We currently use Surfer for MTD Training and Skillshub to shape our content strategy and ensure we’re competing where it matters most. With two very different audiences—enterprise learning and development leaders searching for practical management training, and organizations looking for flexible digital learning—it was important to find a tool that could support both our brands.
The progress we've made in the past 16 months is pretty clear below—notice the spike starting in July, right after we started using Surfer.
Challenges of competing in a saturated market
For MTD Training, the challenge has always been standing out in a crowded market of leadership and sales training providers. For Skillshub, the priority was making sure our eLearning content could reach HR and L&D professionals looking for scalable online solutions.
We are operating in an extremely competitive space, with high-authority domains already dominating many of the keywords we are targeting.
Timelines were tight and new content had to be created and optimized quickly to capture demand. Another challenge was ensuring consistency across hundreds of blog posts and service pages, some of which had been written over many years.
We needed a tool that would help us optimize efficiently without losing the human voice of our brand.
Initial goals for SEO
MTD Training is an award-winning management training provider that focuses on providing practical, ROI driven development rather than lots of theory-based learning.
To reach more organizations with our message, our primary goal was to increase the visibility of our management training and sales training content in a highly competitive niche.
Built on one simple promise to make learning easy and effective, Skillshub delivers enterprise-grade reliability (99.999% uptime), an intuitive user experience, and a library of over 1,000 CPD-certified courses.
With such a strong proposition, online visibility is vital to ensure the right organizations can discover and benefit from the platform.
"That’s why, in late July 2025, we began implementing Surfer across both the MTD Training and SkillsHub domains, and the results were immediate and dramatic."
We wanted to build sustainable organic traffic, get our name in front of more people (especially the right decision-makers) and ensure our blogs and landing pages were ranking for terms that would directly influence inquiries and conversions.
Our content strategy had always been strong in terms of volume and expertise, but we needed a more structured and data-driven way to optimize for search intent and maximize visibility.
Integrating Surfer into our content operations
We integrated Surfer into every stage of our SEO process:
Content creation: We used Surfer’s Content Editor to structure articles around relevant keywords and intent while still maintaining our brand tone.
Optimization of existing content: Surfer helps monitor our GSC data inside the tool and surfaces recommendations.
Legacy blog posts and landing pages were audited with Surfer’s recommendations, making it easy to refresh and improve rankings.
Keyword research and clustering: Surfer’s SERP Analyzer and keyword clustering tools helped us identify opportunities that would have been hard to spot manually.
For example, Surfer’s Topical Map shows us 660 suggestions for one of our core offerings “management training courses”
It helped us identify a keyword with significant search volume and within reach of our authority. This is very relevant for our target audience, not to mention how this keyword has purchase intent.
Team alignment: By embedding Surfer into our workflow, we found a new way for the team to collaborate with a clear, shared framework.
This gave us a consistent approach across new and existing content, ensuring every piece was optimized to compete effectively.
Measurable impact from higher visibility
Since introducing Surfer across the MTD Training domain in July 2025, we’ve seen a clear spike in impressions from UK search traffic.
The data shows over 1.2 million impressions in the last 90 days, a 53% increase compared to the previous 90-day period.
The chart below, covering the last 16 months of performance, highlights this clearly, with a sharp spike in impressions appearing from July onwards once Surfer was implemented.
This growth demonstrates the immediate impact Surfer has had in helping us strengthen search visibility and reach more of our target audience in a competitive market.
A further example of the impact Surfer has had can be seen through the work we’ve done for MTD Training’s sister company, Skillshub.
The screenshot below from Google Search Console shows the clear rise in Skillshubs' impressions, with overall visibility climbing sharply from August onwards.
To put that growth further into perspective, on 21 August 2024 Skillshub recorded just over 83,000 impressions.
Exactly one year later, on 21 August 2025, impressions had surged to more than 701,000, an increase of over 740% year-on-year.
This uplift demonstrates how Surfer’s structured, data-driven approach helped us compete in a crowded niche and turn content into measurable business growth.
The impact has gone far beyond traffic alone. The surge in impressions means our brands are being seen by significantly more of the right people, which has directly influenced business performance.
- Increased visibility has led to:
- More qualified leads and direct inquiries for our training services.
- A stronger competitive position in a saturated market.
We can confidently scale our content output, knowing that each piece is supported by data.
Surfer gives us the clarity and structure to compete at scale. The result? Millions more impressions, thousands of clicks, and SEO that now fuels inquiries and sales across our brands.
.avif)