How I’m building a job board for Data Analysts, Update #10 - for October 2023
Hi all,
on Dec 19th I launched DataAnalyst.com - this is the 10th update.
Want to make sure I document the journey, and keep myself honest, so each month I will be making a post about the statistics, progress, some thoughts and what are the next steps I want to be focusing on.
So, just a reminder that early stages vision is to become the #1 job board for data analysts - hand-picking interesting data analyst job opportunities across industries.
Let’s dive right in:
Statistics
1. General Observations
Stats
DataAnalyst.com has been online for just over 10 months, and we’re bringing new, hand curated data analyst jobs onto the site daily - all of them including a salary range.
There’s now 2,250+ people subscribed to the newsletter, and I can’t thank you enough for your support and for joining us on the journey.
More than one third of all Google impressions and clicks over the last 10 months, happened in October alone. Newsletter organic growth has been consistently growing at around 200 new subscribers per month, with the open rate steadily at around 60%.
I’m attributing the main driver to an increased visibility in SERPs (search engine result pages - basically, on which position in results is your site showing when someone Googles something). For example, the keyword “Data Analyst” is now showing between the 10th - 15th place.
It’s interesting that the site is ranking much higher on “data analyst” search, than on “data analyst jobs” (still nowhere to be found in results).
Considering I started the project on a domain with no history, no backlinks, no anything, I’m classing this as a massive success. Not only because of how high up “data analyst” is showing up (and I know this can disappear overnight) but also as the site is now ranking for approximately 2,200 keywords.
With the updated release of the Data Analyst salary guide, I’m trying to programmatically target the following long tail searches:
- Data analyst jobs in p(State) - i.e Data analyst jobs in Illinois
- p(Industry) data analyst jobs - i.e Financial data analyst jobs
- p(Industry) data analyst salary - i.e Financial data analyst salary
- p(Experience) data analyst jobs - i.e Entry level data analyst jobs
- p(Experience) data analyst salary - i.e Entry level data analyst salary
Personally, I hate this - I am publishing somehow duplicate but not exactly duplicate pages, for the sole purpose to please the SEO overlords. I understand that going step too far would have a massive hit on the user experience, so I am being very intentional to insure the key information is consolidated and easy to find.
Where did 6,400 people come from?
- Organic - 57%
- Direct - 32%
- Social - 7% (automated job postings on Twitter, Linkedin, Reddit, FB/IG)
- Referral - 4% (honestly no idea where that’s coming from)
While this was another month with no paid postings, we did partner with American Council of Academic Physical Therapy (ACAPT).
Link me baby one more time
a) University outreach
I mentioned in the last two updates that I noticed quite a few .edu emails signed up to the Newsletter. Thought it could be an interesting angle to explore, reaching out to universities, sharing that their students are using the site. I was hoping this would lead to both driving in visitors, as well as potentially getting a backlink that would help increase the authority of the site.
Following the fiasco results of my September efforts to onboard Universities, and cold emailing approximately half 1,700 educational institutions in the US and their admissions’ email address with no bites, I repeated the process, this time however looking at .edu backlinks at some of the similar job-boards, and directly reaching out to the selected institutions.
I’ve pulled together a spreadsheet with information about the University, Career centre or Course detail (i.e MSc in Data Analytics etc), direct link to the section where they are currently sharing resources, and emails for both someone from the department and the career centre.
With 30 institutions identified, results where much better this time:
- Uni 1 - gained 1 backlink to both DA and BA,
- Uni 2 - in the review process to be added on the site in their next refresh in December
- Uni 3 - call scheduled to discuss partnership opportunities
As Monica would say: “Seven, Seven, SEVEN!”
The rule of seven in marketing states that brands that engage with a customer seven times are more likely to earn the trust and business of that customer.
I’ve read somewhere that this also applies to cold outreach - one should send between 4-9 follow-up emails in your cold sales outreach to maximize reply rates, so I’ll give it couple of more emails before I pull the plug, hoping that with each additional round I could get at least one extra conversation scheduled.
b) Business / Project directories
Continuing my efforts on the more “technical” side of SEO, I’ve been looking to make a list of business / project directories where I could publish the site - not really looking for traffic, but just a backlink from a reputable site would be a great start.
How most of my efforts went:
"Free submission? GREAT.
Oh, there’s a 2 months waitlist, BUT, you can skip it and be published today for just $19 - $99."
That’s a great business model (unlike my job board) - new startups, side hustlers, indie hackers, solopreneurs create new projects on a daily basis. As they are trying to do anything possible for a quality backlink that improves their domain authority, they turn to these directories, and incapable of waiting, they would likely pay those one off listing fees.
I’ve submitted the project to around 30 directories, and will wait it out.
While I am extremely grateful for all the directories out there, it’s impossible to put $$$ value on what the benefit of listing on them would be.
Money goes to staying alive, time goes to organic growth, and everything else can wait.
2. BusinessAnalyst.com crossover
As I’ve mentioned before, I recently launched BusinessAnalyst.com - where I’m looking to replicate step by step what I’ve done over the last 9 months with DataAnalyst. The overall idea is to create a network of sites, benefiting from the same infrastructure, serving and helping different career paths, and making a collaboration with organisations much more appealing (after-all, most companies who hire for data analysts also look for business analysts and vice versa).
Arguably, this might not make much sense seeing that DA still hasn’t brought any consistent revenue in, but on the other hand, I can reuse the whole tech stack and structures already in place, halve my cost per project, while doubling the surface area to catch me some luck.
Exact same steps, different results
While the lack of revenue is concerning, I’m mainly raising eyebrows about the lack of progress I’m seeing with BusinessAnalyst.
I’ve created the site with all the learnings from DataAnalyst - automations, site structure, on-page SEO + programmatic pages, automated social media, filters, Google schema and job posting distribution.
All things considered, at launch and in first 4 months it’s in a better state than DA was, but, the site is just not getting any traction.
by the 4th month DataAnalyst had:
- steady 50 - 100 visitors per day
- 900ish newsletter subscribers
- ranking for around 300 keywords
- started seeing organic impressions and clicks
meanwhile we just passed 5 months with BusinessAnalyst and:
- 5-10 visitors per day
- 90 newsletter subscribers (and I’m holding up my hand saying I’ve f’ed up and not send any newsletters yet)
- ranking for 11 keywords
- organic impressions and clicks, well, what organic impressions and clicks?
What the heck is going on there? Is there’s some sort of penalty on the domain? Have Google updates been aggressively punishing the site?
I fully understand that the demand for data analyst roles, and data analyst as a career path has skyrocketed in recent years, which likely drives the interest in DataAnalyst site, but the difference should not be that drastic.
What it also doesn’t explain is the lack of results from the SEO side.
TLDR update: Still dead, previous signs of life disappeared as fast as they appeared, not sure what and why.
State of the market
Time for some brutal honesty here right now - the job market is going through an extremely rough period, with new waves of layoffs being announced on a weekly basis, across industries.
This also inevitably translates to the data analyst job market. While the demand for data professionals is growing, so does the qualified data analyst talent pool, making it extremely hard for entry level data analysts to find their way in.
For those on the market looking for a role, consider becoming a business analyst - it can be an excellent alternative if landing a data analyst role proves challenging.
While both roles involve working with data (requiring very strong Excel skills and proficiency in R), business analysts focus more on interpreting and translating data into actionable insights for decision-makers within an organization.
This role requires a strong understanding of business processes, industry trends, and the ability to communicate effectively with various stakeholders.
It’s important to remember that positions in business analysis offer valuable experience even for those whose ultimate goal is to become a data analyst. As a business analyst, you get the chance to learn about the business itself, its practices, protocols, and decision-making process.
More importantly, a strong foundation in business analysis can help an individual understand how to apply data insights in real-world scenarios. It’s a role that puts more emphasis on how data can influence business outcomes rather than merely focusing on data manipulation and analysis.
So, while it might not be the originally desired role, becoming a business analyst is not only a great alternative, but it may also increase the long-term value to employers later down the line when shifting into a data analyst role.
Want to learn more about what it’s like to be a business analyst?
3. Day in a life of a Business Analyst, with Grace
We’ve just published an interview with Grace, who works as a BA at an inventory management and accounting software business.
Grace talks about her journey from the start of her career, sharing her experiences and insights from 3 different business analyst roles she’s worked as.
She’s also done brilliantly to summarise the core purpose of a business analyst role:
“The business analyst exists as a bridge between the business and the code. Their purpose is to ensure that the code reflects the business needs. That means that the BA needs to balance understanding what the business needs and understanding what is possible in the software so that you can keep expectations realistic.”
You can read the full interview with Grace. I highly recommend it to everyone, as a lot of her observations are applicable to both data and business analyst roles.
And thank you so much Grace for taking the time and sharing your journey <3
Things in the pipeline
- New data analyst jobs, added daily
- Actually launching the weekly newsletter with the pick of best jobs directly to your inbox
- Monthly US data analyst market summary
- Improving the overall site experience (this one is a never ending activity)
- Continuing to bring you Data Analysts across their experience levels, to share tips, tricks and their thoughts
3 ways you could help
- Looking for a new challenge? Check out the website - I’m adding new jobs daily
- Looking to hire a data analyst to your team? Do you know anyone looking to hire? Shoot me a message at alex@dataanalyst.com and I’ll upgrade your first listing for free!
- As I mentioned, we have an ongoing “Day of a Data Analyst” series. For those of you who are open to do an email based interview about your data analyst career journey, please just send me a message and we’ll organise something - would love to get you featured and share your experience with our readers!
If you have any questions, concerns, come across glitches - please just reach out, happy to chat.
Thank you all again, and see you in a month.
Alex