Hi. I am Pankaj, a Physics lover, the Founder of MyEngineeringBuddy.com, and co-founder of MyPhysicsBuddy.com. TeacherOn.com is one of the websites we use to search for new tutors. As we have used it extensively, we know this website very well. In this article, I will weigh its pros and cons, how to improve it, and as of now- Is TeacherOn.com a good choice for students and tutors?
Key takeaways!
TeacherOn is an excellent website for finding tutors and students in almost every subject. Students can connect with a tutor in a few minutes. Likewise, tutors can connect with their target students easily.
TeacherOn comes with a lot of issues, though. Most tutors lack knowledge and experience, and finding a good tutor is quite a task. The tutors hate their coin system, and we totally agree.
To improve this website, the owner should have a filtering mechanism for tutors, improve its search functionality, and make some minor policy changes. To know these things in detail, keep reading further.
The Pros of TeacherOn
Huge search traffic
TeacherOn has a strong presence in Google search for online tutoring, home tutoring, and assignment help jobs in numerous subjects. It ranks in Google for almost all the subjects one can imagine.
Due to this, a massive number of students visit this website. To get these students, numerous tutors have created their profiles on TeacherOn. So no matter which subject we are looking for, we usually get a tutor here.
We can pay just 50 coins and view the contact info of the tutors. So in a matter of 5 minutes, we can contact 5 tutors. As simple as it can get!
For a highly competitive term like “AP Physics tutor” (say) in the USA, TeacherOn is on the first page of google. Likewise, for every subject one can imagine, they rank on page 1 or page 2 of google.
Their website traffic is massive, as shown in the screenshot below.
More than 600 thousand people visit their website from google search alone. Not to mention those who visit their website directly by clicking their URL.
They rank for close to 250 thousand keywords on google.
As the graph shows, their traffic is increasing with time.
(Source: Ubersuggest)
Let us say a student in the USA is searching for Quantum Physics Tutor on Google. TeacherOn is on the first page, 4th position (as of Oct 4, 2022). The student clicks on TeacherOn, and he will see a list of close to 30 tutors for a rare and complex subject like Quantum Physics. Like this, a lot of students visit TeacherOn and post their requirements.
For more common subjects like Physics, Calculus, Math, etc., thousands of tutors are listed on the TeacherOn.
The tutors can see all the requirements posted, and they can contact the students by paying a fee to the TeacherOn. This way, TeacherOn makes money.
Easy for the tutors to get started
The tutors need not develop their website and do its marketing; they can pay for the relevant jobs posted and contact the students.
As you can see here, TeacherOn provides an opportunity for the tutors to connect directly with the students. Teachers love it because they can deal directly with the students and pay commission only once (for viewing the contact info); after that, TeacherOn is out of the picture.
The Cons of TeacherOn
In theory, it all sounds great. Students can find tutors from across the globe for almost any subject, and tutors can connect with students directly and do business. But, like everything that comes easy has its problems, TeacherOn also has several problems.
Unverified tutors, Fake profiles, and full of Scammers
If you found a tutor on TeacherOn, chances are they are not what they claim. And this is a big problem. You might have spent hours searching for the right tutor for you, but when you ask a question, they dont know anything because nobody is verifying what they write in their profile.
Tutors can write anything in their profile to impress the students. Mention of the best educational institutes and universities is pretty common. The tutor might have studied at a grade B college with a poor CGPA, but they will write Harvard pass out with a 9.8 CGPA. If this was not enough, a person who does not know anything about computer science might claim that they can write a program on Artificial intelligence!
My team at www.myengineeringbuddy.com and I have been using TeacherOn to spot good tutors for the last 2 years. After talking to almost 10 tutors, we finally found a good tutor. So the hit ratio is an abysmal 10%.
Most college students and so-called ‘experts’ have created fake profiles, and many have created multiple profiles. So one should be ready to spend considerable time filtering the crap.
Many of our students have reported that their tutor blocked their number after getting paid in advance.
It’s all about money, honey!
So you are just starting and want new students through TeacherOn. What do you need to do to get top rankings, and how soon can you be there?
Instantly!
Yes, you heard me right. If you want to rank #1 in ‘Statistics,’ you need to add it as a subject and buy a premium subscription of enough ‘coins.’ This website does not care if you have any proven track record or know-how on the subject. You may be the worst tutor for ‘statistics,’ but if you pay the most, you will be their #1 tutor.
It is okay to focus on profits, but it should not come at the cost of quality. If most students who visit the website never find the best tutors, they will not revisit it. Next time they search on google, they won’t click on ‘TeacherOn’s website.
Newly listed tutors are shown on top
Now this one is a big joke. If you search for any subject on TeacherOn, it shows the “ALL” tab by default, and here the most recently added tutors are displayed on the top. It is still acceptable to show higher-paying tutors on the top, but by what logic can they show the unverified tutors with zero reviews on the top? Of course, one can click on the ‘online’ tab to see the rank of top paying tutors, but how many new students on TeacherOn know this?
An inferior search function
So you are an excellent Computer Science tutor, created a fantastic profile, and paid a considerable fee to rank at the top for the subject ‘Java.’ One student searched for ‘Java 101’, one more searched for ‘AP Java,’ and another searched for ‘Java AP.’ Will they find you? No! You will not be shown in the search results even if there are slight variations.
So what can you do to rank for all the variations of ‘Java’?
Your options are minimal. You may, of course, add the most important variations in your subject list, but with a limit of only 20 subjects at a time, it’s pretty sure that you will either have to create another profile (and pay for it!) or forget about it.
So you as a teacher will miss new students, and the students will miss you. Students will connect with a poor tutor, and they will never revisit TeacherOn.
Extensive fighting to get a student; wastage of time and money
You have two options if you are a student searching for a ‘Calculus tutor’ (say).
A. Search for ‘Calculus’ and on the search result page, click the ‘online’ tab (In the ‘All’ tab, you will only find new tutors and not the established ones.). You can click on an individual tutor’s profile and view their contact info by paying 50 coins (Oct 4, 2022).
B. Make your post public, and many tutors will contact you back. When we say ‘lot,’ we mean around 5-10 tutors, provided your offer is good, and the work is doable.
I am attaching a screenshot below to prove my point.
When I made a brand new student profile, posted 3 requirements, and made them public, I got 25 messages from 15 different tutors.
Assuming each tutor spent $2 on average to view my contact info, wasted 10 minutes to find a relevant job posting, and spent another 10 minutes contacting me and waiting after that, it is a solid loss of $30 of the tutor’s money and 300 minutes of their time. This is a huge cost to get one student.
On top of this, had I gone through each tutor’s profile in detail, I would have wasted around 20 minutes and another 30-40 minutes talking and chatting with them before selecting a tutor.
But even after all this, am I getting the best tutor available?
No, only those willing to spend their money and time can contact me, and those are mostly not the best. The best tutor will utilize their time doing something more productive, and they dont need to search for students so much. Students come to them through word of mouth.
In addition to the above, there is no way one can know in advance if the tutor they are contacting will responds on time or not. There is no history shown. So after long research, you found a tutor for your course, but there is no guarantee that you will get a response. To avoid this, you should contact 3-4 different tutors at a time.
What can TeacherOn do to improve its services?
A. First of all, filter out the bad tutors!
Make it mandatory for the tutors to upload their Educational proof, National Identity card, Video introduction, sample video lectures, etc. It will keep casual and non-authentic tutors away from their websites. They can filter close to 90% of the fake tutors this way alone.
B. Make search function more friendly
Search should show the best tutors and not only those who pay the most, and there can be a balance between the two.
The default search result page should not show the newly added tutors under the ‘all’ tab. Instead, it should show the actual rank of the tutors in the ‘online’ tab.
Club all the variations of the same subject so that tutors won’t have to create multiple profiles, and the students can find the best tutor even if they made a typo or typed a close variation of the same subject.
They can use Google’s search function within their website to improve their search.
C. Develop a Messaging App
Develop an app and force the tutors and students to stay on TeacherOn’s platform for messaging and payments. This way, one can avoid fraud committed by tutors and students. Also, they can maintain history, which will further filter the tutors. Over some time, the accumulated data will show who is the best. If students get the best tutors, they will visit the TeacherOn website more, driving their revenue and traffic even further.
It, along with the above two measures, will reduce the wastage of students’ and tutors’ time.
D. Reduce wastage of time
Students should be able to contact one tutor at a time. The message sent to one tutor should not make publically available to all other tutors by default, and it will save time for students and tutors.
E. Change the system of coins
Charge a smaller fee for contacting the students and teachers and collect 5-10% of the agreed price as commission. This way, TeacherOn can earn more, and tutors will not mind paying because they need to pay only when they earn.
F. Make it user friendly
Show the online status of tutors, and if they are offline, show the last time they were online. Also, show data like average response time, Students helped so far, money earned on TeacherOn, etc. It will help students in their tutor selection.
The verdict
TeacherOn is a massive website with thousands of tutors and millions of students visiting it every month. Due to the substandard tutors, though, the returning users are very few. There are more tutors for each job posting and hence massive competition. For tutors, it is hard to make any decent money, and for students, it’s hard to find good tutors. However, if few changes are made, it can become one of the best places for online tutoring and assignment help services.
Sorry for the long article. I wanted to say more, but it has already become too big to consume in one go.
If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments. If I get a sufficient number of queries and comments, I will review this article in the future and include those points in the main article itself.
Thanks for reading. Have a great time ahead.😊
PS: My Engineering Buddy has provided online tutoring and homework help services to students across the globe for the last 15 years.
- If you are a tutor looking for online tutoring and homework help opportunities, visit our Online tutoring jobs page.
- If you are a student looking for an excellent tutor, Contact us on WhatsApp for instant help or visit our homepage for more info.
Related: How TeacherOn works? | How To Be A Successful Tutor On Teacheron- 14 Powerful Tricks
Author
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I am the founder of My Engineering Buddy (MEB) and the cofounder of My Physics Buddy. I have 15+ years of experience as a physics tutor and am highly proficient in calculus, engineering statics, and dynamics. Knows most mechanical engineering and statistics subjects. I write informative blog articles for MEB on subjects and topics I am an expert in and have a deep interest in.
