Strengthening Crummer Graduate School of Business’s SEO to Drive MBA Enrollment Growth
Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College is a highly regarded institution in Orlando, Florida, known for its MBA programs that blend online and in-person coursework. With growing competition from larger Florida universities and an increasing reliance on digital recruitment, Crummer partnered with Socratik to improve its search visibility and increase organic enrollment leads. The partnership focused on strengthening Crummer’s technical SEO, content strategy, and backlink profile to help prospective students more easily find and engage with their MBA offerings.
About Crummer Graduate School of Business
Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College is a prestigious institution in Orlando, Florida, offering a variety of MBA programs blending online and in-person coursework. Despite its strong academic reputation and a trusted .edu domain, Crummer faced a competitive challenge ranking far behind larger Florida universities with bigger marketing budgets and stronger backlink profiles.
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The Challenge
While Crummer benefits from the credibility of a .edu domain and a strong brand reputation, its website lagged behind larger universities with bigger marketing budgets and more authoritative backlink profiles. The school aimed to rank competitively for key search terms, especially “MBA programs in Orlando, FL” and drive more qualified organic leads to its admissions funnel. However, technical site issues, unoptimized landing pages, and limited SEO-focused content prevented Crummer from fully capturing organic search demand.
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Our Approach
Phase 1: Laying the Foundation
We began by establishing a strong technical and strategic foundation. Our team conducted an advanced keyword strategy and full-scale technical SEO audit to uncover growth opportunities and identify any site issues impacting visibility. We then delivered page-by-page on-page SEO recommendations—optimizing meta data, headers, internal links, and keyword usage across Crummer’s most business-critical pages. This foundation ensured that all subsequent efforts were built on a technically sound and search-optimized site.
Phase 2: Expanding Reach and Authority
With a foundation in place, we shifted to driving visibility and authority. We developed a 12-month content strategy informed by keyword data, audience insights, and market competitiveness. Over the course of the engagement, we created and optimized 24 SEO-focused blog articles, each backed by in-depth keyword research and competitive analysis. These articles were designed to capture new search demand and strengthen Crummer’s topical authority.
To further increase domain authority, our team executed a targeted link-building campaign—earning 35 high-quality backlinks from relevant, authoritative sites. All links met strict criteria for relevance, domain authority, and organic traffic.
Continuous Optimization and Reporting
Throughout the partnership, Socratik provided bi-weekly strategy sessions and monthly performance reports. Using live dashboards and actionable insights, we continually refined our approach based on what was driving the strongest organic results.
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The Solution
Through consistent execution and collaboration, Crummer’s digital presence significantly improved:
Increased organic visibility across key MBA-related search terms, including top-page rankings for “MBA programs in Orlando, FL.”
Over the course of 2025, Crummer’s website has seen a 53% increase in total organic keywords in the top 10, jumping from 1,424 to 2,181.
Stronger domain authority through quality backlinks and improved technical site health.
At the start of 2025, Crummer had 344 referring domains linking to their site. As of December 2025, Crummer’s website has earned 1,965.
Improved AI Overviews visibility through the creation of well-optimized content favored by LLMs. Crummer started the year with only 98 citations in Google’s AI Overviews SERP feature. In December, they are ending the year with over 1,172 citations. This is a 1,095% increase in AIO visibility.
Sustainable growth framework established through improved SEO infrastructure, keyword strategy, and ongoing content creation.
Crummer already had a strong reputation. Our job was to make sure the right people could actually find it. By cleaning up the technical foundation, creating content built around how prospective students really search, and earning high-quality links, Crummer went from competing quietly to showing up consistently in high-intent MBA searches.
The result isn’t just better rankings, t’s lasting visibility. With a stronger SEO foundation and content that performs across both traditional search and AI Overviews, Crummer is now set up to keep attracting qualified MBA candidates long after the campaign ends.
