Jan 30, 2018

The Long Tail of Personal Finance Resources for Educators

We often hear from educators new to our website..."Wow, you have a lot of content on your website." They may even go a step further and say "I wish I had more time to explore," which is why we include a Scavenger Hunt in every conference workshop and FinCamp that we do. Our website data seems to indicate that teachers are taking time to explore the far reaches of our website.

In fact, this data seems to indicate that there is quite a long tail to the content that we are producing. What do I mean by "long tail?"

On the left hand side of the curve are the small number of products (in this case, NGPF resources) that a large number of teachers gravitate towards. These would be our "bread and butter" curriculum such as checking and budgeting units (which are #1 and #2 in terms of popularity). As you move left to right on the curve, there are a large number of our resources that have a smaller audience (it turns out to be a VERY large number of resources). Analyzing January 2018 data will give you some sense of the head and long tail distribution of our resources:

  • Head: We had 25 web pages on our site that EACH garnered an audience of over 500 unique visitors.
  • Tail: We had over 400 web pages that garnered an audience between 10 and 499 unique visitors. Yes, over 400 web pages. We are not kidding when we say our website is comprehensive! 

What does this tell us about the financial educators we serve?

  • #1: You really, really like to explore to find resources for your classroom. You may have built your curriculum by cobbling together resources from different providers so you are very comfortable (and skilled!) when it comes to this process. 
  • #2: You have very different needs for a number of reasons: the concepts you cover in your classroom, the make-up of the students you teach and the time you have to cover this subject are just a few of these factors.
  • #3: You want to stay current on what's happening in personal finance. Based on the high number of page views on the NGPF blog, we know you like staying up-to-date. We post twice daily with one post being an engaging Question of the Day to get your class off to a great start (subscribe to our blog here). 

For those curious about what resources are in the long tail, here are a few web pages that had 10 visitors in January. Who knows, maybe you will find value here too:

 One more point to make, this "long tail" keeps us nimble and coming up with new ideas to serve you. Whether it's helping thousands of educators (and hundreds of thousands of students) by crafting an awesome lesson or a dozen teachers looking for that perfect supplement to their curriculum or an explainer for a current event, we strive everyday to deliver what you need. Please drop us a line and let us know how we can better serve you. 

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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