Since the re-launch of the TMW-KAHS alumni site on February 16th, 2009, there has been quite a bit of visitor activity.

The announcement mailing went out late on that day, resulting in 16 visitors to the site. In the days preceding the mailing, there had been an average of 5 or less visitors per day. On the following day, February 17th, the site received 134 visitors – the highest single day record. Obviously, this was a direct reaction to the mailing. Since then, the number of daily visits has been relatively stable, between 15 and 75 visits per day. Sundays tend to be the “slowest” days and Mondays the most active.

On average, visitors read 6 pages per visit and spend around 9-10 minutes on the site.

Of the 830 visits to date, 478 were first-time visitors to the site (which translates to 57.59%). This also means that a little over 40% of the visitors have visited the site more than once – which is good. Ours was a small school and our alumni site is not going to radically grow its membership. Over time, the percentage of repeat visitors will/should increase in relation to first-time visitors.

I have continued to poach the social sites and I’ve been writing anyone I found that belongs to us, urging them to register.

When I took over the data available on the previous version of the site, there were 389 names. At this writing, we have 467 alumni listed in the database, or 71 more than on February 16th. I will continue “poaching” until we get all the members that we possibly can.

A bit more disappointing has been the number of registrations, although these are still trickling in at the rate of 1-2 a day. As of today, March 3rd, 2009, we have 70 registered members. Of the 70 registrations, approximately 15 are from alumni that were previously not listed on the site nor registered in the Yahoo Group.

One of the problems with the alumni database is the fairly high number of emails that no longer work (97) and alumni for which we have no email addresses (18). That represents 115 alumni that were once active and that we can no longer reach. This percentage is in line with the email bounce rate on the Yahoo Group maintained by Colene, where out of 135 registered users, 38 email addresses are “bouncing”.

Most comments about the re-design of the site have been positive but there have been a few comments about the “need” for the change. I won’t tell you that this is “change you can believe in”, but this change will make it much easier to maintain the site and the alumni database. Registered members can now update their own data and that should keep the site more up to date. Finally, the new version offers a higher degree of privacy than was possible in the past.

To address the concern of members who have expressed doubts about the new design, in the coming days, I will be creating an alternate view of the site. In addition to the current design, favored by most, there will also be an alternative that will closely resemble the old format. This “old” format, due to the personal data it exposes, will only be visible to registered members, as is the wish of the majority of the alumni.

As always, I am thankful for any suggestions or comments you provide.

Before anyone starts thinking that I like the sight of my own writing, please let me explain the reason for this change to the home page.

Over the years, this site has been a platform through which former members of the school have found each other and renewed contact. I think we all want the site to continue serving this purpose.

Some changes were made recently to make it easier to use and to group all available information in a central place. But those aspects are secondary. The success of the site hinges on its database – i.e. the number of former classmates that can be found through this site.

For the site to fulfill its “mission”, we need to have as many members on the site as possible. I think that part is clear. I have been going through the various sites out there (classmates.com, reunion.com, usareunited.com, etc) and I’ve been “poaching”, contacting former students and encouraging them to register on this site. I’ve also made the rounds at Facebook and LinkedIn.

So much for finding TM Wilhoite / Kenitra alumni.

The next item would be to have former members of the school find us, without having to hunt them down. To this end, the search engines – be it Google, Yahoo or MSN/Live – can help us… if it’s done correctly.

For those who may not be familiar with the methods used by search engines, the simplest way to explain it to say that search engines regularly visit existing websites. While visiting a site, they take note of its content, and using a little science – some say magic – decide what a site is all about. There are a number of items that are used to determine how “relevant” a website is to a potential search. One of those items is “staleness”.

A website deemed to be “stale” is one where its content doesn’t change over time. If the search engines should ever define this site as stale, then, over time, the position of the site in the search engines will start slipping and anyone looking for these pages may have to look past the first result page in Google to find us – and most people don’t do that.

I will continue looking for former members and encouraging them to join the site. I will also be writing something on this page on a regular basis. There aren’t that many news in my neck of the woods (Costa Rica) that you’ll find very interesting but the search engines will like it – so please bear with it.

Of course, you are free and welcome to add your comments to anything you read here. In fact, it would be helpful.