McMillan Education International

McMillan Education is the oldest independent educational consultancy in the United States, with more than 70 years of experience guiding families through school and college admissions. While the brand is deeply established domestically, its international visibility did not yet reflect that legacy.

As McMillan expanded its international focus across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, the challenge was not authority, but reach. The international website needed to be redesigned and repositioned to compete in complex, trust-driven search environments.

Marketing in the education sector presents unique constraints:

• Families research across multiple countries, curricula, and admissions systems
• Decision cycles are long, often beginning well before first contact
• Visibility must scale across regions, not concentrate in a handful of topics

To compete effectively, McMillan Education International needed a strong organic presence across all targeted regions, not isolated visibility in a handful of topics.

We began with an international website redesign, rebuilding core service pages and creating new regional and planning-focused landing pages. Within five months, service pages saw over 80% growth in organic visibility, creating a strong foundation for wider SEO, content, and AI-driven performance gains across the site.

SEO and GEO

We developed an international SEO strategy aligned with how families research education globally, mapping keywords by geography, admissions system, academic level, and planning stage. In parallel, we implemented Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to strengthen visibility in AI-powered search experiences, including AI overviews and large language model responses.

Results achieved within five months included:

• 51.8% improvement in average keyword positions
• Hundreds of keywords ranking in the Top 10 across priority markets
• Improved visibility in AI and LLM-generated search results
• 978% growth in mobile organic traffic
• 815% growth in desktop organic traffic
• 58.9% increase in click-through rate

Content Strategy

Content marketing became the primary growth driver. We built and optimized a library of planning-focused content designed to answer high-intent questions across all target continents. Rather than concentrating traffic in a single region or topic, the strategy expanded traffic distribution across universities, boarding schools, and international admissions pathways worldwide.

Within months, blog and evergreen content accounted for 96% of organic traffic, supporting overall organic traffic growth exceeding 1,400%, with organic clicks and impressions increasing by 550% and 570%, respectively.

Supporting Marketing Channels

Alongside SEO, we executed supporting digital marketing initiatives, including social media advertising, ongoing social media marketing, cold email campaigns, and monthly newsletters. These channels reinforced brand awareness and engagement while SEO and content marketing continued to compound as the primary acquisition engine.

Email newsletters showed steadily improving engagement, with open rates increasing from 23.9% to 59.0% and click engagement rising by 78.5% month over month at peak.

Across social media, performance gains within six months included:

• 96.3% increase in engagement rate
• 178× growth in impressions
• 156× increase in average reach
• 100+ new followers added