ODUGlobal

ODUGlobal is Old Dominion University’s online learning division, serving adult and military-affiliated learners across the country. The university has been a pioneer in distance education for more than 35 years, offering 120+ online programs designed for flexibility, career advancement and access.

Digital innovation is key to moving with the pace of online learning and is at the heart of ODU. Running on Pantheon, their global web property was no longer able to keep up with their enrollment and innovation goals, so ODUGlobal partnered with digital agency KWALL. 

In the months following the launch, ODUGlobal saw measurable gains across traffic, engagement and search visibility. Key engagement metrics showed a 200% surge in impressions for the Admissions pages and 250% increase for Apply Now. 

“There’s been a real culture shift in how we think about the web. This isn’t just a marketing site – it’s an enrollment tool. Our audience is the prospective student, in all their forms. Every decision comes back to one question: does this reduce friction, and does it feed enrollment?” 

- Rebecka Hall, Executive Director of Web Innovation and Strategy

Here’s how ODUGlobal achieved this pivotal transformation. 

Partnership and process to streamline the student journey

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With a solid WebOps platform, ODUGlobal was ready for a website relaunch. It needed autonomy, speed, and data visibility. ODU partnered with KWALL to make the key student journey stages – discover, compare, and apply – frictionless across all web properties, including ODUGlobal. The goal is simple: prospective students should quickly find programs, costs, and next steps without needing to navigate internal university structures. Every design and development decision is measured against this principle.

ODU operates with a product mindset: small, measurable changes, continuous iteration, and non-negotiable quality standards. Accessibility, performance, and reusable components are built into every site, with structured schema and authoring guidance ensuring publishing quality by default. The goal is to apply practices proven on ODUGlobal to other ODU sites with the ultimate mission to support enrollment.

“We do not want a dotted line to enrollment. We want a solid line to enrollment, and we want to insert web in the conversation as early as possible,” said Hall.

Data now drives many decisions. GA4, Looker, Crazy Egg, and BrightEdge track user behavior, task completion, and findability, while ServiceNow serves as the single front door for incident management. Trend analysis identifies systemic issues, so fixes improve the platform rather than repeat individual tickets. Releases are tied to change records, and a growing knowledge base reduces repetitive problems.

KWALL amplifies ODU’s capacity by delivering scalable front-end development, design systems, accessibility improvements, and performant Drupal components. ODU maintains product direction, governance, analytics, and enablement, while Pantheon provides the web operations foundation.

“On the user side, Pantheon’s caching and global CDN deliver noticeable speed and stability. The site stays up reliably, pages load quickly, and performance is consistent across all devices. That means we can focus on improving functionality instead of worrying about downtime,” said Anita Jean Brandvold, Digital Project Manager at KWALL.

Results: A data-driven turnaround

Following the launch in early 2025, organic visits increased 25% between February and August 2025, while total pageviews rose nearly 40%. Mobile engagement climbed 12% month-over-month, reflecting faster load times and cleaner design.

Academic program pages – particularly in Education, Business, and Social Sciences – saw organic traffic gains between 27% and 44%, while admissions-related pages recorded a near 10% month-over-month rise in visits. 

From an SEO perspective, keyword rankings and visibility also strengthened. Most importantly, ODUGlobal captured a 14.8% share of voice across tracked academic terms, surpassing well-known competitors like Purdue Global and UMGC.

Why Pantheon matters

Pantheon’s performance and stability have been critical to sustaining ODUGlobal’s new pace. The team doesn’t have to worry about outages or sluggish load times; they focus on content, UX, and measurable improvements. Automated workflows enable safer deployments, while caching and CDN optimization keep the site fast worldwide.

We have a few properties on Acquia… But our team leaned toward Pantheon because it gives them reliability and support,” Hall said. “It also gives us guardrails, safe Multidev branching, and handles backups and updates…With strong caching, we spend less time babysitting infrastructure and more time improving UX and features. Our developers also value the hands-on support from the Pantheon team.” 

- Rebecka Hall, Executive Director of Web Innovation and Strategy

The redesign also positioned ODUGlobal for growth beyond its initial relaunch. As the broader ODU web ecosystem evolves, the same design system and governance model can scale across the university, including future integrations with academic colleges and the medical school.

As Hall summarized, “We wanted a system that lets us move faster, measure impact, and stay in control. Pantheon and KWALL gave us that foundation—and now, we’re building momentum.”