How SUNY Niagara Turned Its Website Into a $2M Revenue Driver
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SUNY Niagara is a two-year public community college serving 3,000+ students in western New York. The college runs two WordPress websites on Pantheon – the college's main public site and an internal staff newsletter – both developed and maintained in partnership with digital agency Northern.
When Hal Legg, Director of PR, and Web Marketing Specialist Matthew Gagliardi set out to overhaul the college's web presence in 2024, they framed it as a business decision. "There is a business case for operating websites. And why run away from that?" said Legg. That clarity of purpose shaped everything that followed.
A Site That Had Outgrown Itself
When Gagliardi joined SUNY Niagara, one of the first things he did was run a Google PageSpeed Insights test on the existing site. It scored 13 out of 100. "There were some 160 plug-ins. It was just insane. I didn't even know where to start," said Gagliardi. Reliability was just as bad. "Our old web host – we had so many issues with reliability through our website. Pages would go dark without warning," he said.
The college went to RFP in March 2024 with a list of 27 bulleted must-haves. They needed everything, from significantly upgraded search functionality to consultation about optimizing the overall site size.
Built for Revenue, Not Just Reach
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What made the SUNY Niagara rebuild unusual was the brief. The RFP stated plainly that the website's primary purpose was revenue generation, a framing Legg acknowledged is still uncommon in higher ed, but one he saw as overdue.
"All of the tools we have for outreach – if we're doing them right – we need to be cognizant about the idea that we're trying to attract new business. So that's how revenue generation landed right in the RFP," said Legg.
That meant building clear pathways to the website actions that drive enrollment: open house registrations, academic program pages, and admissions applications. It also meant rethinking content.
"Our industry historically has had a prevalent undertone of formality in communication. Users, on the other hand, want full, detailed descriptions of products and benefits that help them make choices. And they want all of that in plain language that gets at their needs, not an aspirational narrative," said Legg.
That shift becomes even more urgent as AI-driven zero-click search reshapes how prospective students find information.
"Being less able to buy your way into search results will advantage sellers whose products align really well with consumers' needs. For higher ed, that shifts the burden toward research, program development, and plain-language content,” said Legg.
The Results
A year after launch, the numbers tell the story.
- Overall performance (Lighthouse score): 13 → 92
- SEO score: 78 → 92
- Accessibility score: 69 → 92
- Page views: 2.38M → 2.75M year-over-year (+15%).
- Enrollment: Over the last three years, student headcount rose 24% — translating to an additional $1.9–$2.1 million in revenue annually. This spring, enrollment was up more than 3% again.
These results were primarily driven by rebranding and increased marketing initiatives and digital ads, said Legg, but "more reliable hosting has definitely helped, too."
While attribution is tricky in higher ed because there are so many touchpoints between sellers and buyers, we are sure the website played a role in this."
– Hal Legg, Director of PR, SUNY Niagara
One Web Person, Fully Unblocked
While page-level updates are decentralized to editors with limited authority, SUNY Niagara's internal web team is essentially one person: Gagliardi, with limited backup from Legg and one other staff member. Northern handles development. Pantheon handles the infrastructure.
"Just how reliable our website has been with Northern and with Pantheon has been outstanding, and there's been zero issues," said Gagliardi. That reliability has had a direct operational impact. "Pantheon and Northern make it possible for our team to spend time dreaming up new avenues that will attract revenue. And you can't do that if your IT environment doesn't free you up," said Legg.
Jacob Smith, Northern's developer on the account, credits Pantheon's Dev, Test, Live pipeline for making collaboration seamless. Changes go up on Dev, Matt tests and verifies, and the team pushes through the pipeline – with no risk of overriding each other's work. "It's just super easy to see on Pantheon," said Smith.
That unblocked time shows up in what Gagliardi has been able to build. One example is a newly developed section focused on the college's workforce development programming — non-credit skills training.
“If you want to learn how to make amazing French toast, our culinary institute absolutely can run a class to teach you. While you won’t earn college credit, you will earn the admiration of everyone at your breakfast table,” said Legg. The programming ranges from AI tools certification to motorcycle licensing – and it's a growing revenue arm Gagliardi is now building a digital presence for.
He's also the architect behind SUNY Niagara Today – a staff newsletter that replaced a time-consuming manual process. Contributors now submit items through a form, which automatically generates WordPress posts. A plugin compiles everything from the previous day and sends it to staff each morning. "By 8:15 am every day, this email is gonna make it through our email filtering software and be in their inbox. And I won't have had to do anything to make that happen. It saves me a lot of time that I can invest in things that have more strategic value," said Legg.
Open rates jumped from 34% to 58% after the new system launched.
