The Q2 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 Q2 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 Q2 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q2 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 Q2 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK midlands universities was £6,330, 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 £446 . 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 University of Derby has the highest at £4,450.

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 £1,870, and De Montfort University has the highest at £218,000.

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 report, Aston University flagged 259 4xx errors. This quarter, Aston University has reduced these errors to 43, moving them to a lower position in the leaderboard. Currently, Staffordshire University reported the highest number of 4xx errors (99). It’s important that this university tries to reduce these errors or, perhaps, includes redirect links so that visitors aren’t being directed to dead ends.

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 audit, University of Derby reported the slowest mobile site speed (35). This quarter, University of Derby continues to score 35 for mobile site speed, but they’re no longer the brand to watch. The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 45 and 25, with University of Wolverhampton flagging the slowest score. Mobile site speed can affect bounce rates as well as enhancing the overall web experience for visitors, so all brands should take steps to reduce their page weight, optimise their website for mobile and more.

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. The DA for this quarter ranged between 82 and 62, with both University College Birmingham and Birmingham Newman University reporting the lowest DA score and Loughborough University reporting the highest DA score. A website’s DA score can affect their position in search engines, so it’s important that all brands continuously work to improve their DA.

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.

Three universities reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with Nottingham Trent University seeing the biggest loss (-6%). Meanwhile, on mobile, 6 universities reported a decrease on mobile, with Coventry University seeing the biggest loss (-15%).

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 continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (7,797) — a slight reduction from 8,075 in the previous quarter. However, the university with the fewest overall Universal Search appearances is Birmingham Newman University, which reported 498 results.

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 continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,638) — a slight decrease from 1,773 previously. Birmingham City University continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (4,125) — a slight reduction from 4,342 previously.

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 Aston University’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK midlands university should consider personalising their content to showcase the brand’s voice and help increase engagement.

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 continues to have the most Facebook likes (222,700) — an increase from 219,000 previously. For Instagram, Loughborough University continues to secure the most Instagram followers (76,700) — an increase from 74,500 previously.

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 previous audit, University of Wolverhampton reported 514 accessibility alerts. This quarter, University of Wolverhampton has reported a slight reduction of alerts (504), though they’re still the university with the highest score. Birmingham Newman University reported the highest number of contrast errors (30). It’s important that all universities work to reduce these alerts and errors to ensure those with a disability can easily access and navigate the websites without any holds ups (such as buttons that don’t click).

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q2 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.