Help! Is THIS an effective website setup?

So in my niche there aren't a ton of "buyer keywords" BUT their are lots of searches by people that express they are having extreme difficulties with a problem and looking for information. I'm set up a website that is meant to be an authority site, rather than just push products.

The home page has good information and flow to keep people reading and partitioned this page to have a sidebar where a "free ecourse" opt-in is, then further down there's a blurb about a recommended product in the side bar, and then an about me paragraph as well. At the bottom I ask again for the opt-in.

However, I've had 50+ visitors but only 3 opt-ins. Now, this traffic is random stuff like yahoo answers, a couple SEO traffic visits, and a few clicks from EZA. And the visitor amount is low, but I just wanted to know.... does this sound like an effective site setup?

I'd love to show it to someone who might be able to offer some input if they don't mind me PMing them the URL (just drop a reply here and let me know!).

Thanks,

- Brandon L