website as error-free as possible to improve the trust consumers have in their brand as well as enhance their SEO performance.
learndirect reported 23 4xx errors, and this online learning company should assess for any broken links so it’s not sending customers down a dead end.
When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. It’s important that a website doesn’t take any longer than 3 seconds to load, as any longer can cause a consumer to grow impatient and leave. Choosing a mobile-friendly theme is an effective way of boosting a brand’s site speed.
The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 58 and 12, with only 3 companies scoring above 50% (the recommended site speed for all brands). However, Stonebridge Associated Colleges is the company to watch, as it reported the slowest mobile site speed, and it should reduce the amount of content weight on each page.
Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that is not gained through sponsored ads. UK online learning companies should focus on building their domain authority by building relationships with websites that have a similar target audience to increase the number of high-quality backlinks.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. The DA for this quarter ranged between 91 and 27, with LearnPac flagging the lowest score. This company also saw the fewest backlinks — an area that affect’s a brand’s DA score.
A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. UK online learning companies should track and assess their organic performance and pay close attention to the difference in results based on devices. Due to the nature of this industry, it’s expected that they’ll receive more traffic from users on a desktop.
Only 2 brands saw an increase in organic traffic on mobile, while 3 reported an increase in organic traffic on desktop. Brands can make improvements by ensuring they’re following a successful keyword strategy to help increase their organic traffic.
Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal Search results refer to rankings on a SERP, and a site can appear for Universal Search results without being strong in standard rankings. UK online learning companies will want to ensure they have a strong performance for 'reviews' and ‘people also ask to help increase their online rankings.
FutureLearn secured the most Universal Search appearances (11,654), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’. It’s important that brands encourage customers to leave an online review to help increase their performance in this category.
Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand new search terms as they enter Google’s index. UK online learning companies can optimise their keyword strategy by incorporating phrases of 3+ words, such as ‘online learning company’ or ‘home learning provider.’
FutureLearn saw the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (2,216) and positions 4–10 (5,918). Brands should regularly assess the performance of their chosen longtail keywords and update them accordingly to expand their online reach.
With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) forecast to hit over 42 million users by 2022, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. For any online learning provider, Facebook ads are an opportunity to drive traffic to specific courses. If they haven’t already done so, they should be identifying under-subscribed courses to promote to improve numbers or using organic search term volumes as a guide for where general consumer interest lies.
We’ve included examples of ICS Learn’s sponsored Facebook posts. Two of the posts included the same text and imagery, which makes it difficult to assess which post performed best based on a particular feature.
When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your brand engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. UK online learning companies will need to have a strong online presence so that consumers have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the brand first before making a purchase. Social media is also a great opportunity to reach new audiences and build its customer base.
Udemy has the largest Facebook page (8.3 million Likes) and Instagram account (3.2 million followers). These figures trump the other online learning companies in this report, and brands can make improvements to their online presence by hosting giveaways and sharing selfless content that benefits its followers.
20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, retailers lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Brands should focus on reducing accessibility alerts, errors, and contrast errors to improve readability for those using a screen reader.
learndirect reported 94 accessibility alerts, and Oxbridge flagged 159 contrast errors. It’s important that brands assess and improve these areas to avoid consumers becoming disengaged or frustrated with these websites.
To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Mike Movassaghi.