Things I do to improve your ad

Basically, I don't limit myself to just sticking your ad on the site and forgetting about it. My service is to find teachers for jobs and jobs for teachers. I figure if you're not getting contacts from teachers, then you won't renew the ad, which would make the whole site kind of pointless. In other words, the site is secondary to the basic Human Resources Representative's service. First, read the text. Then, if you have any questions, write me or call me.

The latest info:
  

My office-hours in case you have any questions:

Sept. 5, update: I have no specific office hours at the moment, but you can call this number if you have an urgent question. Otherwise, please send an email.

Phone: (34) 914860384.
Email: madridteacher@gmail.com
Skype-web-cam-line: steven_starry (please give me your skype address in an email).

I will also collaborate with you to make a page solely about your academy/agency like this one http://www.madridteacher.com/astex.htm, which will be linked from most pages on the site from the bottom of the right navigation bar (see point 7 below). It'll also be linked from "English Teaching in Madrid" and "Employment Madrid." I will need to interview you and get photos of your academy for this article (or you can write it yourself).
Note: visitors generally only visit these particular pages if they're interested in that particular information: one academy's page like the Astex one above, for example, received 3,934 visits from Oct. 2005 to Sept. 2006. Another got 528 visits in Sept. Besides this, they have most assuredly gotten visits and calls from other information placed on the site.

I will also put a long explanation with logo and link included just under the last academy on this page: "Employment Madrid" - http://www.madridteacher.com/wanted-jobs-employment.htm (6,090 visits in September of 2007). This is the information required for this part of the ad.

Job / Employment title:
Website:
Academy:
Location:
Need the teacher by:
Minimum experience required:
Description of the academy:
Conditions of employment:
Salary:
Contact information:

Person:

Email:

Telephone:

Note: I plan to limit the number of academies on the "Employment Madrid" page to 25. After the 25th academy, the next 25 will be placed on a second page to be prominently linked from the bottom of the employment page.

I will also give you a short mention with logo and link included just under the last academy at the top of this page: "English Teaching in Madrid" - http://www.madridteacher.com/english_teaching_madrid.htm (1,751 visits in August of 2007).

I will also place your address and phone number information and banner on this page: "English Academies in Madrid" which is linked from just about every page on the site - http://www.madridteacher.com/pdfs/english-academies-in-madrid.htm. (1,751 visits in August of 2007)

Your information and banner will also be placed on this page in Spanish: "Academias de Inglés en Madrid" - http://www.madridteacher.com/articulos/academias-de-ingles.htm. (This page is also linked from most pages on the site in the right navigation bar.) (4,818 visits in September of 2007)

A link to your article on MadridTeacher.com will also be placed on most of the pages like this one on the site on the right navigation bar. (See below on the right navigation bar in the section "More Information for Teachers.")

Updated October 5, 2008: The most important new point is that as of May 18, 2007, I've been putting a lot of the income generated directly by academies advertising on this site into a Google Adwords campaign. The current budget is for around 420 euros per month or 14 euros per day in several separate campaigns, for example one of them directly targets teachers in all of Western Europe only (except for Iceland) in Google's network on its Google Adwords network of websites including Gmail. (My intention is to maintain this amount - at least 5,000 euros per year - as long as the site maintains at least 30 - 35 advertisers.) This is the first particular campaign at the moment:

Teach English in Spain
MadridTeacher.com seeks teachers
for academies and agencies in Spain
www.madridteacher.com

These are the keywords and phrases being advertised (When and how they show up in Google search engine is up to Google itself. The amount being offered tends to be around 0.20-25 cents per click on Google. From-time-to-time I'll run a test to see if results can be improved.):

celta madrid
celta spain
delta madrid
delta spain
english teaching jobs abroad
teach english abroad
teach english madrid
teach english overseas
teach english spain
teaching english spain
teaching jobs madrid
teaching jobs spain
tefl madrid
tefl spain

Note: MadridTeacher.com is already well-placed for other phrases in Google.

Besides this last campaign, I am also running two other campaigns including one in Spanish for "Clases de Inglés."

I repeat your ads on lots of pages on the site:

Your ad will be reproduced in Flash format and put on many of (currently) over 100 pages of information on the site in English, which are mainly designed to either inform or entertain new English teachers to Madrid. The exact number of pages your ad will be on will depend on the number of advertisers. i.e. If there are 2 academies advertising at the top of the site with a Type 3 banner and there are 100 pages with ads on them, each will have their ad on 50 pages on any given day (these rotate every day or two). In other words, if you pay more for a top banner (Type 3) at the top of a page and there are already two advertisers there somewhere on the site, your Flash ad will be placed and rotated on 33 or 34 pages per day. To see the current rotation, see: rotation. By the way, as of May 19 the process is being reproduced in a different way to the Spanish side of the site. The ads there will be in jpegs and will be shared with teachers and other information for students. (If you would prefer to have your banner appear on the Spanish side of the site, let me know.) The main advantage with Flash ads is that I can embed links in them so teachers can go directly to the information. The main disadvantage of Flash banners is that they really slow-down load-up in MS Internet Explorer, but not in Firefox.
Basically, I repeat the schools ads in flash banners placed throughout the site. There are three separate rates for ads on this site for secondary pages (and 3 more for the index page). See "Type 1, 2 and 3" in the picture on the right. The "basic" rate for your basic job ad includes a banner like the "Type 1" one. Contact me for rates on the others if you're interested at madridteacher@gmail.com.

Also included, if you're interested, a new feature of the site is that we can work together to make a Youtube.com video about your academy for your school's page on this site. You can see several example videos here: Interlang Executive Centre and here: Vaughan Systems. The idea here would be to make your school look "warmer and more human" to teachers. You might simply talk about your school and answer questions like "What is the best thing about working at your school?" The Sony HD video-camera used for the video is the same one I would use with you.

The information in the employment section is mirrored in this site for cell phones:

Note: (Oct. 5, 2008) At renewal time this year in November, I may have to redirect these resources to internet advertising due to the growing cost of advertising there. Payments are currently around 5,000 euros per year advertising for teachers in Google Adwords. If any of my academy-clients have information indicating that we should renew this ad in November instead of redirecting these resoures elsewhere, please let me know.

In short, the site is already well-known amongst teachers in Madrid and is also pretty well-positioned to get to our fair share of incoming English teachers. I hope my explanation was clear and convincing, if it wasn't and you'd like to give me a second chance, give me a call or drop me an email.

Note: Your information won't be placed on other advertisers "advertisement" pages, or theirs on yours.

Remember to send me the job ad information above in point 2 to madridteacher@gmail.com. You are advised to do an article like this one about your academy: Vaughan as I can work with this to attract more teachers to your school. The information is below:

August 9 update: It's my intention to go to TESOL Spain in Seville in March with a MadridTeacher.com stand. I will leave the stand unattended during sessions (which I will attend myself) this year though as generally nothing much will happen then anyway.

This is the information required for the article on your academy.

Introduction: (Needs no more than 200 words. Like any introductory paragraph, it must be catchy and creative in some way and somehow differentiate the company from the rest.)

Academy:

Webpage:

Date of article:

When did academy open?

Contact person and title:

Contact phone:

E-mail:

Address: (Should include the nearest Metro station and how far it is from there.)

Facilities and classrooms: (Give as many details as possible. Digital Photos are essential: of the reception area, the best classroom, the front of the building, the staff-room, and of any other interesting rooms there might be. It's better for you if you appear in at least one photo.)

Have good materials support, photocopier?

Have "Director of Studies" (DOS) support?

VIPs on staff? (This refers to authors, top members of TESOL-Spain, etc.)

Qualification requirements for employment?

Experience requirements for employment?

Hire at a distance?

Hire Americans and do their papers? (These are all questions which American teachers are going to ask anyway.)

Preference for British or Americans?

Estimated teachers hired yearly: (Gives teachers an idea of the size, turnover, and “stickiness” of your company.)

Teachers at ………………… for over 4 years?

Number of students:

Best part about working at ………………………..: (This is another section like the introduction which may need a bit of original and creative thought. Absolutely everyone says the same sort of “team spirit” thing, which is fine, but give it a new twist. There should be something new and different in this section.)

Other benefits? (If there's anything different about the way you work, how you hire, etc., you would do well to cast it in a positive light here or elsewhere.)

Offer teacher training or development along with job?

Starters' average salary?

The article should have at least 1,000 words and you should include photos of the outside of the building, reception, materials, your best classroom, etc. Please note that the style should be informative rather than "marketing-speak".

Note: This page may be a little out-of-date. Please check with me if you're not sure about any particular points at madridteacher@gmail.com.

FAQs and other information:
(This is all part of my Personalized Help Service and is where I get a bit more "personal.")

Who's running this show?

The guy who's "in charge" is in the photo on the left: Steven Starry: 43, married with child, English teacher, webmaster and permanent resident of Alcorcón since 1993. The "company" is an "autónomo" and not an S.L., so there are no departments to deal with, just me and my family. Also, I am not alone in this as there are 7-8 teachers, the ones in the pictures at the top of the page, who have helped tremendously to keep this boat afloat. Truly and honestly, I don't feel we could have gotten anywhere as far without them.

Besides these teachers, there are 32 (Feb. 16, '08) more of them in Madrid and 25 in the rest of Spain who have become part of the "content" of this site. Also participating are the 35 schools in Madrid included in the employment section. All of the above are "participants" in "the show" and the site would be greatly diminished without either group of them.

What is the show?

"The show" on this site is about content, content and more content. I always try to give people and the search engines which serve them the content they want as quickly as possible. There are several groups of people whose needs must be factored and balanced into a complex and delicate equation. Because, these needs always come into conflict, I don't believe the site will ever totally satisfy everybody. Therefore, my goal is to make the site worthwhile and USEFUL for the greatest number of people possible, and to heck with the rest. I wish them well and let them go.

The main objectives of the "show" - its mission - is to satisfy the greatest number of people or elements possible as in the chart below:

What this means for academies is basically that I'm trying to find them teachers and students/clients. How?:

By attracting students and teachers to the site, by having "attractive" content (information, lessons, activities, materials, classifieds' section, etc.), through good positioning in search engines (again the attractive content is the key - plus the wise naming of pages, etc.), word-of-mouth (again the attractive content is the key), and by advertising for teachers directly with Google to attract even more of them from places I couldn't otherwise reach.

August 9 update:
Professional Networking as your "Human Resources Representative"

There are several networking sites that have 25-70 million users and more visits daily than Google itself and though the TEFL sector has very little presence there at the moment, especially in Spain and Madrid, it's my firm belief that these sites have already revolutionized the internet every bit much as Google in the U.S. and will do so shortly here in Europe as well. So, I'm now doing my bit to help spark this off by creating and/or promoting these groups because of their obvious usefulness:



The growth of this "system" depends on individuals (teachers, DOSes, etc.) signing up for it and then actively promoting their own networks.

These are my own personal profile pages that I've created so you can see what one looks like.
    

What else can I do to help improve my results?

Keep me up-to-date with your latest needs on a weekly basis. I may be able to use this information to improve on your results. I am especially interested in getting the "newest" things because I can use them to keep updating teachers with new information via my RSS and jobs newsletter channels. My goal is to use that "fresh" type of information to keep teachers interested in what's going on so that they'll think of us even when they don't need us in this particular moment. The idea is to set up an ongoing "conversation" with them in this way.

How can I get my logo on the right up at the top of the employment page?

Did I mention that I'm always looking for new content for the site? Why don't you write an article about your school like this one: Windsor Idiomas and I'll link it here for a few months (and in several important locations on the site). You already have one?! Why not write a "positive article" of interest for English teachers in Madrid or Spain? (contact me regarding the meaning of "interest" if you have any doubts.)

How can I get my logo on the index page at the bottom in the latest jobs section? (Also on the English index page and on the other pages with this information: Jobs in Spain, RSS.)

Post specific job needs frequently as these will only stay either for a minimum of one day or until the next job is posted on another day. (In the case above, the jobs all came in on the same day.) Besides getting your school more exposure. This sort of thing also helps to keep teachers coming to site.

Matching teachers with jobs in a more personal way -
Or, what's the idea of this "conversation" in a nutshell?:

The teachers' current availability and the schools' urgent need are the key of a new Personalized Help Service that I'm developing. What is now happening is that as soon as a teacher posts a CV, I send this and the availability out to my client academies, plus CVs and cover letter that I now have. (I also post the teachers availability on the site here: http://www.madridteacher.com/teachers-for-schools.htm if they're advertising on the site.) I'm not interested (in fact, I don't think either the academies or teachers are really interested) in my sending all my CVs to every school out there, if in fact I ever do get millions of CVs. Somebody would actually have to look those CVs over and get in contact with everyone on them to see what they're availability was, which I think is probably an enormous waste of time for every "professional" concerned as we all have better things to do.

Basically, there are two separate things going on at the same time with agencies on the one hand and teachers on the other. Regarding academies and agencies, in order to make this work or function efficiently, I most importantly need to receive the schools' latest needs. Regarding teachers, in order to make this work efficiently, I need to receive most importantly the teachers' "availability" and also more information on what sort of thing they're looking for: location, etc. Then, I simply match the two up.

For example, if a teacher told me that he was looking for an entirely new job, I might tell him that a major agency just told me the other day that it has a full schedule coming available on Friday, which is true, and then I would send them the teacher's CV.

Or, for example, as happened last weekend, a teacher told me of his availability and I sent it out to various agencies, but it was too late when they contacted him as he'd already filled up his schedule because I'd put his availability on the site.

Or, with another teacher, we posted his availability recently and part of it happened to coincide with an agency's request the other day. I put them in contact with each other and have no idea yet if anything's come of it.

In general, when I request teachers' availability, they have little, but they're attitude is usually positive like in these emails below.

Email from a teacher:

"I think your idea of keeping track of our availability is right on. In fact if I were going to suggest something to improve the site, I’d suggest something like that, so I’d definitely like to take part in it.

Actually what’s happened to me is that I’ve found work in three places which should continue the whole year; actually some of them will probably start tailing off in May. In any case, I spend time every week answering emails and telling people my timetable is full.

I’m definitely pleased with the results. It’s comforting knowing there’s a lot of work out there!"

Another one:

"I've just picked up a couple of new classes so I don't have any availability at the moment. Thanks anyway for passing it on. Those guys pay well too compared to the rest.

I think having the availability listing definitely helps as I've had more calls than usual since it went up. No doubt as the weather gets better some current students will fall by the wayside and so I'll be back in touch again with a new availibility request. Thanks again."

And, I'm not making this stuff up!!!

In any case, this is all easier said than done and I think it will take some time to convince both teachers and academies of how worthwhile the whole project is.

August 3 update: Something new which I've just started is to try (it depends on collaboration or cooperation from people I don't "control") to build a few networks using sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace.com. Social networking is a phenomenon that is currently booming on the internet. Because of new website technology like "data portability", it's likely to get lots bigger. See: Professional Networking.

Response to a DOS who considered this video-article "negative:" Top 10 List. (I put this here in order to make my point-of-view clear on the subject to other prospective advertisers. The rule of thumb on forums and blogs is that if somebody says something, probably 10 more think it; I'm applying that rule for this site.)

Sorry, if my video sounds "bleak" to you, but as you pointed out, it's also "true." However, I do think we are doing far more than simply "hope" (as you also point out) that things will change here, we are actually going out and really improving them. When I arrived here in 1993, for example, there was no central place to go to get information on any academies, and ads in the Yellow Pages and El Pais cost an arm and a leg. Nowadays, you can find enough jobs for at least 100 teachers on just this website from wherever you are: China, the U.S., Australia, you name it! You have to ask yourself a question, "how is it that this guy can just put a bunch of info on a site and attract around 900,000 total visits and about 45,000 just to the employment section like last year, to see your ads – and get some of them to email you - for just 30-50 euros a month?" (Whereas just a little box in a major newspaper would run you 200 euros at least for one day and maybe not get you even one teacher! By the way, how many academies can you find advertising in the employment section of the big Spanish newspapers nowadays? They’re no longer relevant, though they may indeed come back one day.) There's no short answer to these questions because it's a really complex problem, just suffice it to say that something that I'm doing must be working.

To get back to "negativity," we all know that there is a negative side to everything and that we have to warn teachers about in an entirely indirect and, if possible, humorous way, in order to take the edge off of it. I think you'll have to admit that the instability and seasonal nature of the job are two big reasons the turnover's so high, for example. And, I don't agree with you that it would be the "responsible" thing to do to tell young naive kids fresh off the boat anything different, which would, in fact, be irresponsible! They have to know that they have to save a little money before they get here and that they have to keep a little saved up once their here just in case. Also, they have to see somebody that's actually done it and have the option, if they like, to contact me (in this case). I think I go a long way to calming any anxieties about coming here because it's not the dangers you know of that worry you most, it's the ones that you don't know of. What's more, I know the experienced professional teachers that the big agencies are looking for and I know what they want, and I know that they won't stand for a Pollyanna approach for long. (By the way, a few have actually sent me emails saying I was too soft on academies in that video.) By and large, the "professionals" amongst them are really experienced men, and women: mature, rational, intelligent, discerning, etc. They won't buy "Bambi." Again, it's a little complex even for me and I’ve been working with the concepts for 9 years, but in the final analysis I think I have to cater to a lot of different needs, and as your reaction demonstrates, I don't always succeed. It's a Catch-22 situation.

Try to understand that there are a lot of opposed "responsibilities" at work here. I also, for instance, have a far larger responsibility to find teachers work. I think you in academies and agencies, above all, expect me to find you teachers, which is exactly what I'm doing. Just my 52 videos on Youtube have 86,406 views (and some of them belong to other big academies and agencies which don't seem to be at all affected by any of what I've said elsewhere and are content to enjoy the extra attention) and I've also got over 200 subscribers there. In any case, I disagree that the video-article is negative and I would further say that it is "balanced" and "informative." Isn't it ironic that a small part of the reason I'm finding academies teachers is, in fact, that some teachers are interested in my perspective even though it may seem “negative” to some?

So, I hope you don't mind that I continue with the current strategy because, in my opinion, it’s a critical part of this puzzle that is having a successful site on the internet. The basic idea in this is that in order to get a website to be well-placed by search engines, other websites and so on, in order to receive the 100s of thousands of visitors, the site has to play by the rules. That basically means that we've had to put 1,000s of hours of work into this site to build it up and we still have to do 1,000s more to keep it up. It takes somebody with a positive outlook to even try to do something like that, don't you think?

By the way, I'm always looking for new content. If you're willing to put yourself out on the firing line like I am, why don't you write a more "positive" article yourself and I'll publish it here.

What if the teachers suddenly stop getting in contact with me?

There are occasional slumps and surges. There's no question that more teachers are looking for work at certain times of year. I don't control that. Normally, schools continue to advertise year-after-year because they're getting worthwhile results, but I can't say that advertising in April will bring the same results as in September.

The biggest error is to make one of "attribution" based on one small change I make on the site. A single article like the one above (top 10 list) will not make an enormous dent in anything. (As much as I'd like to be able to state that I've got legions of adoring fans who hang on my every word, it only got 200 visits on my site in January folks! It did little better on Youtube with 187 views.) So, if I your school's been getting results from the site up till now and the tap suddenly turns off, there are other more plausible causes than this single isolated event. I assure you that I'm doing everything I can to find you and the other advertising academies more teachers and that there are other more plausible explanations than that flimsy one.

One of the things that concerns me the most, for instance, is that the academies advertising at the bottom of Employment - Madrid or on the second page of the employment section at: English Jobs Madrid are most likely not getting results which are as good as the schools at the top. Again, I'm in a Catch-22 situation. The contract with advertising schools has been to place them in chronological order. The only thing I can do is innovate something new that somehow gives the latest advertisers the opportunity to somehow be on top at least some of the time, and that is also something that my older clients are happy with. One of the very important things that I'm doing to give my advertising academies that opportunity is for them to give me their latest availabiity which I place on a page which is linked from the top of every important page on the site, this one: .

In any case, I think that there are times that the market for teachers will dry up somewhat. But, when it happens, I tend to see indicators of this from a lot of schools, not just one. I also think that teachers find a lot of information on English teaching employment very fast nowadays and they get jobs really quickly.

However, I have to say that there's another thing that I've noticed and that is that some schools are bigger, better located or pay more, than others. For example, I can't be held to account for the relationship between the location of a school and some teachers' preferences for more central locations coupled with the wealth of information on competing schools in said locations.

Again, we put in around 30 hours a week on the site and that shows in the site's statistics - over 90,000 visits in September and over 100,000 visits in November I think. The employment Madrid page received over 6,000 visits in September and over 5,500 in October. That's up a bit from last year's statistics of 5,600 and 4,600 respectively. We're doing everything we can to improve the results on the site for academies. Of course, I am really interested in hearing any workable recommendations on how to improve on those statistics.

In the meantime, I will continue to do the best I can to find all schools more teachers. That includes continuing to try and innovate new solutions to new problems posed by quickly changing conditions on the internet. I cannot guarantee anything because I don't "control" everything; I "investigate," "notice a problem" and "adapt" or "innovate" if I am able to with my limited resources. If you notice something that you think I don't and you're advertising on this site, send me an email and let me know. In the final analysis, it may help to improve your results.

Statistics (Oct. 5, 2008)

The statistics in this graph show the number of monthly visits from January to September of 2008. (The date the snapshot was taken was the 5th of October, so the stats for October are incomplete.) In September, for example, there were 106,196 different visitors although some of them repeated their visits for a grand total of about 134,031 visits. You'll notice dips in the numbers during holiday months, such as in January because of Three Kings Day and Easter Week in March and the summer holidays in July and August:

This next graph shows the total number of visitors per day in September of 2008 and the total number of pages they look at each day.

This graph shows the number of per page for the top pages of the site during the month of September of 2008. Notice that there were about 14,341 visits to the index page (the main page of the site) and 7,004 to the main page of the employment section.

This graph shows the number of visits per month in 2007. If you compare the visits data in 2007 with that of 2008, you'll notice that the numbers are noticeably better this year, about 20 to 30% better. In September of 2007, for example, there were 91,561 visits to the site and in September of 2008 there were 134,031 visits.

What do I do with these suggestions for the site.

Great. This is easy: just send them to me. However, It may not be that easy to implement them. Also, if it has anything to do with any of the points below, this is how I'm dealing with it at the moment.

Competing websites:
One typical one has been regarding one competing website or another, and I don't mind saying that the site has lots of little ones and one enormous one: "Google." Regarding the little ones, I think they're actually big competitors for the site (not the biggest: that would again be Google), as I think they will be taking lots of my "little" advertising academies that possibly can't pay their teachers as much as the big agencies advertising on my site and can't attract the professionals they're attracting anyway. (Real professionals wouldn't dream of blanketing Madrid with their CVs with one competitor's service, but perhaps those schools can't even dream of hiring one anyway at 9-12 euros an hour.) The big problem for me and this site is that a teacher can compare all the academies directly and the ones that are offering 12 euros an hour will have a harder time getting the experienced teacher to consider them instead of the academy that's offering 24 euros an hour.

Build a database with teachers availability, etc.
I agree that the database is a fantastic idea, but can't build it and suddenly have people using it. It just doesn't work that way. Even Facebook with 70,000,000 users has no English teachers in Madrid that I can find. I'm just now starting to get teachers used to using the "availability" functions that I have on the site. I have to move them into it little by little, first one foot, then the other, and so on. Then, there's a whole series of other little things that have to be done before I can build it up to that level, if I ever can. Frankly, I just don't feel that teachers will ever really need it as long as jobs information out there is as easy to find as on this site, but I'll keep trying to do it anyway.

Help, we need more new teachers.
I do think I have to find more teachers for the site to build up more availability, etc. but there are problems to be resolved. Because they'll be on page two, maybe they won't be so willing to pay 75 euros per year and I'll have to dream up a new "page 2" rate or something, which will perhaps also attract more of the new teachers at the same time.

What about your doing some head-hunting?
Not likely any time soon . . .

Can you get us more students?
I'm working on it. There are other things I'm working on like building up a whole lot of activities for students to compete with the likes of Mansion Inglés for word-of-mouth amongst students. And, by the way, all of this activity is important for search engine optimization purposes in order to keep those visits up there at 70,000 to 100,000 a month like it is currently. Also, I do have 65 teachers who I'm looking for private classes for and if they're not getting private classes they may not be interested in the academies' classes much either, at least not on my site.

Where are you going from here?
If I manage to attract more advertisers, I'll be able to do more because I'll be able to dedicate more time to the site. There are a lot of other things that I'd like to do, but I'm not making enough off the site to permit me to do them. There are lots of other suggestions that people have given me, like finding teachers apartments and/or hostals and other things like that, but those are absolutely enormous projects and I simply have other more important priorities at the moment.

What about French and German Teachers?
Oh, and I also have gotten a few teachers of other languages, but I think some must be put off by the "profesores de inglés" title of the page which is so for search engine optimization reasons. I'll try to think of something . . .