4 Ways to Stand Out in the TPT Search Results

Kirsten 0:00

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Hey, there TPT sellers. I am going to talk today about four simple ways to stand out in the TPT search results. We'll talk about common mistakes and some strategies that you can use to stand out in those search results so that you can get more views on your products and potential customers can add to cart and buy. So here are four common mistakes.

Number one is not using the snippets strategically, they are you know they have maybe save 20% off. And that's it for the first line. We'll talk a little bit about the snippet, but it's just not really you know, really thought much of you just kind of add in what the resource is about. And that's it, you don't really think about what exactly should go in the snippet.

The second mistake not investing in what appeals to your ideal teacher customers. So really, not really knowing or really, you know, just creating resources, not really looking to see which resources are doing well. But just going with, you know, I'm gonna make this one and this one and this one. Just gonna keep going with the plan. Sometimes you have to pivot, it's important to really think about what appeals to your ideal deal teacher customers, not in just the resources you create, but the style and the type of resources like what it looks like visually, that's important to the second.

The third mistake is the post and pray method, you're posting it and hoping fingers crossed, this is gonna work and this is gonna sell. You know, that's a common mistake. I've made all of these mistakes. So, you know, not harping on anybody, but I definitely have been there where I just posted it and hope people buy it. And that's just something that can be alleviated and sidestepped.

The fourth common mistake is making texts and pictures too small or hard to read. While yes, it is hard to read on mobile screens and not everybody is going to see every single word on all of your screenshots, it still is important to make some certain parts of your product cover and your thumbnails visible. So that is it is easy to read.

All right, so I'm going to talk about four ways to stand out. Number one is to think about the wording, thinking about simple titles, really thinking about what keywords teachers are searching in the search results, and thinking about how you can simplify it not thinking about cutesy titles just exactly what the resource is.

Another thing for wording is a captivating snippet, something that appeals attention wise. So like starting your description with a question or starting with a you know some type of like something that excites them maybe it's saying like you're feeling overwhelmed or it's just really hard to do something and you can get somebody in to click when they see easy prep or minimal prep resources. Another thing with the wording is thinking about your tax what your tax tagging, we don't want too many tags we don't want no, you know, we don't want any tags, we want a few really specific tags, whether that's standards, activities, the type of resources, the specific subjects, make sure you're tagging appropriately, that best describes your resource. So an example I have for a snippet is where it says Are you a third through fifth grade teacher looking for a minimal prep way to teach grammar concepts to your students, these grammar mini lessons and activities are perfect for upper elementary students in grades three through five. So I do like I want to make sure all those keywords are tagged. So I do mention it a little bit, you know, in the first couple of sentences, and this is going to be you know, the first couple of sentences in your description. This is what you're going to make sure you have the wording where you're kind of speaking to them, it attracts attention, and it kind of pulls their attention to want to click in the resource.

Another thing to note is, you know, if you have certain resources that are linked to bundles, that's going to show up under the search results. So it'll say something like also included in the grammar mini lesson bundle. But not only that, the tags. So having, you know specific grade levels tagged the types of resources subjects, and the TEKS tagged or common core standards tagged, that can be really valuable for teachers to see if the resource is a great fit for them. The second way to stand out in the TPT search results is having fonts. And I want to think I want you to think about your ABCs. With this, it needs to be appealing, it needs to be something that attracts your ideal teacher customer, it needs to be bold, needs to stand out, not too thin, and hard. That makes it hard to read. But it needs to be bold, and it needs to be clear, needs to be a clean, clear font that is easy to see on a mobile device, as well as a desktop. So I really really love K fonts, k g fonts. I love century Gothic Poppins, I'm a big fan of clean, clear fonts that are easy to read. If it's not easy to read for your students, it's probably you know, something to avoid, you want to make it attractive to, you know, potential customers, the students are not going to be the ones buying it, but you still want it to attract and appeal to teachers. So trying to avoid fonts that are probably standard with your computer such as Times New Roman or Arial. And, of course, you can invest in different fonts that are, you know, specific or appropriate to your grade level. High School fonts don't have to have fun cutesy fonts, there are plenty of fonts that appeal to high school teachers that follow the ABCs. So just you'll have to make sure you look around and invest TPT is a great resource. Canva is a great resource. And even Google Fonts, you can download Google fonts as well.

The next the next way to stand out in this TPT search results would be with colors, you're appealing to your target audience in a specific way, with your brand colors making consistent across the board and your product covers and your banners and your quote box and your logo. It comes together cohesively, you're not just throwing out random colors just for fun. It's something that is you know appealing. And adding contrast something that's really popular. And trending right now is whitespace whitespace does wonders on a product cover. And for me, it personally attracts me it makes me want to buy that resource. So I think for the cabinet clean background whitespace in contrast with pops of colors in your wording or in the pictures you use can really also make a difference. And the fourth way to stand out would be large pictures. You can either use photos, screenshots, or mock ups. Either one you use, you want to make sure that you're blowing it up as large as possible. You want the title of the product cover to be on, you know, featured and easy to read. But you also want to make sure that picture is you know, enticing and is clickable. So you can do this with screenshots I mean only using one or two screenshots. Sometimes it'll come off the sides. That's okay. If you have a mock up, you can make sure it's all large enough so that you can fit what you need to fit a screenshot and put it on the mock up and you're ready to go. And then with photos, just making sure your photos have a nice clear background and it's blown up, that is easy to see, without it blurring. So that's something to incorporate.

So I want you to do a couple of things, here are some action tips, your creative action tip number one, search your best sellers in a way you think a teacher would search it, just just do a little test, pick a resource, that's one of your best sellers, and just see how you know, think about if I were a teacher, I would search it with these two words, see where it ends up in the search results. So maybe you'll see it on page one, which is awesome. Maybe you might see it on page five, or 15, or maybe not at all, think about how you can make changes to your snippets, your tags, and your covers and even your title, maybe you're not using the current the right keywords that really help. Something that I just recently changed where my WebQuest titles, I had noticed that it was just not getting a lot of traction as I had hoped. And so I changed around the wording. I used similar, you know, same words just switched around. And already I've noticed an increase in sales just from not only switching the title around, but also pricing. And that's another thing I want you to think about. Is it priced too high? Is it priced too low? What can I do to kind of, you know, get some more conversions on it. So with the WebQuest, I lowered the price a little bit. And I think that's kind of been the impetus of like, people are like, Ah, yes, I'm gonna get that. And so that's helped a lot. I think they see value, once I lower the price, which of course, you know, I'm so willing to do that if that's what's going to help increase the sales in the long run.

All right. So this is the end. I hope you got some really great tips of standing out in the search results and hopefully, you'll be able to take some of these tips to good use. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.