01
The brief
StudyPlex sells online courses to UK learners. It started almost invisible in search: Ahrefs estimated 117 organic visits a month on 1 May 2022.
I built its organic channel from near zero and set up GA4/GTM e-commerce tracking. By early 2023 Ahrefs estimated 10,039 visits a month across 5,602 keywords.
A new brand in a crowded market, it needed search visibility for course topics without a large ads budget.
I reused the content and course-page playbook I built for Lead Academy.
02
What made it hard
- A new domain with very little authority or traffic: about 117 visits a month (Ahrefs) and 1,600 ranking keywords (Semrush).
- Competing course resellers with large content libraries in a competitive UK online-learning market.
- Limited paid budget: Google Ads was a small test of £1.46K in total.
03
How I approached it
- Course and supporting content built around course-intent and career keywords, with keyword mapping.
- Sitemap fixes, indexing checks and on-page optimisation.
- GA4 and GTM e-commerce tagging, so organic sales could be measured.
- A small Google Ads test (£1.46K, 3.02K clicks, May 2021 – Aug 2022) that did not return enough to scale, so budget stayed on SEO.
04
What I did
How I solved it: SEO-first when paid tests do not clear the bar.
- I built course-intent content and fixed indexing almost from zero organic, and set up GA4/GTM e-commerce tracking.
- Google Ads stayed a small test (£1.46K) that did not return enough to scale, so budget stayed on organic.
- SEO strategy, keyword research and content plans.
- Technical set-up: sitemaps, indexing and tracking.
- Progress reporting alongside the Lead Academy programme.
05
The numbers
| Metric | Before | After | Source and period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic traffic / month | 117 (1 May 2022) | 10,039 (early 2023) | Ahrefs |
| Organic keywords | 1,600 (Semrush) | 5,602 (Ahrefs) | Mixed tools; see note |
| Search Console clicks (6 months) | 3.98K | 6.98K (+75%) | 6 months to 16 Nov 2022 vs previous 6 |
| Search Console impressions (6 months) | 353K | 834K (+136%) | Same |
| Average position | 47.4 | 26.5 | Same |
| Before/after grid | Ranked keywords 1,600; traffic 154; traffic value $32 | 5,600; 10,011; $4,400 | Case-study grid (before = Semrush, after = Ahrefs) |
