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I. Changing Roles - Mark Landon
II. The Changing Face of Search Engines - Lori Faunce
III. Studyabroad.com at NAFSA
IV. New Advertisers
V. Traffic Report
VI. Traffic Fact of the Month
VII. Top Ten EDU's
Many of the readers of this newsletter have known me since Mark Shay and I introduced Studyabroad.com in September 1995. Back then, I wore many hats at Studyabroad.com: sales, marketing, customer service, web design, technician; you name it.
Times have changed. During the past few years, a vibrant, mid-sized company has grown up around Studyabroad.com. Today, Educational Directories Unlimited, Inc. (EDU) is a firm dedicated to producing top-notch recruitment tools for higher education. In addition to the study abroad-related products (Studyabroad.com, StudyabroadWorldwide.com, Studyabroad.com Express, and new products to be announced very soon), EDU also has a family of market-leading products related to graduate school recruitment.
To help support the continued growth of EDU, my role has shifted dramatically in the past several months. I have recently taken on the title and responsibilities of Chief Technology Officer. My primary focus now centers on developing and leading EDU's technological future. I work with three bright technicians on our staff, as well as numerous contractors. My responsibilities are to assure the dependable service of our websites, maintain our outstanding record of 'uptime,' offer technical support to our staff and clients, and to map out a plan for the continued innovative use of technology in the higher education recruiting field.
You may have come in contact with various members of our talented and dedicated staff. As my area of day-to-day responsibility no longer lies exclusively with the Studyabroad.com product, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce or re-introduce you to the people who continue to make Studyabroad.com the market leader:
Erica Brechemin is EDU's employee 'Number 3.' She has been with us since 1996, and is extremely knowledgeable about the Studyabroad.com product. In November 2000, we promoted Erica to sales associate. John Duncan is the newest Studyabroad.com staff member. He joins Erica in our sales department, and I'm sure that many of you will come to know John well.
For the past year, Jennifer Lewis has served as Studyabroad.com product manager. Jennifer has a strong passion for study abroad and a talent for communication, making her ideal for this position. Jennifer, along with a support staff of two assistants, is responsible for the online face of Studyabroad.com and the client sites which we maintain.
Lori Faunce is EDU's marketing manager. Lori has been with us since May 1999. She is also the editor of this newsletter and is responsible for driving a spectacular amount of traffic to EDU's Internet sites. Lori is joined in our marketing department by Dan Stabb, our academic coordinator. Dan is responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with academic advisors and for distributing appropriate promotional materials to advising offices in order to help promote our services on campus.
Donna Salcedo is EDU's office manager and she is responsible for our bookkeeping, human resources, and accounts receivable functions. Donna has been with us for over 18 months.
Since July 2000, Sam Guittare has served as EDU's Vice-President of Operations, and has been recently named as Chief Operating Officer. Sam oversees the work of all of the EDU departments and is responsible for day-to-day operations.
Mark Shay is EDU's President and Chief Executive Officer. Mark stays very involved with the Studyabroad.com and Gradschools.com product lines and is the driving force behind the growth and innovation of our organization. Mark always welcomes your comments and suggestions, and you can reach him at mshay@gradschools.com.
One of the most challenging and exciting parts of growing this company from the original two owners to our current staff of 22, has been choosing the right people. Fortunately, we have done a very good job with this difficult task. As a result, I am comfortable in leaving you in the good hands of our staff as I take on my new and challenging role.
I have made many friends in the study abroad field and I am thrilled to say that I will continue my membership and involvement in NAFSA, as well as my friendships with so many in the industry. I will be at the NAFSA conference in Philadelphia later this month as an advocate for the use the use of technology in the study abroad field, and as an evangelist for the EDU products. I look forward to seeing and speaking with many old and new friends, and for the opportunity to introduce you to the EDU staff members who will continue to serve you well into the future.
There are three types of paid options currently available from many search engines and indexes: pay-per-click, paid submission and paid inclusion. The pay-per-click model has been around the longest and allows web sites to bid for search engine rankings. For example, if someone searched on the keyword "graduate admissions", the advertisers who bid on that keyword would be displayed on the results page in the order of highest bid to lowest. The "bid" is the amount you are willing to spend for each click sent to your web site. The dominating pay-per-click search engine in the current industry is GoTo.com, whose top bidding listings also appear on AOL, Lycos and other search engines. Other, lesser-known and less trafficked pay-per-click models are Kanoodle.com, Bay9.com and Ah-ha.com.
Paid submission, another paid option often offered, was first introduced by Yahoo! through their Business Express submit service. Submitters would pay Yahoo! $199 to have their web site reviewed within a few days. Paid submission, however, does not guarantee being listed or that any page beyond your home page will be indexed.
Many services, including Yahoo!, now require you to submit via paid options. While non-profit organizations often receive a discount or are able to submit for free, there is no sliding scale for profit-driven companies.
There has been much speculation with regard to whether search engines and indexes offering a paid submission option give preference to those sites that utilize the service. While many sites deny such allegations, Inktomi (http://www.inktomi.com), a major search engine powering such sites as HotBot.com and Iwon.com, admits to penalizing sites that are not submitted via the paid option. Their justification is the theory that sites which are submitted through the paid option are higher in quality and more legitimate in nature.
Another new submission feature is paid inclusion. Paid inclusion can actually be described as advertising, however, one is unable to distinguish advertisers from non-advertisers just by looking at the web site. Paid inclusion programs allow a company to actually pay to have pages of their web site included in related keyword rankings. Unlike the paid submission feature, paid inclusion requires an initial set-up fee as well as per-click charges. These fees, however, are typically based on a sliding scale allowing for volume discounts. Usually, only quality web sites whose home pages, at the very least, are already included in the search engine's index, are permitted to utilize the paid inclusion feature.
One such web site offering paid inclusion is Looksmart, operating their own directory at http://www.looksmart.com, as well as powering directories of major sites such as MSN.com and AltaVista.com. Even if you already have individual web pages (not web sites) listed in Looksmart's index, their editors will do a comprehensive search on your site, choosing pages they deem appropriate for inclusion. So what is the purpose of having more pages indexed if you already have some listed? The major benefit is that different pages on your web site will be relevant to different keyword or key phrase searches. For example, if your site is about studying abroad, one page might primarily focus on studying abroad in Mexico, while another page may focus on studying abroad in China. Both of these pages will have different keywords or phrases associated with them. In this example, a key phrase for each of these pages would be study abroad in Mexico and study abroad in China, respectively.
So what is the best feature to utilize? It really depends on your individual needs and budget. Paid inclusion can be quite costly, but guarantees indexed pages. Paid submission, though not guaranteeing results, is much less expensive and is good way to get noticed by some search engines/indexes. Pay-per-click models, while often making it hard to control expenditures, are very cost-effective, guarantee inclusion in relevant keyword search results, and allow you to control the rank in which your site is listed.
With time and patience, you will be able to master this new way of marketing. A key to success is to analyze expenditures on a cost-per-click basis. As search engines become another advertising outlet, this method of analysis will help you manage costs and choose the best resources for you. As well, academic areas are not currently utilizing these new search engine options on a large scale. Organizations involved with such campaigns now will sustain a competitive advantage.
Considering all these new features available, search engines and indexes can be quite confusing. There are many resources available to help with this confusion, one being Search Engine Watch (http://www.searchenginewatch.com). You may also e-mail lori@gradschools.com should you have any questions.
Once again, the annual NAFSA conference is upon us. This year, the event is being held in Studyabroad.com's home town, Philadelphia. The company is honoring this occasion with a very special announcement, as well as a contest in which everyone can participate.
The most exciting news come from the Institute of International Education (IIE), the world's most experienced educational exchange and training organization, and Educational Directories Unlimited (EDU), the online service provider of Studyabroad.com. The announcement will be unveiled at the conference on Tuesday, May 29th. If you are planning to attend the conference, be sure to stop by booth #418 (Studyabroad.com) or #237 (IIE) to find out what all the excitement is about!
In addition to the important announcement, Studyabroad.com will be presenting a unique contest entitled "Discover Your Fortune with Studyabroad.com". A fortune cookie will determine each participant's prize and everyone will be a winner. The Grand Prize Winner will receive an elegant globe atop a cherry-stained shelf housing reference books - a perfect display for your office.
We hope to see you there!
Accademia Italiana
Academic Programs Abroad, Inc.
American Collegiate Adventures
Center for Interamerican Studies
La Serena School
London College of Printing
London School of Economics
MILPA College
The New England School of English (Harvard Square)
Simmons College, Cordoba Program
StudyVacation
Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
Here's a look at unique hosts (roughly the number of unique users) per month visiting studyabroad.com:
April 2001: 143,789
April 2000: 93,204
March 2001: 140,785
March 2000: 108,291
February 2001: 134,298
February 2000: 121,078
January 2001: 168,375
January 2000: 95,653
December 2000: 128,371
December 1999: 68,538
November 2000: 135,360
November 1999: 98,813
October 2000: 136,961
October 1999: 99,847
September 2000: 200,683
September 1999: 80,074
August 2000: 127,922
August 1999: 70,356
July 2000: 94,076
July 1999: 49,774
June 2000: 108,392
June 1999: 56,408
May 2000: 99,502
May 1999: 51,974
The following list details the most frequently searched Studyabroad.com Destination Portal Pages, in order:
1. England
2. Spain
3. Italy
4. Australia
5. France
6. United States
7. Germany
8. Canada
9. Ireland
Here are the current top 10 EDU Domains visiting Studyabroad.com for the three-month period ending on March 5, 2001. Following each school name you will find the number of pages viewed from that campus during the period.
1. University of Virginia - 6,609
2. University of Albany - 5,636
3. SUNY, Buffalo - 5,222
4. Stanford University - 4,785
5. Indiana University - 4,469
6. Binghamton University - 4,384
7. SUNY, Geneseo - 4,285
8. Penn State University - 4,135
9. University of Michigan - 3,807
10.University of California, Berkeley - 3,755
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