32% More Enrollment Path Clicks by Aligning CTA Language to Student Intent
How an SEO-led CTA test unlocked meaningful gains in the top enrollment pathway
The Challenge

Enrollment Traffic Was There — Action Wasn’t

For this client, site traffic has been down year-over-year for several years in a row. With no signs of natural recovery. Historically, blog-led SEO had driven growth. But AI-generated search results were increasingly answering top-funnel questions directly in SERPs, cutting clicks off at the source. Informational content was no longer pulling its weight. But local traffic was still working. Local visitors were engaged, more qualified, and more likely to convert. The key local pages that served them, however, were under-optimized, thin on content, and leaving demand on the table. Without a pivot, organic would continue to decline, even as high-intent local searches remained strong.
The Solution

Testing CTA Language to Match Student Readiness

We tested CTA language to better match user intent and expectations in the enrollment journey. Instead of guessing, we ran a structured, SEO-informed CTA experiment across two page groupings: Group 1: Higher-intent CTA “How To Apply” Group 2: Lower-intent CTA “Apply Now,” with iterative language tests based on early results Over four months, we: Ran a consistent benchmark using “How To Apply” to establish performance stability Iterated on lower-performing CTAs (“Apply Now,” then “See Application Details”) to validate whether urgency or specificity would improve results Let performance—not personal preferences—determine the winner
The Results

More Qualified Enrollment Actions — Without More Traffic

The results were decisive. “How To Apply” delivered an average +32% lift in clicks above expected volume across all four months “Apply Now” underperformed by an average of -33%, confirming it didn’t match user readiness “See Application Details” performed even worse at -53% below expectations When “How To Apply” replaced “Apply Now” in the final month, clicks immediately jumped +31% The takeaway was clear: users weren’t resisting enrollment, they were resisting premature commitment language. By aligning CTA language with how prospective students actually think and decide, JHU Education unlocked more movement through its most important enrollment pathway — and made “How To Apply” the standard CTA moving forward.

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