The Q3 2025 benchmarking report for UK midlands universities has just been published. Learn how these 12 UK midlands universities perform across the digital space.

The latest Q3 2025 benchmarking report for UK midlands universities has just been published. It covers 12 of our UK midlands universities, including Staffordshire University, Keele University, Birmingham City University, Aston University, University College Birmingham, University of Derby, Nottingham Trent University, De Montfort University, Coventry University, University of Wolverhampton, Birmingham Newman University, and Loughborough University.

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 midlands universities to enhance their organic traffic through a successful keyword strategy and to improve their brand awareness to develop a trusting relationship with their audience and to also potentially seek new sign ups. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q3 2025 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these 12 midlands universities on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK midlands universities or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand based on 50+ metrics and indicators of a 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.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing and 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 underperform. 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.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.

For Q3 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK midlands universities was £6,026, with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £453 . This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.

There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape.

Relative to their spend, Aston University reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £20, and Loughborough University has the highest at £2,290.

The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, University College Birmingham has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £1,600, and De Montfort University has the highest at £220,000.

By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.

Technical Website Compliance

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 midlands universities should ensure that their website is easy to navigate with a minimal design (especially for mobile where screens are smaller) so consumers can locate information easily.

In our previous audit, University of Staffordshire reported 99 404 errors. This quarter, University of Staffordshire has increased their 404 errors to 188. However, the university with the most 404 errors is currently University of Wolverhampton, with a total of 214. A website can improve 404 errors by setting up proper redirects, such as 301 redirects, to guide users from broken or outdated links to relevant pages. Regularly monitoring site health with tools like Google Search Console or crawlers helps identify and fix broken links quickly. Additionally, creating a custom 404 page with helpful navigation ensures users stay engaged rather than leaving the site.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

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 will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. All universities should aim for a website that takes no longer than 3 seconds to load, helping to prevent customers from becoming frustrated with slow download speeds and potentially resorting to competitors.

In our previous report, University of Wolverhampton flagged the slowest mobile site speed (25). This quarter, University of Wolverhampton remains the university to watch, and they’ve since decreased their mobile site speed to 18, suggesting they’re not actively optimising their website for mobile. Websites can quickly improve mobile site speed by compressing images and enabling browser caching. These optimisations make pages lighter and faster, improving user experience on mobile devices.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) 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 isn’t gained through sponsored ads. For brands in the education sector, creating connections with websites that have a similar target audience is an effective way to increase their number of backlinks and, thus, their DA rating. Reaching out to these websites is a great way to build this relationship, but, most importantly, brands should focus on delivering high-quality content that websites will want to link to.

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however, it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. In our last report, both University College Birmingham and Birmingham Newman University reported the lowest DA (62). This quarter, University College Birmingham continues to report a 62 DA score, and Birmingham Newman University has remained their DA score at 61, currently making them the university with the lowest score. Domain authority is important because it reflects a website’s credibility and trustworthiness in search engines, helping it rank higher in search results. A higher domain authority often leads to more organic traffic, stronger visibility, and better chances of outperforming competitors. It also signals to users and search engines that the site is a reliable source of information.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for core, 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. Universities may see rise and fall in organic traffic depending on the time of year, so we can expect to see big fluctuations each quarter.

In our previous report, Nottingham Trent University saw the biggest decrease in organic traffic on desktop (-6%), and Coventry University saw the biggest decrease on mobile (-15%). This quarter, Coventry University saw the biggest decrease on desktop (-19%), and University College Birmingham saw the biggest decrease on mobile (-91%). Nottingham Trent University’s traffic loss on desktop was -9% this quarter, and Coventry University’s was -27% (a reduction for both universities).

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results are 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. Given that a university’s location places a big part in a student’s choice, midlands universities should focus on ‘local pack’ to help increase their findings in SERPs.

Loughborough University remains at the top of the leaderboard for the most Universal Search appearances (7,024) — a reduction from 7,797 in our previous audit. The majority of these appearances came from both ‘people also ask’ and ‘images’ (3,400).

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

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 new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Universities should adopt a longtail keyword strategy to reduce their competition and improve their conversion rates compared to shorttail keywords. All universities should focus on their location in the keywords to ensure they’re reaching their target audience.

Loughborough University reported the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,524), and Birmingham City University secured the most appearances for positions 4–10 (3,725). Websites can best use longtail keywords by naturally incorporating them into high-quality content that answers specific user queries. Placing them in titles, headings, meta descriptions, and blog posts helps capture niche search intent and attract more targeted traffic. This approach not only improves search visibility but also increases the likelihood of higher engagement and conversions.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, 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.

We’ve included screenshots of University of Staffordshire’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK midlands university utilised vertical videos to cater to mobile users, which is a great way of approaching it as most social media users use mobile.

Top Social Shares & Content

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 a long period of time. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Universities can create shareable social content that details announcements, the latest news, and information that’s relevant to their target audience.

Coventry University secured the most Facebook Likes (225,500), and Loughborough University landed the most Instagram followers (82,100). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. University of Staffordshire received the highest total engagement rate (34,705) and the highest average engagement (187).

Website Readability & Accessibility

Around 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. Midlands universities should aim to limit accessibility alerts, contrast errors, and errors, to improve readability for those on a screen reader.

In our last report, University of Wolverhampton reported the most accessibility alerts (504), and Birmingham Newman University reported the most contrast errors (30). This quarter, University of Wolverhampton has slightly reduced their accessibility alerts to 468, though they’re still the university with the most alerts. Birmingham Newman University has slightly increased their contrast errors to 32 from 30 previously. Accessibility alerts are harmful to users because they create barriers that make it difficult or impossible for people with disabilities to navigate or understand a website. This leads to poor user experience and can exclude a significant portion of the audience. 

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q3 2025 REPORT

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 Rory Tarplee.