EAB Organic Growth Opportunities

This play involves creating a WCAG-4 compliance dashboard for every U.S. college website, automatically refreshed to provide up-to-date accessibility scores. This positions EAB as a leader in a critical procurement requirement area, attracting institutional leaders concerned with legal and user-experience standards.

Example Keywords

• " website accessibility score"
• "is ADA compliant online"
• "higher ed digital accessibility benchmarks 2025"
• "WCAG compliance report for universities"

Rationale

Accessibility is a major legal and ethical concern for universities, and procurement departments often require it for new software. By providing free, comprehensive scorecards, EAB can capture the attention of VPs and CIOs—the exact audience vetting products like Navigate360—at the earliest stage of their research, establishing trust and generating high-quality leads.

Topical Authority

EAB already advises institutions on student services and digital infrastructure. Publishing nationwide accessibility data establishes unparalleled authority in a niche that directly impacts student experience and institutional risk, making EAB the definitive source for this information and earning significant backlinks from .edu domains.

Internal Data Sources

Utilize an AirOps crawler with an integrated axe-core test suite to perform automated WCAG scans of every .edu domain. For partner institutions, leverage Edify CMS integrations to pull richer, behind-the-login LMS scan data, and inject contextual commentary from EAB's internal research on legal risks associated with digital accessibility.

Estimated Number of Pages

3,000+ (Covering all public and private non-profit institutions, with annual versions to track progress)

This play creates a public-facing database that tracks and summarizes the generative AI governance policies of every major U.S. university. It would serve as the definitive, first-mover resource for administrators, faculty, and press seeking to understand the rapidly evolving landscape of AI in higher education.

Example Keywords

• " generative AI policy"
• "AI usage rules in college"
• "higher ed AI governance examples"
• "college academic integrity policy for ChatGPT"

Rationale

Generative AI is the single most disruptive topic in higher education, and every institution is scrambling to define its policies. By creating the go-to directory, EAB can capture massive organic traffic from high-level administrators (provosts, deans, CIOs) and establish itself as the primary thought leader, funneling this audience directly to its AI-related consulting and technology services.

Topical Authority

EAB already consults on AI curriculum and data governance, as evidenced by its 'generative-AI curriculum prioritization assessment' service. This play externalizes that expertise at scale, leveraging EAB's existing research and conversations with provosts to create an authoritative, public-facing resource that no competitor currently offers.

Internal Data Sources

Use an AirOps crawler to scrape university websites, faculty senate minutes, and policy PDFs for AI-related language. Supplement this with insights from EAB's proprietary research interviews with provosts and deans on AI governance, and use aggregated, anonymized adoption statistics from Navigate360's AI features to add a layer of unique data.

Estimated Number of Pages

1,200+ (Covering approximately 1,100 public/private non-profit institutions, plus archived yearly versions to show policy evolution)

This strategy generates a detailed skill-gap report for every major O*NET skill within every large U.S. metro area. These pages would map real-time job market demand to specific micro-credential and certificate opportunities, serving as a critical tool for continuing education deans.

Example Keywords

• "demand for certificate in "
• "micro-credential opportunities 2025"
• "industry need for graduates in "
• "best skills to learn for job market"

Rationale

Continuing and online education deans are constantly searching for data to justify the launch of new programs. This play directly addresses that high-value research need, positioning EAB as an essential partner in program development and funneling these administrative users directly to EAB's Enroll360 marketing services designed to support new program launches.

Topical Authority

EAB has deep expertise in advising on enrollment and program mix. While competitors focus on student-facing program finders, this play targets the institutional decision-makers, a blue ocean opportunity. By blending job market data with search trends, EAB can create a uniquely authoritative resource for this audience.

Internal Data Sources

Integrate Lightcast API data for job postings by MSA with Data for SEO's keyword search volume for terms like 'learn online'. Critically, use anonymized alumni employment data from Navigate360 to provide real-world proof of where graduates with certain skills are employed, closing the loop with proprietary outcome data.

Estimated Number of Pages

2,500+ (Covering 250 high-growth skills across the 10 largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas)

This play expands EAB's existing small glossary into a comprehensive, 1,000+ page library defining and benchmarking every common higher-education performance metric. Each page would not only define a term but also provide anonymized benchmark data, making it an indispensable resource for institutional researchers and administrators.

Example Keywords

• "what is stop-out rate in higher education"
• "average melt rate for community colleges"
• "student-faculty ratio benchmark 2025"
• "net-price calculator accuracy standards"

Rationale

University administrators, from department chairs to provosts, constantly need to look up definitions and benchmarks for KPIs used in strategic planning and reporting. By creating the most authoritative resource for these queries, EAB will capture a massive volume of high-intent organic traffic, building brand trust and creating a continuous funnel for its data and analytics products.Topical Authority

EAB already has a small 'higher-education glossary' with 14 URLs, demonstrating nascent authority. This play leverages EAB's core identity as a research and data analytics firm, using its proprietary data from Edify and Navigate360 to provide benchmarks that no competitor can replicate, thus solidifying its position as the authority on higher-ed metrics.

Internal Data Sources

Leverage anonymized, institution-level benchmarks from the Edify data warehouse to provide real-world context for each KPI. Incorporate real-time retention and advising metrics from Navigate360 analytics, and use expert commentary and citations from EAB's vast library of research whitepapers to add qualitative depth to the quantitative data.

Estimated Number of Pages

1,200+ (Sufficient to cover virtually every metric, with variants for different institution types and annual updates)

This play creates a discipline-by-state dashboard that visualizes faculty salary data, average hiring time, and PhD pipeline output. These heatmaps would serve as a critical, free resource for provosts and HR leaders trying to budget for new faculty lines and understand competitive pressures.

Example Keywords

• "assistant professor salary in "
• "faculty hiring trends 2025"
• "hardest disciplines to hire for in higher ed"
• "average salary for computer science professor in Texas"

Rationale

Budgeting for faculty compensation is a primary challenge for EAB's core audience of provosts and academic affairs leaders. By providing open, comparative salary and hiring data, EAB solves a major pain point and will attract high-value organic traffic, earning backlinks from influential publications like The Chronicle of Higher Education and positioning itself as a strategic financial partner.

Topical Authority

EAB's business revolves around strategic advising for university leadership. While competitors often gate salary data behind paywalls, creating a free, comprehensive, and visually intuitive resource establishes EAB as a transparent and indispensable partner in institutional strategy and financial planning.

Internal Data Sources

Import and process public CUPA-HR and IPEDS faculty salary files within the Edify data platform. Integrate data from the LinkedIn job postings API to analyze vacancy duration for specific roles. Finally, use the Rapid Insight tool to embed projected five-year salary cost growth, adding a unique, forward-looking analytical layer.

Estimated Number of Pages

1,000+ (Covering 50 states for each of the top 20 academic disciplines)

Improvements Summary

The strategy focuses on optimizing the Navigate360 product page and related login sub-domains to capture more branded and commercial search traffic. Key actions include on-page SEO improvements, new content creation, and internal linking to consolidate authority and improve rankings.

Improvements Details

Tasks include rewriting the core product page H1 and meta tags, adding rich content sections targeting login and commercial queries, implementing FAQ and product schema, and linking institutional login pages back to the main product page. New content such as a login hub, customer stories, a comparison blog, and a glossary entry will target high-value keywords like 'navigate360', 'advising software', and common misspellings. Internal linking from webinars, blogs, and case studies will further strengthen topical authority.

Improvements Rationale

These improvements address missed opportunities in branded and generic search, fix broken authority flow between login pages and the core product page, and fill content gaps that competitors are not targeting. By consolidating authority and optimizing for high-intent keywords, the site can move from page 2 to page 1, increase organic traffic, and drive more demo requests.