How long before I see Progress?

[Robin Andrews]

I've been working seriously for about 4 months on my business, which is in the Computer Science education space.

Apart from probably tangentially helping me to land a bit of work by providing authority in the eyes of prospective clients, I have yet to see much tangible progress.

I have written about 35 blog posts (Blog - Compucademy), put up some affiliate links, and put a couple of my own products up for sale. The strategy I have been advised to follow is "produce shed loads of content to build a mailing list which you can then use to sell you products." I have a sign-up pop-up and embedded sign-up form on every page, and when I write a new post I share it to several Facebook groups, on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

So far, I have had 2,141 site users for the last 90 days, had about 50 people sign up to my mailing list and sold just one product from my site.

Is this par for the course please? Is it cause for concern?

 

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[Timmy C]

How long before you see progress, i don't know.

How long is a piece of string.

 

[broswoodwork]

What's the max number of potential site users in existence? How big is the niche?

 

[Robin Andrews]

What's the max number of potential site users in existence? How big is the niche?

About 75,000 students. Possibly 5-10% looking for additional support beyond what their school offers.

About 4,000 teachers, with 500 additional each year. Unknown what % want additional resources - Maybe 10%?

So altogether, maybe 6,000 customers?

This is with my current focus of UK based Computer Science exams.

If I generalize to, say, Python programming from Beginner to Intermediate Level, the audience becomes MUCH larger, but I lose the niche...

 

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[broswoodwork]

About 75,000 students. Possibly 5-10% looking for additional support beyond what their school offers.

About 4,000 teachers, with 500 additional each year. Unknown what % want additional resources - Maybe 10%?

So altogether, maybe 6,000 customers?

This is with my current focus of UK based Computer Science exams.

If I generalize to, say, Python programming from Beginner to Intermediate Level, the audience becomes MUCH larger, but I lose the niche...

Well extrapolating from the same number above, if you can get all 75000 as site users, you'd have 1500 subscribers and 30 buyers. It will likely be very challenging to get all 75000 as site users.

Given the best case scenario of reaching all 75k, will 30 customers pay the bills? If not, can you cost effectively broaden internationally, or extend the topic covered, to 750k potential sets of eyes?

 

[Monkeycom]

I've been working seriously for about 4 months on my business, which is in the Computer Science education space.

Apart from probably tangentially helping me to land a bit of work by providing authority in the eyes of prospective clients, I have yet to see much tangible progress.

I have written about 35 blog posts (Blog - Compucademy), put up some affiliate links, and put a couple of my own products up for sale. The strategy I have been advised to follow is "produce shed loads of content to build a mailing list which you can then use to sell you products." I have a sign-up pop-up and embedded sign-up form on every page, and when I write a new post I share it to several Facebook groups, on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

So far, I have had 2,141 site users for the last 90 days, had about 50 people sign up to my mailing list and sold just one product from my site.

Is this par for the course please? Is it cause for concern?

Congrats for making progress. Once the first step has been made, it's hard to come back!
I always recommend to focus on building a list. 50 is a good start, well done.

In average, you can expect to make $1/month/lead on such targeted leads.
So here's your 3 steps plan:
- Increase traffic
- Increase the conversion (put lead magnet everywhere - no popup)
- Work on your sequences

Let's say you succeed to raise your traffic to 7000 per month in few weeks, and convert about 15% of them. You can expect to raise your income per $1050 each and every month.

Feel free to pm if you need any personal advices

 

[solyom]

- Increase the conversion (put lead magnet everywhere - no popup)

What is the problem with popups?

 

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[Tourmaline]

Keep producing content. However, try to be interesting and different. Take a step back and ask if this is stuff people have already seen.

Also, 35 is not a huge amount. It's a great start mind you, but if you get serious traffic before 100 pieces of quality content that's better than most. Keep at it.

 

[Monkeycom]

What is the problem with popups?

Studies have shown that it bothers too much the readers, and increase the bounce rate without necessarily raising the conversions.
Take yourself as an example: When is the last time you gave your email on a full screen popup ?
I personally quit the website immediately.

 

[solyom]

Studies have shown that it bothers too much the readers, and increase the bounce rate without necessarily raising the conversions.
Take yourself as an example: When is the last time you gave your email on a full screen popup ?
I personally quit the website immediately.

Would be great to see an independent study on it, because the popup plugin developers always claim that their solution increases conversion rate by XY%.

Anyway, personally not too often, but it did happen with me once or twice that I subscribed thanks to a pop-up.

 

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[SEBASTlAN]

I would guess around 2 years. By then the writing should be on the wall (either way).

 

[Charnell]

Experiment with a longer time before a popup shows up, visitors going to multiple pages before showing, exit intent, topical popups, etc.

Have an incentive to join your mailing list, or at least explain the benefits of joining it. Right now it just says to join. Maybe a GSCE cheat sheet or additional resources page (no idea what GSCE is, but see it all over your website). Have an email drip campaign with more information. Something to give someone a reason to join it.



As far as traffic goes, SEO takes some time to work its magic. Here's a screenshot of the first few months of my latest website's Search Console performance, Google only.

Your website is certainly on par for the course. You're right at the spot when someone goes "shit, is all this actually worth it?" Continue writing, continue promoting, and soon you'll look back at this thread and laugh.