Applications that enrol.
Senior-led paid media, technical SEO and AI search for universities and higher education providers, planned around the recruitment cycle and measured on applications and enrolments.
Built for universities.
University recruitment runs on a fixed calendar: open days, UCAS deadlines, offers, Clearing and enrolment, with postgraduate and international cycles running alongside. Each audience searches differently, from a sixth former comparing courses to an international applicant checking entry requirements, and a campaign judged on prospectus requests cannot tell which spend produced a student.
The work here is built around the cycle. Budget is weighted to the weeks that convert, with Clearing planned before results day rather than improvised on it, open day and application journeys are tracked through to enrolment where your systems allow, and course pages are built so search engines and AI assistants can read entry requirements, fees and outcomes.
What a university engagement covers.
- Recruitment-cycle campaign planning
- Clearing campaigns prepared before results day
- Open day and event registration campaigns
- Application and enrolment tracking
- International and postgraduate recruitment campaigns
- Technical SEO for course pages
- AI search visibility for course research
One senior mind, audit to invoice.
One senior operator plans the year around the undergraduate, postgraduate and international cycles, adjusting through each window rather than setting a flat budget and leaving it.
Measurement follows a prospective student from the first click to an open day, an application and, where your systems allow, an enrolment, so budget is judged on places filled.
How the sector reads to AI.
In the Crane Index scan of 1 October 2026, the Universities benchmark scored the websites of 116 organisations for AI readability, how well AI systems can read them. The median score was 43 out of 100, and 5 scored 70 or more. University of Kent led, at 88. Read the Universities benchmark.
Your own site can be scored the same way, free, so you can see where it sits against the sector before any work starts. Get your Crane Index score.
Universities questions.
Can you plan for Clearing?
Yes. Clearing campaigns, landing pages and tracking are prepared before results day, so budget can move to the courses with places as soon as Clearing opens.
Can you track applications made through UCAS?
Partly. An application made on UCAS happens off your website, so it cannot be followed click by click. Where your applicant records can be matched back, outcomes are tied to campaigns in aggregate. Where they cannot, the closest step on your own site, such as an open day booking, is tracked and labelled as such.
Do prospective students use AI assistants to choose a course?
Some do. When they do, the answer draws on websites it can read, including course pages, entry requirements and fees. The work makes those pages readable, and the Crane Index benchmark below shows how the sector's sites score today.
The full stack, on one desk.
Every sector engagement draws on the same four disciplines, held by one senior practitioner. Take one, or the whole stack.
Creator of the AI Readability Suite
Senior work, sector by sector.
Start with a conversation.
A proper conversation with the person who would do the work. Tell me about your universities business and where you want to be, and you will get an honest read on what I would change, what I would leave alone, and where the real upside is.
Speak with NicThe senior read,
once a week.
Most marketing newsletters are noise on a schedule. This is not that. Once a week I send a short, considered read on the shifts that actually change what you should do, across the AI shift, PPC, technical SEO and analytics. Filtered, weighted and signed off by me before it goes out. The judgement is mine, and now you can hear every edition in my own voice.
Nic CraneFounder, The Crane Consultancy
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