GBHEM Maintain Website Traffic With Team Augmentation

Case Study

More Than 5,500 Hours of Team Augmentation Helps GBHEM Maintain a Fleet of Stable Websites

While overall traffic for religious and higher education organizations is declining, Plan Left helped the global arm of the Higher Education and Ministry for the United Methodist Church increase traffic.

Home page for the GBHEM website is seen across desktop, laptop, mobile, and tablet screens.

A deep partnership between Plan Left and GBHEM 
solved several problems, from an unstable website to declining
website visitors. Now they’re back on the rise.

5,500

Hours of services

1200

Keywords gained relevance

17,000

Backlinks gained

Laptop view of the GBHEM website before efforts by Plan Left were applied.

Before We Started

The initial engagement focused on a large Drupal website that was experiencing myriad performance and security issues. They had six sub-sites and/or micro-sites that needed to be folded into the main GBHEM.org domain. Several other sites that serve the audience were not meant to be part of the GBHEM domain, but they did need similar security and maintenance.

After We Were Done

Since that initial Drupal audit, we’ve taken over the security, maintenance, hosting, and support for the GBHEM website and a fleet of non-integrated websites that serve the GBHEM audience, and we provide an ongoing Team Augmentation service with GBHEM to support their Marketing, Communications, and Technology departments.

GBHEM campus webpage with various college and university logos.
General Board of Higher Education Methodist Church website page for 2021 Map of UM-Affiliated in US and Puerto Rico.

WordPress Development, Hosting, and Team Augmentation

Because GBHEM needed their main website and the reduced fleet of related websites to be stable, secure, and easily updated, WordPress sites were the perfect choice. GBHEM can now make updates as they see fit, and when they need help, our team steps in to act as part of the GBHEM team with zero downtime. Speaking of downtime, Plan Left hosting services make sure their websites are always up, always secure, and always maintained.

An open laptop and computer monitor with website developer code are looked at by two people sitting at a desk.

The Problem

The global arm of the Higher Education and Ministry for the United Methodist Church came to Plan Left with a large Drupal site that was failing due to several performance and security issues. A thorough audit soon revealed a fleet of sites that serve the GBHEM audience that also needed attention, as well as several sub-sites and micro-sites that needed to be folded into the GBHEM’s primary domain.

Plan Left ensured a smooth process through clear communication and prompt customer support. Moreover, the team impressed the client with their ability to provide the right solutions to problems.

— Donnie Reed, Visual Content and Web manager

Higher Education and Ministry, United Methodist Church

The Plan

Plan Left supported the enterprise-level organization with technological expertise and implementation, acting as an in-house technology team for implementing new features, integrations, and website improvements. We provided SEO support and implementation for all website performance concerns, including on-page conversion rate optimization, accessibility best practices, End-of-Year traffic reporting and continuous on-and-offsite SEO implementation.

We improved their content strategy and audience reach by integrating several sub-sites or micro-sites into the fold of the main GBHEM.org domain, which reduced the number of websites in the fleet. A small number of remaining websites also required content strategy assistance. On-premises GBHEM staff worked directly with stakeholders to identify key messaging and outcomes while Plan Left helped outline key performance indicators, user journeys, and traffic redirection plans.

An open laptop showing Drupal and a computer monitor showing the GBHEM website code are looked at by developers.

The Results

Despite the growing trend of decline in both religious and higher education participation, website traffic and sessions are up.

General Board of Higher Education Methodist Church website page for Clinical Pastoral Education with a person speaking to another.

The Plan Left Advantage

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Team Augmentation

We lend you our team members to train your team members so you can make the most of your new technology.

Hosting

Plan Left promises hosting reliability that’s also virtually hack-proof. You won’t find this level of security and personal attention anywhere else.

WordPress Development

WordPress makes search engine optimization easy and gives the ability to extend your website’s functionality beyond the usual themes with existing or custom plug-ins.

Website Performance

Plan Left tracks your website’s performance to help you determine where to spend your marketing budget.

Need a million-dollar team without a million-dollar payroll?

What we did for GBHEM, we can do for you.