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CPOA continues to generally outpace our competitors in Google
AdWord search terms and show well in other search engines (Yahoo!
and MSN).
You can view our
current rankings here: http://cpoa.com/rankings.htm.
Here’s how to read the analysis:
The terms on the left are the keywords we are using now.
The column to the right, labeled “competition”, shows the
total number of relevant web pages on the Internet that we are
competing with for our search terms.
The next three columns shows where CPOA and two of our
competitors rank for each search term. Parentheses to the right of these numbers with an arrow up or
down and another number beside the arrow shows how many positions a
ranking has risen or fallen since the last time the analysis was
performed (in our case, March).
Rankings are based on “organic” keyword searches by those
who search the Internet using terms like “athletic recruiting”
or “baseball scholarship”.
The results do not including hits received through
“pay-per-click” advertising on sidebars or on the top of web
pages. It’s important
to do well in both advertising and organic rankings, but obviously
the former is dependent on spending significant ad dollars.
The analysis reveals that we do better in Google on
general search terms like “college recruiting service” than our
competitors. On MSN,
we seem to do better on specific gender and sport searches.
Maintaining good rankings is dependent on many factors like
reciprocal links and keeping keywords fresh.
After reviewing our current keywords, if you have
suggestions, please pass them on to us.
While we believe our list of keywords is fairly
comprehensive, we welcome your input if it will help improve our
positioning.
We also recommend everyone keep plugging away on Facebook.
Those who are using it are seeing results.
If you haven’t tried it yet and you want to receive the
packet on “How To Effectively Use Facebook”, request it
from us.
Summertime for most of our clients means super-busy
non-school sports schedules. Whether
it is tournament involvement or participating on summer teams, kids
have a seemingly never-ending run of games, practices and workouts.
The vast majority of our clients are entitled to e-mail
updates to college coaches. The
number of updates depends on what service was purchased; they should
review their CPOA contract if they are not sure.
One good use of the e-mail update is to provide CPOA with
their summer tournament schedule or any event they may be taking
part in where they may be seen by coaches.
We can e-mail .pdf attachments, for example, with the updated
CPOA web profile for clients who request we notify coaches on their
behalf.
Clients should take advantage of the services they are
entitled to, and if they keep us posted on their summer schedule, we
will notify those coaches they would like to have receive the
information. Remind the
client that they also must supply us with those schools – up to 20
at a time – where the update should be e-mailed.
Eleven new franchisees and representatives attended our
training class last month.
CPOA welcomes:
Paul Aguilar – St. Charles, Ill.
Todd Anderson – Mt. Juliet, Tenn.
Ron Clary – Roanoke, VA
Kellen Haynes – Oak Creek, Wisc.
Marvin Haynes – Salem, Wisc.
Kathy Little – Hanover, Penna.
Patrick Page – Irvine, Calif.
Pam and Ed Tilton – Howell, Mich.
Tim Turk – Plainfield, Ind.
Bill Verhonik – Plainfield, Ind.
It’s always encouraging to have a big class with
knowledgeable and eager salespeople, and we are hopeful they are
already actively promoting CPOA in their respective areas.
A note to our CPOA
veterans: If our new
folks are a neighbor, send them an e-mail or give them a call and
introduce yourself. Their contact information can be found in the CPOA White
Pages in the Director’s Zone.
Good luck to the newest members of our team.
We have included an insert with this newsletter from the
Web site Cincinnati.com that covers the race for football
recruits, specifically how the recruiting calendar is
fast-forwarding to warp speed.
CPOA’s Tom Elias is featured.
Tom correctly points out, “There is nothing pushing the
(recruiting process) back the other way.
It will continue to be earlier.”
While this article focuses on football, the same is true in
all sports.
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Speaking of the recruiting calendar, the CPOA Important Dates
calendar, the one with ACT and SAT test dates, National Letter of
Intent Signing dates and updates sports sponsorship numbers at the
college level, will be available this month.
Pricing has not yet been finalized but expect the cost to
remain about the same as it has been in the past ($25 for 50 US
calendars, $45 for 50 Canadian calendars).
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One of those important dates just passed, the July 1st
phone call to rising seniors. We
wrote about the importance of this date in last month’s
newsletter, but it cannot be emphasized enough.
Seniors-to-be who are not being called by college coaches are
falling behind in the recruiting process more and more every day.
Your first question to those kids should be, “Are college
coaches calling you?” If
the answer is “No” or “Not many”, you know what to do!
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Marva Hall is a grandparent for the first time.
Marva and Tony Hall’s daughter Emily had a baby boy last
month. Congratulations
to the family!
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NCAA membership dues for 2009-10 have been suspended as part
of an NCAA national office effort to relieve fiscal pressure on
member schools during an economic downturn affecting all of higher
education. Dues range
from $900-$1,800, depending on division affiliation. The action will
result in a collective savings of about $1.3 million for the
membership.
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The NCAA has
established a new student-athlete Web site that will assist with the
NCAA Eligibility Center (Clearinghouse) registration process for
prospects planning to enroll fall 2010 and later. The
new address for the Eligibility Center is www.ncaastudent.org.
The new environment will provide prospective student-athletes and
their parents with information and guidance throughout the
registration and initial-eligibility certification process.
Parents who file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid
(FAFSA) beginning in January will benefit from a simplified and
shortened form as the U. S. Government makes a concerted effort to
encourage more families to apply for financial aid.
The FAFSA has long been criticized for being too long with
instructions that are too confusing.
Federal authorities estimate that 1.5 million students
eligible for Pell grants last year did not apply.
Though most financial aid experts agree that the form became
easier to complete when it became available online, the new
revisions are expected to make filing even simpler.
The new form will use expand the use of “skip logic” in
the online FAFSAs, allowing applicants to bypass more questions than
they can now. Congress
is also being asked to strike from the form dozens of questions
about family income and assets and allow some applicants to retrieve
tax data to answer many of the remaining questions.
As things stand now, only students who plan to enroll in
college prior to June 30, 2010, may import their parents’ tax
return data into the FAFSA. Those
enrolling for the fall 2010 term will not be able to do so (at least
that’s the plan right now). This
procedure alone will eliminate 18 questions from the FAFSA.
Schools like this idea too.
Pre-populating the FAFSA with tax return data may save
colleges as much as $4.32-million a year in cross-checking aid
applications against tax returns.
Many financial aid counselors praise the changes but
anticipate the feds doing more.
“You really need to fit it on the back of a postcard,”
said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid, a Web site about student
aid. Real
simplification, he said, will come through changes to the formula
used to determine financial need, not through changes to the form.
For that, the Education Department will have to rely on
Congress. Officials say they plan to ask Congress to eliminate
another 20 financial questions that cannot be answered with
information from income-tax returns.
We will continue to provide FAFSA filing for clients who
purchase our Super Service upgrade or any of our Ultra Services, and
we will monitor changes to the form to see how we can make our
service even more valuable to families.
It’s no surprise but interest rates for the most popular
education loans are up slightly for the coming year.
Rates for new Stafford Loans, awarded in the college
student’s name, are set at 6.8 percent for unsubsidized loans
(what most student’s receive) and 5.6 percent for subsidized loans
(interest is paid on the qualifying student’s behalf while he or
she remains in school).
The PLUS Loan, one taken in a parent’s name usually to fill
the gap between financial aid awarded and the school’s sticker
price, may be borrowed at an 8.5% rate.
We recommend clients who want to look into these loans check
with the financial aid department at the school they are attending.
Western Illinois University, NCAA Division I in Macomb,
Ill., is discontinuing its men’s and women’s diving program,
effective immediately.
Quinnipiac University, NCAA Division I in Hamden,
Conn., has decided to reinstate its women’s volleyball program
while eliminating men’s indoor track in response to a recent court
ruling that found the school not compliant with gender equity laws.
The Bobcats are also discontinuing men’s golf and men’s
outdoor track and field.
Salem International
University, NCAA Division 2 in Salem W.Va., is dropping four
sports: men’s and women’s golf, men’s tennis and women’s
volleyball.
Milwaukee (Wisc.) School of Engineering, NCAA Division
3, is adding a men’s lacrosse team to begin play in the spring of
2010.
Concordia University, NCAA Division 3 in Mequon, Wisc.,
adds men’s and women’s lacrosse beginning in 2011.
Pacific University, NCAA Division 3, will reinstate
its football program. The
team will take the field in the fall of 2010.
The school discontinued football in 1991.
Thomas More College, NCAA Division 3, located just
across the Ohio River from Cincinnati in Crestview Hills, KY, adds
track and field for men and women.
The teams will compete on the club level in 2009 and become
varsity intercollegiate in 2010.
It’s a daunting task to switch over to using only our
street address for everything sent through the U. S. Postal Service
to our office, but we want to remind you to use only 12682
College Prospects Drive, Logan, Ohio 43138 with no P. O. Box on
all of the correspondence you send to us!
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