Credential services
redesign.
Digital infrastructure, SEO, and a content marketing system that helped WES grow annual revenue from $50 million to $475 million in three years.
Case study / Nonprofit & international educationExplore the project
The service
challenge.
As World Education Services grew, its website accumulated different styles and competing messages. The redesign needed to help people understand credential evaluation services while also serving institutional partners and communicating WES’s social mission.
My contribution combined UX and web design, a digital style guide, a custom WordPress theme, and integrations. I also helped establish the infrastructure, SEO, and content marketing system supporting the organization’s growth.
The marketing work included Marketo and SendGrid setup, email-template design, and a content funnel for international students centered on the WES Advisor blog. That connected the website work to audience acquisition and ongoing email communication.
The applicant
journey.
For an evaluation applicant, the intended path is to understand the available service, check what documents are required, and continue toward an application. The tools and service cards bring those decisions into view.
Institutional partnership information and mission content answer different questions. The shared navigation and visual system connect those areas while giving each its own content structure.
Homepage
A clear entry point into the organization’s services and partnerships.
Tools & services
Service descriptions explain what each evaluation includes and who it is for; the tools area provides a route to document requirements.
Mission & organization
The same visual system supports the organization’s social mission.
Mobile
A mobile view of the website’s navigation and mission content.
Build the infrastructure
Connect UX, a custom WordPress theme, reusable components, and integrations into a foundation that can support growth.
Strengthen search visibility
Make SEO part of the website’s growth strategy and connect discoverability with a clearer service experience.
Connect content and email
Help set up Marketo and SendGrid, design email templates, and build a content funnel bringing international students to WES Advisor.
Applicants, partners,
and teams.
The experience serves people making consequential decisions about their education and future, alongside the institutions that support them.
Students & internationally educated professionals
Work out which evaluation is relevant, what it includes, and which documents to prepare before proceeding.
Education & institutional partners
Understand the organization’s work with institutions and find information relevant to international qualifications.
Internal teams
Communicate through a consistent digital system as services and organizational priorities evolve.
Reusable
service patterns.
The service cards shown here use a repeated structure: what the evaluation contains and who it is best for. That structure makes the differences between options visible without requiring visitors to compare several unrelated page formats.
The digital style guide and WordPress theme carry consistency across service, partnership, and mission content. Reusing the visual foundation leaves room for each page to answer a different question.
More about how I workFrom the WES team
Alfredo's skill at developing WordPress sites that are both modern, user-friendly, and accessible is top-notch. I had the pleasure of working with Alfredo at World Education Services. From concept through execution, Alfredo considers user needs and stakeholder requirements and, through it all, how to code pages/sites/components in a way that is reusable and scalable.
The student acquisition funnel.
International students were the audience for the WES Advisor content funnel I helped establish. The blog became one of WES’s major sources of organic traffic, alongside WENR.
I helped set up the marketing automation stack using Marketo and SendGrid and designed the email templates. My contribution connected the student-facing content funnel with the infrastructure and communication tools supporting it.
The two publications served different needs: WES Advisor attracted international students, while WENR provided researcher-authored coverage of international education and global education mobility. That distinction mattered to how the content reached its audience.
$50M to $475M in three years.
WES grew its annual revenue from $50 million to $475 million within three years: 9.5 times its starting revenue, an increase of 850%.
The digital infrastructure, SEO, and content marketing system I helped establish contributed to that growth. My role connected hands-on design and development with the systems the team needed to publish, reach audiences, and support an expanding organization.
A little more
context.
What did you contribute?
My contribution included UX and web design, a custom WordPress theme, a digital style guide, third-party integrations, security policies, and maintenance. I also helped establish the digital infrastructure, SEO, and content marketing system that contributed to WES’s growth. For marketing automation, I helped set up Marketo and SendGrid, designed email templates, and helped establish the WES Advisor content funnel for international students.
What problem did the redesign address?
The existing digital experience had become fragmented as the organization grew. The work focused on clearer communication and a consistent experience across services and organizational content.
What business outcome did the work support?
WES grew annual revenue from $50 million to $475 million within three years, a 9.5-fold increase. The infrastructure, SEO, and content marketing system I helped establish contributed to that growth.
How do WES Advisor and WENR differ?
WES Advisor served international students and became one of WES’s major organic traffic sources. WENR is the research-focused publication covering international education and global education mobility. I helped establish the Advisor content funnel and marketing automation; the WENR case study covers my website design and development contribution.
Growth and
lessons.
The work linked the experience people saw with the systems behind publishing, discoverability, and ongoing development. Those contributions helped support WES’s growth from $50 million to $475 million in annual revenue within three years.
The lesson I carry forward is to treat the interface, content operation, and technical foundation as connected design concerns. Each affects whether an organization can keep serving people as demand grows.
Next: World Education News & Reviews