FREE LISTING INQUIRY FORMS
studyabroad.com has recently completed a major upgrade to the Free Listing format which affects the way students use e-mail to inquire about programs. Until recently, students who found your program through the "free listing" in one of our directories would click on your e-mail address, pop-up a "mailto" link (a blank e-mail message addressed to you), and type a free-form e-mail message to you. With our new system, the student who clicks on your e-mail address is directed to a simple form which asks for their name, e-mail address and allows them to write a brief message. The form asks the student to be specific about his/her interests. When the message is complete, the students click on the "send" button, and the message is sent to the program sponsor via e-mail.
We believe that this change makes the inquiry process easier for students makes it more likely that they will provide you with useful information, and should work more smoothly with more types of browser software. It also makes it more likely that users will supply you with their e-mail address so that you can write back. This has been something of a problem in the past, as we have seen quite a bit of e-mail sent from computer labs, without a valid return address. Inquires will now be tagged with a "studyabroad.com signature" at the bottom.
If you are a studyabroad.com advertiser, there is an added bonus to this system which you can take advantage of if you wish. We have built into the new system a means to direct users who click on your e-mail address in the "free listings" to your custom inquiry form, rather than to the standardized form described above. This allows you to request the same information from the user who gets your address from the free listing as you request from users who have clicked through to explore your website. It also eliminates the need for you to process two different types of inquiry forms.
Having all of your inquiries processed by a customized form can be a great benefit to those offices which use database systems for collecting, organizing, processing and storing inquiry data. (We can help you set up a database system for this purpose...contact our sales office if you would like further information).
If you are an advertiser and you wish to have your free listing linked to your custom form, write to webmaster@studyabroad.com and let us know. Be sure to include the URL of the form you would like to link to. PLEASE NOTE: If your form is housed on the studyabroad.com web server (i.e. the URL contains www.studyabroad.com...) we have probably already made the link to your custom form.
SUMMER LAW DIRECTORY
Once again, we have listened to what our users have requested, and we've added a new directory for Summer Law Programs Abroad. This new directory is accessible through our Summer Programs Menu and through our "By Subject" menu. If you know of anyone responsible for one of these popular programs, make sure they fill out our program listing form at http://www.studyabroad.com /update
HEBREW DIRECTORY
Our other new directory is in the Intensive Language section. Be sure to check out our the Hebrew Programs directory at available from our Intensive Language Programs menu.
SWEEPSTAKES TIME
We are now in the middle of accepting entries for our 3rd annual fall sweepstakes. This year our grand prize of a round-trip international airfare is being provided by Student Flights, Inc. (http://www.studyabroad.com/os/sfi.html). We have received a good deal of publicity thanks to the sweepstakes, with write ups in at least a dozen school newspapers.
When students enter the sweepstakes, they are given an option to allow us to circulate their name and contact information, so that study abroad program providers can send them appropriate program information. We will announce the availability of this information within the next couple of weeks.
"BAKERS DOZEN" SPECIAL
Once again, we are experiencing record traffic to studyabroad.com (see "Traffic Report" below). If you are considering becoming a studyabroad.com advertiser, now is the time. Not only can you take advantage of the strong traffic from qualified students, but you can also take advantage of our "Bakers Dozen" special. Program Sponsors who upgrade their "Free Listings" to paid advertising during the month of November can receive a free month of advertising. New advertisers signing up for service by November 30 will receive a 13 month service agreement for the price of 12 months when they mention this notice. Contact our sales office for more information. You can also view our "Advertiser's Guide" on-line at http://www.studyabroad.com/media_kit
INQUIRY DISTRIBUTION LIST
Here's another quick reminder about our General Inquiry Distribution List, which is sent on a weekly basis. This e-mail distribution list is a compilation of the general inquiries received by studyabroad.com from individuals looking for information regarding study abroad and language programs. We are now receiving and passing along 10-20 inquiries per week. The inquiries cover a wide range of interests, including U.S. students looking for programs abroad and students outside of the U.S. looking for programs in the States. Sometimes the inquires are general and sometimes quite specific. While the list is free, the catch is that you need to read through the inquires to find those which are applicable to you.
Those who subscribe to the list have the opportunity to help prospective students in need of information, as well as to potentially recruit students for their own programs. We do this as a service to our users.
If you are interested in receiving this distribution list, please send e-mail to webmaster@studyabroad.com, with "subscribe" as the subject. There is no fee for receiving this distribution, nor are you required to be a studyabroad.com advertiser.
NEW ADVERTISERS
Once again, we would like to thank the more than 200 studyabroad.com advertisers who make our service work. The following are new advertisers since our last newsletter:
Abanico Sevilla
Academic Programs International
Accent International
American English Adventures
Babilonia, Centro di Lingua e Cultura Italiana
Boston University Division of International Programs
CET Academic Programs
Cooperative Center for Study Abroad
Costa Rican Language Academy
Fund for American Studies
Hopkins-Nanjing Program
Institute of International Trade and Law
Odyssey in Athens
Plato College
Rockland Community College
Studio Art Centers International Florence
Southern Methodist University
University of Maryland - Study Abroad
TRAFFIC REPORT
Even we are amazed at how our traffic continues to grow. So far in October we have broken the exceeded 275,000 pages served with one week yet to go. By the time the fall semester is finished, we project that we will have doubled the traffic from last fall!
A note about "unique hosts": This number reflects the number of "computers" which accessed pages on our site. This is roughly the number of individual users who visited our site. This figure is only available for months starting in October of 1996, when we began using a new log analysis utility.
Traffic in Total Pages Served:
*October 1997: 276,462 (unique hosts: 43,484)
October 1996: 157,726 (unique hosts: 29,774)
*One week remaining
September 1997: 238,779 (unique hosts: 41,789)
September 1996: 149,185
August 1997: 185,182 (unique hosts: 37,430)
August 1996: 95,543
July 1997: 137,117 (unique hosts: 28,099)
July, 1996: 68,427
June 1997: 145,747 (unique hosts: 28,648)
June 1996 (estimated): 63,434
May 1997: 187718 (unique hosts: 39,108)
May 1996: 77,481
April 1997: 183,284 (unique hosts: 37,240)
April 1996: 84,891
March 1997: 173,087 (unique hosts: 35,924)
March 1996: 79,580
February 1997: 204,217 (unique hosts: 37,822)
February 1996: 59,562
January 1997: 200,764 (unique hosts: 38,020)
January 1996: 36,487
December 1996: 115,566 (unique hosts: 23,364)
December 1995: 29,747
November 1996: 192,587 (unique hosts: 37,213)
November 1995: 21,048
THE STUDYABROAD.COM TOP 20
This month we have expanded our top "top universities list" from 10 to 20 to give you a bit of a bigger picture of who visits our site. The statistics below are for the first four weeks of October and represent the total number of studyabroad.com pages viewed from computers from these universities.
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