Search Engine Optimization 101- Ahhhh Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. I reference it a lot, but SEO helped me go from Zero to Hero with my TPT products, blog posts, Instagram posts and so much more. When I say SEO I’m not talking about CEO which stands for the chief executive officer. I’m talking about SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization.

How do you make sure that your products are the ones people are actually searching for? Well, you first have to optimize them. Unfortunately, it just isn’t enough for you to post a few products and hit the big times as you could a few years ago. We must first find a need in the marketplace, then we have to use what we know about search engines and their algorithms to really make a big splash in the online pond selling your teaching resources.

If you haven’t found as much success while selling your teaching resources, I bet this is the answer to what you’ve been searching for – even if you didn’t know you were searching for it. Stick around because I’m about to change the way you think about your products, forever. 

Once upon a time, I thought that I could create anything I wanted, post it online and it would sell like crazy. Sometimes you get lucky doing that, but most of the time you don’t. When I came into the game back in 2013, I was a long way away from some of the biggest stars in the online teaching world. I remember watching an interview with a teacher on YouTube and I was so impressed by what she had accomplished that I just knew it would be as easy as posting something online and making it, but little did I know – I had a hard road ahead of me. 

What is Search Engine Optimization?

The bad news? It might not seem as easy as it used to be to make money online.

The good news? I can show you all the secrets to crack the money-making code because I’ve been there.

Anytime I would have an extra Saturday, my family and I would load up in the car and head to Valdosta, Georgia to visit Books A Million. I was way too cheap and we didn’t have any extra money so I would sit on the floor of Books A Million and I would read about making money online. I would read and read and read, but one thing kept resurfacing and that was having people find you through SEO. Search Engine Optimization.

I stumbled upon a few books specifically geared toward SEO and began reading anything I could get my hands on. The only problem? A lot of those books didn’t have applicable things I could take with me. It was just basic general knowledge, so I started taking that knowledge (which a lot of people claim they have) and I began analyzing it with real data. I tried and tested different hacks over and over again. 

Until my sales online went from a couple of hundred dollars a month to making over $20,000 one August – all because I had found what we call your Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. I had started to really understand and master SEO – something that takes time, patience, and PRACTICE. Something that we teach in great detail inside of The CEO Teacher® Program and something that we work on in our live coaching calls. Just a small tweak in your perspective on what you are creating can change the game for you.

Here are 5 tips on search engine optimization for your TpT products that you should start implementing – well, yesterday. 

Techniques of Search Engine Optimization

I’m gonna give you what you need to do inside of these steps, the action plan.  But the “how” is hard to imagine verbally, that’s why we coach on this every single month  – but here goes:

Research

Just like with anything that you become a master at, you have to do your research. Sometimes it’s easy, other times it’s hard. Sometimes you can find the magic formula in an instant while other times you have to dig and dig and dig. For example, some of my students share their product ideas, we do the research for the perfect keywords they should use, and instantly I can tell you if their idea will make money quickly or if it may take a little bit longer to see results. 

The proof is in the 3,000 students who we’ve coached and who have seen massive success just implementing these strategies. Like Autism Little Learners, Jooya Teaching Resources, Move Mountains in Kindergarten, Awe & Wonder, and many more.

So research is key. Once we know the topic of the products you are interested in creating, then we can begin to research. And the first thing we look for when researching leads us to #2 on our list of Search Engine Optimization.

Keyword difficulty

Here’s where it gets juicy. If you are trying to create products on something that everyone else is trying to create products on, like Kindergarten centers. Unless you have something revolutionary you probably won’t make much money. Because you’ll get lost in the sea of every other big seller that’s selling something related to Kindergarten centers. Why would they purchase from someone just getting started when some of these other people have thousands upon thousands of reviews and their resources are tried and classroom-tested? 

The answer? They probably won’t. 

Like when you go to Walmart to purchase a vacuum cleaner. Chances are you’ll choose a brand like Bissell, Shark, Dyson, or Eureka – why? Because they’ve been around forever and you know they work. Albeit some are better than others, you know what I mean. 

We have to look at the difficulty of the term (or keyword) you want to use and we do that utilizing a few different websites but our favorite is Ubersuggest. Inside our coaching calls students get to share an idea of a product they are thinking of and we will then work on the road to ranking. How do we do that? With #3 on our list.

Keyword search engine optimization is how we find the gaps.

Long Tail Keywords

• Long-tail keywords are hyper-specific to a topic, product or page and typically have low search volume and competition.
• Long-tail keywords are easier to rank for and tend to have higher conversion rates.
• You can consistently rank for long-tail keywords with the right content strategy that targets all stages of the funnel.
• Uncover a wide variety of relevant long-tail keywords using tools like Google Search Console, SEMRush, Clearscope, Moz, KWFinder, and AnswerThePublic

Relative keywords

The second part of search engine optimization for your Teachers Pay Teachers products you need to focus on is your related keyword usage. What words or phrases can you use that directly correlate with your long-tail keyword? A related keyword is a term or phrase that is closely tied to a primary keyword. 

Placement

Now, where do we place these words? 

• Descriptions
• Headings
• Tags
• Titles
• In normal language

The list goes on. In order to rank and get found in searches, you need to focus on the optimization piece of search engine optimization. I know these topics may be difficult to imagine if you aren’t seeing them in action. But that is the beauty of our live calls inside the CEO Teacher® Programs. We jump online with our students and we crack the code together. 

In order for your products to be ranked number 1, (on top of being branded, cute and value-based) search engines want to see if you really know what you are talking about. And in order to let them know this, you must be using your keywords correctly. Inside of your product descriptions, in your headings, in your images, titles, and even in social media. All of this signals to the search engine that you are a thought leader in your field and a trustworthy source of information.

Search Engine Optimization Techniques

A website that ranks higher in search engine results is typically considered higher quality and more trustworthy and this, in turn, boosts the credibility of your business.

This also goes for social media posts, resources, and anything you share in the online space. The more you talk about your main thing the more often your content will get shown to the people searching for specific answers. This is why it is important to narrow your niche from sharing “all the teacher things” to “a specific grade level or content area”. Keep the main thing the main thing!

Search Engines are Getting Increasingly Smart.

They can read text overlays on your images, pull text from your descriptions and captions, plus they scan any audio used, and they will begin to push content to users based on 2-3 views of similar pieces of content. 

Showing up naturally in a search engine is done by optimizing your content in an organic natural way. Creating quality content, and making sure any links inside your content are sending users to validated websites or additional value-based content. Gone are the days of adding word lists to the bottom of your posts or resources to bring in traffic.

So how can you show up consistently, organically, and without a ton of extra work? By using the TEACH method. You can learn more about the method that is working for our students here: SEO Syncing.

Do you want to get a taste of what Search Engine Optimization 101 looks like? Most SEO information online like trying to decipher a special code. Are you ready to have the steps laid out for you in a clear and concise manner? Come find me on Instagram, and slide into my DMs so we can chat. I want to show you the HOW, so you can stop imagining it and instead put it into action!

Are you a take-action-now kind of teacher? I love your style: We need more brilliant teachers like you, stepping up to share your wisdom and become the change we all want to see in the world. It's your turn to determine if you are ready to break through your classroom payscale and turn your teaching expertise into something that will increase your income and impact and influence beyond the walls of your classroom. All you have to do is take the next step and grab the guide here: ESTABLISH YOUR TEACHER BUSINESS.

Are you still wondering how search engine optimization 101 can help you? Check out these resources and posts for more information.

5 Tips on Search Engine Optimization

SEO Syncing