Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

College-bound students flock to universities’ mobile websites

Only one in 10 campuses have a mobile website.

A surge in the percentage of recent high school graduates who use smart phones to research colleges and universities could turn campus web development on its head.

Colleges’ mobile sites, once considered experimental by campus leaders, could take priority over traditional websites, and soon.

Fifty-two percent of prospective college students said they had viewed a school’s website on a mobile device in 2011—more than double the percentage from 2010. And 48 percent of those students said the mobile site experience bettered their view of the campus, according to a survey conducted by higher-education consulting company Noel-Levitz and the National Research Center for College & University Admissions.…Read More

How colleges can drive traffic to their web sites

Colleges should closely track their web site's "bounce rate," Joly said.
Colleges should closely track their web site's "bounce rate," Joly said.

Digital marketing guru Karine Joly told a group of college technology officials that it’s time for them to stop relying on gut instincts when devising ways to increase web traffic and start relying on data that can attract prospective students online.

Joly spoke during a June 8 session at the annual EduComm conference in Las Vegas, where 800 campus IT officials and staffers attended workshops and keynotes addressing the latest in education technology. The conference ended June 9.

Joly, founder of Higher Ed Experts, an online service offering professional development, released a survey in May showing that three out of four university IT officials said they spent fewer than two hours a week on web site analytics, or studying their school’s web site traffic, including who is visiting the site and which search words guide them to the site.…Read More