Have you ever looked at your TpT data and wondered why some resources on Teachers Pay Teachers sell better than others? Or, have you wondered how you could become a Teachers Pay Teachers top seller? Maybe you’ve seen successful TpT sellers and asked yourself, “What did they do to get where they are?” Teachers Pay Teachers has changed quite a bit in the past eight years since I first started my store. And although we can’t control everything about our TpT stores, I’ve found seven best practices that have helped me grow from selling hundreds of dollars per year to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on TpT.

Yes, it’s totally possible for you too! You’re not too late; you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. And I’m here to guide you every step of the way. Starting with my Email Marketing for CEO Teachers® freebie! One of the things you should know about selling on Teachers Pay Teachers is that you shouldn’t only be relying on that one website to bring in your sales. I teach you how to sell your Teachers Pay Teachers products with your first email marketing campaign in this download, so click here to get started with building your email list and selling more of your amazing resources!.

Teachers Pay Teachers Top Sellers Mindset Shift

Before I share the best practices I have for you today, let’s turn back the hands of time and take it all the way back to the old days of Teachers Pay Teachers. Ahhhh – back when TpT used to have a “top 100” list, they updated weekly. You could search by state and see who was a Teachers Pay Teachers top seller. Each week, all TpT sellers would break out their pencil and paper and take notes on who the week’s winners were and where they stood in the rankings overall and state by state. Although it was primarily an unspoken competition, it was a vicious one that had Teachers Pay Teachers sellers whispering behind the scenes constantly. 

I was the girl who watched her face slide from page 18 on the Georgia list to Page 1 and eventually to the top 10 in the state. Not to mention, Georgia teachers were ranking really high on the Teachers Pay Teachers top 100 sellers list too. I even had a product rank #8 for a week on the top TpT products of the week. I kept notes, dates, timelines, goals, and let’s stop there because that was the type of person I used to be. Am I still competitive? Yes. Am I still obsessed about where I stand in the Teachers Pay Teachers top seller rankings? Ew, no. Nor do I care.

What REALLY Matters as a Teachers Pay Teachers Seller

A few years back, TpT decided to do away with their Teachers Pay Teachers seller list extraordinaire, and it left TpT sellers in a tizzy. Some were happy because they weren’t on top of their game anymore and were falling in the rankings, while others were upset because they truly saw it as a healthy competition. Me? I was indifferent. I had decided a year or so before TpT stopped posting it on their website to keep my head down and run my own race. The year I decided to stop fighting for first place on a silly top leaderboard was a year or so before my business hit a million dollars in just ten short months. 

So, I tell you all this to say that this post will give you some suggestions on what I did to make it as a Teachers Pay Teachers top seller because it is still a coveted thing that apparently a lot of people search for on Google (yes, I did my SEO research!.) But just remember this – when you’re trying to beat everyone else, you usually come in second place. Run your own race, and keep your eyes looking ahead to your next goal.

Encouraging Quotes for Teachers Pay Teachers Sellers

And before we get into the goods of how to help your resources on Teachers Pay Teachers sell, I want to share with you two quotes from some of my favorite Crossfit athletes. I’m newish to CrossFit. I started in November 2020 when I was nine weeks pregnant and hadn’t told anyone yet. It’s safe to say that I’m ALL in. 

Tia-Clair Toomey is the strongest woman in the world, according to CrossFit, and says, “Nobody else can take you to the place you want to end up. You have to get there yourself.” That’s so eye-opening and powerful to me.

Matt Fraser has recently retired but has held crazy awesome world records in the CrossFit game and says, “They don’t see the behind the scenes of how much goes into it. How dedicated my day-to-day is. That my life revolves around it. Eating, sleeping, training, social life. Everything.”

Remember, Everything behind the scenes is more complex than you may imagine, and most people won’t know or understand how much you actually put into your business, so start celebrating yourself because if you’re looking for validation from other people, you’ll be sadly disappointed.

Level Up Your Teachers Pay Teachers Selling with These Best Practices

Alright, teacher friend. Get your flair pens out and ready for these seven best practices to help your resources on Teachers Pay Teachers sell. Just like in the quotes above, building your business takes hard work, dedication, and not giving up. It also means forgoing the easy way out and doing the stuff you don’t want to do. So, as you are reading through these best practices, take a good look at your current schedule and see how you can implement them into it.

Product Creation Should Always Be Number One as a Teachers Pay Teachers Seller

A few weeks back, we had a coaching call with our CEO Teacher® School community, and one student had a very concerned question. She said, “Kayse, for the last three months, I’ve gone back and revised all of my products. I’ve switched up my covers, redone all of the things you mention to do in your membership, and my sales aren’t increasing.”

I responded with a follow-up question, “Are you putting out new products?” She said that she wasn’t, and I knew right away that was the reason her Teachers Pay Teachers sales weren’t increasing. I teach a lot about updating previous products and making them better, but I also want to make sure that, as a Teachers Pay Teachers seller, you remember that it is a constant grind. This is why I don’t recommend it being your only form of income because I work less and make more money than I’ve ever made, and it has nothing to do with TpT sales. 

But here’s the thing – product creation is always number one. If you aren’t putting out new products, people forget about you. They follow other people that are. They want the latest and greatest new stuff even if they still love and adore your older stuff. Being relevant is a key to getting your resources to sell on Teachers Pay Teachers.  In order to make more on TpT, you have to update or create new stuff constantly. It’s just the way it is.

Search Engine Research Will Help You Create What They Need

If you don’t know what people are searching for, it’s like throwing a dart at a dartboard backward after a few drinks in the dark. Hahaha! You’re aiming for a target you can’t see;  you are dazed and confused, and you aren’t even sure if you’re in the right place because it’s dark. Utilizing an excellent search engine research tool is the key to creating Teachers Pay Teachers products in high demand and understanding what people are searching for. 

More than likely, what you think people are searching for is different from what they’re actually searching for. We spend most of our coaching calls each month helping our students cut through the online noise and understand what their ideal customers are searching for on Teachers Pay Teachers inside of The CEO Teacher® School. Click here if you’re interested in getting started!

Use Search Engine Optimization to Get Your TpT Resources Selling

Along with search engine research, once you find out how to hit the dartboard, it’s time to optimize. There’s a lot that goes into this, from renaming photos, previews, PDFs, descriptions, blog posts, related keywords, keyword difficulty, and more, that it would be impossible for me to teach you everything in this blog post. But that’s why we teach it extensively inside of our program, The CEO Teacher® School. Optimizing your content is how you go from $20 a month to $2,000 a month, even if you’re using and marketing your same products. My favorite is when we find something that isn’t selling well for a student, optimize it to be search engine friendly, and watch the TpT sales roll in.

Focus on Teachers Pay Teachers Selling Even In Your Descriptions

People tend to overlook the importance of your TpT descriptions. We recently finished a bonus training on this topic inside our membership and gave a template we use when writing descriptions that help our resources on Teachers Pay Teachers sell. It really is a science, and you’ve got to first understand search engine research and search engine optimization before you can adequately get this part right. 

Writing a sentence or two about your products just isn’t going to cut it anymore. From understanding your keywords and related keywords to sounding natural and not keyword stuffing, all of those essential things are considered. Not only are keywords important, but also related blog posts, related products, and detailed explanations are factored into the TpT algorithm to make sure your products get seen above the rest. As with anything in life, people that go the extra mile usually win. 

Make More Sales By Doing Your Standards Research

Now that you’ve got the product creation wheel spinning, you’ve dug down deep into search engine optimization, and you’re whipping out great descriptions, it’s time you started understanding your standards-based research. TpT has come a long way from cute worksheets to standards-based worksheets and prioritizing great quality over fluff. We all know that cute just doesn’t cut it in our modern classrooms, and we must be challenging our students and pushing the limit of learning. Properly understanding your state or country standards is vital when becoming a Teachers Pay Teachers top seller. 

Blogging is Key on Your Journey to Teachers Pay Teachers Top Seller

I’m never gonna just stop talking about blogging, even if you don’t like it. Why haven’t you started yet? I know there are many balls in the air to juggle as a Teachers Pay Teachers seller. But, if you do nothing else, get to blogging, my friend. And from there, make an email list. Forget Facebook and Instagram. You’ve got to get your fantastic teacher knowledge on the world wide web to help people in your zone of genius. That means blog about your products but do it in a way that provides value first. Then, start using those articles in your descriptions to help you make more sales on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Teachers Pay Teachers Top Sellers Find the Holes

Unfortunately, it just isn’t as easy as throwing up your resource on TpT in 2021 and making a million dollars – not that it was ever easy, but it was easier. You can’t just think you’ll sell kindergarten centers products and make it. You’ve got to start digging deeper, and that starts with finding the holes in the marketplace. Is it possible to still make good money selling on Teachers Pay Teachers? 100% yes, but it does require a new strategy.

It’s what I like to call finding the holes. Yes, you can still create resources for kindergarten centers if that’s what sets your soul on fire as a Teachers Pay Teachers seller. But you have to find a new way to do it that is different than the rest. Are your centers unique? Do they have more Montessori components? Are they seasonal? Do they help ASL students? Using search engine optimization to help you navigate the messy and cut out the fluff will help you find the holes in the industry so you can squeeze your way into massive success. This is genuinely how you’ll become a Teachers Pay Teachers top seller.

Want More Advice on Helping Your Resources on Teachers Pay Teachers Sell?

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I believe in you, friend! You have something SO important to share with the education world, and it’s time to put in the hard work as the Teachers Pay Teachers top seller you want to become and keep taking action forward. Remember that action brings clarity, and clarity produces results. And don’t forget to start marketing where it counts (a heck of a lot more than social media), and download your free Email Marketing for CEO Teachers® guide here. I can’t wait to see how you run with it to help your resources on Teachers Pay Teachers sell like hotcakes!