Case Studies
Student Finance Domain
Student Finance Domain

Student Finance Domain

The Student Finance Domain website—designed by OTOnetworks and developed by CleverPear—is an online community that helps students understand how to finance a college education. The site brings young people the latest information about financing options and generates leads for retailers offering financial products and services for students.

Objectives

  • Develop a new website based on an existing site that integrates standard community features, including user login, blogs and forums.
  • Showcase financial products available to students for college loans.
  • Create custom controls to meet usability needs on top of the Ektron API set.
  • Build friendly, search engine-optimized templates on top of the Ektron platform to maximize lead generation through natural and paid search campaigns.
  • Develop a user community platform using Ektron WIKI features and integrate them with “digg it” and other well-known paradigms for ratings and maximum site visibility.

Target audiences

  • Current and future college students
  • Retail sellers of financial products and services

Solution highlights

  • Developed a custom user interface with ASP.NET and Ajax
  • Used the Ektron CMS tool for full moderation, content editing and managing community forums and blogs.
  • Developed business logic in C# to wrap around the Ektron API set for WIKI tools.
  • Integrated third-party community tools using JavaScript
  • Integrated full community features, including WIKI support, visitor registration, blog support, and personalized content and forums.

Results

  • Developed initial site in 30 days to meet marketing targets.
  • Developed general controls the OTOnetworks can leverage on future projects.
  • Built SEO-friendly templates that exceeded traffic targets.
  • OTOnetworks stated that the solution “exceeded expectations” and continues to engage CleverPear for development projects