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Vaughan College

  • Web Design
  • UX
  • Brand Direction
  • Development
  • SEO

An Ontario private school's website and online course store, with search visibility tripled within three months of launch.

The rebuilt Vaughan College homepage showing a student in uniform beside the headline about Ontario private school Grades 8 to 12
The previous Vaughan College website, showing a photograph of the school building above a navigation bar reading Home, About, Admissions, Programs and International
Previous siteRebuild
Drag the handle, or focus it and use the arrow keys, to compare the previous site with the rebuild.
Client
Private secondary school, Woodbridge, Ontario
Year
2026
Scope
UX, Brand direction, Web design, Development, SEO

The problem

Vaughan College wanted to sell its courses online and teach students abroad, and its old WordPress site could do neither. It was clunky and disorganised, and parents and students often complained they couldn't find what they were looking for. There was no way to buy a course online, and with no technical SEO behind it, the site ranked 17.8 on average in Google, near the bottom of the second page.

What I did

I rebuilt the information architecture from the ground up, so families can find what they came for without hunting. I redesigned the site and reworked its photography to give the school a high-end, Ivy League look. For online sales, I built a custom store and checkout for all 86 courses that works hand in hand with Moodle, where the courses are taught. Students create their Moodle account on the site itself, and paying for a course enrols them automatically. Every page carries technical SEO and structured data that search engines and AI assistants can read, and Google Analytics is set up to measure the results.

Where it landed

Within three months of launch, search visibility had tripled. Clicks rose by more than a third, and the school's average position in Google climbed almost six places, from 17.8 to 11.9. ChatGPT now sends about as many visitors as Bing, and they stay longer than visitors from any search engine. For the first time, applications are coming in through the website.

  • Vaughan College course catalogue headed Every credit we offer, with filters for grade, subject and course type beside a grid of course cards showing course code, grade, credit and price
    All 86 courses sit in one catalogue that families filter by grade, subject and course type.
  • Two phone screens of the Vaughan College course catalogue on navy. One shows the catalogue with All, Available Online and In-Person Only tabs, a course card for Visual Arts at $580, a floating Filters button and a Contact and Cart bar. The other shows the Filter courses drawer with options for grade, subject and course type
    On a phone, the filters open in a drawer, so the course list keeps the whole screen until a family needs them.
  • Vaughan College course page for ENG4U, English (University), with a tuition card showing $580, Grade 12, one credit and online delivery, above a prerequisite chain back to Grade 9 English
    Each course page puts its price, credit and prerequisites beside the description, one click from the cart.
  • Vaughan College tuition calculator with options for residency, program, term, number of courses and course format, beside an estimated tuition range of $14,000 to $16,000
    The calculator gives families a tuition range for their child's schedule before anyone has to call and ask.
  • Vaughan College student stories page with two alumni accounts in alternating layout, each with a portrait, a first-person story and a pull quote
    Students and alumni tell their own stories at length, laid out like features in a school magazine.

See it live

vaughancollege.ca

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