How should I gain more students for the first video I've created

[Kazuki]

Hello. I've published my first video and one month has passed but I've got only one student.

I'm wondering if I've made the wrong topic that not many people will buy the course in the first place. 

I've actually looked through the "Market place insights" where "WordPress Plugin" topic was high on Student demand and also the number of courses. Median Monthly revenue is $18 and the Top monthly revenue is $367. Did I mischoice the topic? Or do I need to advertise with my own to increase my students? 

Or if the quality of the video is the problem, can anyone give me any advice to make the video better? I've worked on the intro video but maybe the taste wasn't attractive.

Here's the course that I've created

https://www.udemy.com/course/wordpress-plugin-development-and-proversion-for-selling

[Abbie]

Hey @Kazuki, before anyone else jumps in, let me share with you this community post that includes Best Instructor Posts of All Time — Marketing. You can find info about optimizing your course to get more students, how to use promotional tools, how to improve your course marketing, and much more.

Hope it helps!

[Kazuki]

Hello. Thank you very much for the community post link.

It writes many suggestions about how to advertise the course and it is very helpful.

Thanks again and I'll study the lists that are given.

[pktk]

Hi @Abbie, seems like your link to the video is awesome going by the response I see to it down below here and on other pages. But for some reason, I am not able to access it since I am getting the following message: 

"Access Denied

You do not have sufficient privileges for this resource or its parent to perform this action.

"

Can you help me understand what could be the possible reason here. I am new here, preparing my course and looking to learn in the community while I do so..

Thanks!

Aash

[AmandeepKaur Sodhi]

Hi Abby! Even m trying to see the post https://community.udemy.com/t5/Marketing/Best-Instructor-Posts-of-All-Time-Marketing/m-p/31077

But it says I don’t hv enough privileges to access this. Plz help

[ElianaC]

Hi @AmandeepKaur Sodhi can you please try to access this link first 

https://community.udemy.com/t5/Published-Instructor-Club/ct-p/Instructor_Club and then try to access the desired post? Let me know how it goes.

Eliana Cerna

Udemy Community 

[AmandeepKaur Sodhi]

Was able to access this link. Thanx a lot

[RandyMinder]

Hi @Kazuki 

You said you may have picked the wrong topic. I think you might be right. One of the things you need to consider before creating a course is the number of courses that already teach your particular topic. I did a Udemy search on 'Wordpress Development'. I got 10,000 results back. This means your course is competing against thousands of other courses. 

Because of the number of courses already teaching this topic, you are going to have to be very patient because it's going to be difficult for your course to get recognized. 

[Kazuki]

Thank you for your reply and advice.

Yes, that's right by searching with the keyword "WordPress Development".

But I was thinking about the keyword "WordPress Plugin Development" because coding plugin is different from developing WordPress such as websites, so actually I thought I am competing with the Plugin developer of WordPress.

When I search by "WordPress Plugin Development" there are many  Plugin developer's courses on the list, but my course also appears on the first page.
That means that even if I'm competing against many courses, it didn't go on the very end on the search. So probably the recognition isn't bad?

I would like to question, for the first month, does everybody gain few students and after a few months the students gradually increase? or the students increase immediately if the topic is right and the quality is high?

[knihT]

I think your subject may be too niche?

---

@Kazuki wrote:

Thank you for your reply and advice.

Yes, that's right by searching with the keyword "WordPress Development".

But I was thinking about the keyword "WordPress Plugin Development" because coding plugin is different from developing WordPress such as websites, so actually I thought I am competing with the Plugin developer of WordPress.

When I search by "WordPress Plugin Development" there are many  Plugin developer's courses on the list, but my course also appears on the first page.
That means that even if I'm competing against many courses, it didn't go on the very end on the search. So probably the recognition isn't bad?

I would like to question, for the first month, does everybody gain few students and after a few months the students gradually increase? or the students increase immediately if the topic is right and the quality is high?

---

[Kazuki]

Yes, kind of... But it seems there are many course developers who are receiving many students with this category...

[RandyMinder]

@Kazuki 

"I would like to question, for the first month, does everybody gain few students and after a few months the students gradually increase? or the students increase immediately if the topic is right and the quality is high?"

I don't think there a single, correct, answer to this question. It will depend entirely on whether you are a new author and it will depend upon the number of competing courses etc. The quality of the course probably doesn't come into play right away because students won't know about quality until they buy it and go through the course. 

Almost any new author is going to struggle at first. There are so many courses available on Udemy and virtually every topic that could generate a nice number of sales probably already has numerous courses already available. So, getting your course recognized could take quite a bit of time.

Also, I listed to your promotional video. To be honest, this may turn some people away. First of all, the background music was very loud and it made it difficult to hear your voice. Secondly, your accent makes it a bit of a struggle to understand you.  Students may just decide to find an instructor they can understand more easily.

I'm not saying that a strong accent will turn everyone away. That isn't the case. But, with so many other courses to choose from, some potential students are likely to find a native english speaking instructor, if one is available. To be quite honest, I know I would if I had to devote too much energy to understanding the instructor.

[Ifeomabless377]

Hopefully 

[Kazuki]

Thank you!

[Kazuki]

Thank you for your advice. Yes, I guess non-native speakers' English is hard to understand. There were many others that seem to have a strong accent but they had over ten thousand students so I thought that doesn't affect much before I decided to make the course.

But maybe three or four years ago, there were fewer courses on this category that many authors were able to earn students more than now.

Thank you for your polite and long answer and it really helped me analyzing how to handle courses in Udemy.

Have a nice day!

[RandyMinder]

@Kazuki 

You are very welcome. I think a good way to look at the accent issue is this. English is my native language. But, let's say I create a course in Japanese. Let's also assume my Japanese is ok but not great. You can understand what I am saying but you really need to concentrate.

If my course is the only course on the topic, you will probably buy it because you have no alternatives. However, if there are a dozen other courses just like it (and rated about the same), and the instructors are native Japanese speakers, you probably will not purchase my course. And I wouldn't blame you.

This is what most non-native english speaking instructors face on Udemy who create a course for world-wide consumption.

[Kazuki]

Yes, thank you for the additional comments.
I understand that if the course is in Japanese, most of the buyers will buy the native speaking Japanese course. That is true.

It seems that there are many non-native English speakers making courses in Udemy so maybe it's good to choose the category that lists many non-native English speakers. Then there can be a chance if native English speaker's courses are few.

Thank you very much for your comment! I'll keep on figuring out more about the courses in Udemy.

[DanielEvans]

Nothing is 'too niche' if you have a targetted, existing audience.

Whilst it's usually the first stage to establish where your target market is, it's probably a good idea to consider your marketing tactics now in reflection of that before being tempted to consider another niche.

[Kazuki]

Thank you for your comment. I understand that before moving to a different niche, you need to try on that niche first and do whatever marketing tactics to see if you can earn students or not.

I have a question. Making free courses have merits?

Is it like a volunteer-type of course, or there is a plan of approaching to the student free at first and then announce the next pay type courses to 

earn students?

[Davidnyong438]

So if the results are lower would that increase the number of students

[Alex2020]

Hi,

My experience is that, every course will have lean time in the beggining at least for 1 month. Reason  why it bahaves so, I do not know. But after its presence for a month at least, it starts picking up subject to reasonably good review (>3) and topic in demand. 

While choosing the topic you must see key word search % which indicates demand which certainly you have done. Also, you need to go through the list of courses already exisitng for the same topic.  Number may not matter much But you must see popularity of the already exisitng courses for the same topic. If there are very popular courses are already exisitng and it is kind of monopoly position with respect to review and enrollments, you must not shoose that topic.  When you topic after discount cost same as already existing one, student naturally may not prefer your course. This is simple pshychology of students. 

So, you must see porfile of exisitng courses for the same topic, mandatorily.  

Hope this helps...

But no worries - your course will pick up....