SEO Tips for Teacher Sellers with Kristen Doyle

Kirsten 0:00

So like I said earlier, I definitely recommend spending a little bit of time learning how SEO works and what the best practices are so that you are doing the right things that are going to be good practices for the long term and not something that works right now. But that algorithm is going to tweak and fix it. Anything that seems too easy or too good to be true. You really should kind of raise a red flag. And you should really be thinking like is this gonna be good long term because Google, just like TPT search team, Google's search algorithm team is watching those things. And when they noticed trends like that they make changes to the algorithm.

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire, and make an impact inside and outside of the classrooms. I'm Kiersten, a full time classroom teacher and part time business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small, to in each week, as I give you my best advice on classroom teaching, and starting and growing a teacher business. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

Hey there, and welcome to another episode of the creative Teacher Podcast. I am super excited to share that we have a special guest with us today. And she is going to talk all about SEO. If you are a TPT seller who has a website and a TPT store. And you're looking for ways to optimize your products and your blog posts and anything on your website so that it goes to the top of the search results. This is a great episode to listen to, I cannot wait to share with you this conversation that I had with Kristin Doyle. And I know you're going to get a ton of great information in it. So let's go ahead and dive in. Alright, so today we have a special guest, Kristen Doyle. Welcome to the show.

Kristen 3:14

Hi, thank you so much for having me today.

Kirsten 3:16

So go ahead and tell us about yourself and any teaching experience that you have. Yes. So

Kristen 3:24

I taught fourth and fifth grades for 10 years. Before I left the classroom a few years ago to focus on my TPT business full time. I started my TPT business while I was teaching and I had a newborn, and my husband was deployed, which I know sounds really crazy. But it gave me something to do it kind of kept me busy at night when I was home alone and the baby was asleep. So it was really good for me in that sense. That was kind of the perfect time to get started. And I know like a lot of other sellers. I was looking for something on TPT and couldn't find it. So I decided to create it. And then I thought you know what, maybe other teachers need this too. So I posted it online. And I guess my story is about like everybody else's. It just kind of grew from there. And all of a sudden I realized I have a business to run.

Kirsten 4:17

That's awesome. Yes. I love teaching fifth grade there probably when I know like a lot of teachers are like, Oh, fifth graders. They're too big, but I love them. They're such a really fun,

Kristen 4:28

but they are they're my favorite, I think eighth year. First out of my 10 or fifth grade actually.

Kirsten 4:36

I'm currently on maternity leave and extended maternity leave. But this past the school year, I was teaching fifth grade math and science. So there are a lot of fun. Hey, go ahead and talk to us a little bit more about your journey. You said you started your TPT store while your husband was deployed and you had a newborn with you talk a little bit more about that. Yeah,

Kristen 4:59

so So I started, you know, just creating things I needed for my classroom. And when I realized other teachers would actually buy them, that was exciting. And so I just kind of kept that up for the first couple of years before I started really taking it seriously like business. Fast forward to a few months after my second son was born, and I'd been running my business for I guess, about five years at that point. And it just got to the point that I was teaching full time. And then I was coming home and essentially working full time on my TPT business too. And something had to give. And now a lot of people have experienced that it was just too much work coupled with all the things that are happening in education. And my husband and I decided that the best thing for us was for me to stay home and work on my business full time. And so that's what I've been doing for the last few years, and really loving it grew my TPT business hard for a while and then found out that I had kind of fallen in love with web design and with coaching other TPT sellers. So I've been working more on that side of things and letting my TPT business be a little more passive, which I am excited to talk about today. Because I know that for a lot of sellers, whether you're still in the classroom, or you're trying to run your TPT business, and also other things in your life that are going on that passive income is so good to have. So I'm excited to talk a little about

Kirsten 6:32

that. Nice. Tell us your store, what's your TPT store?

Kristen 6:35

It is talking apples.

Kirsten 6:38

And I know as a teacher in the classroom, I've definitely bought a couple of mirrors. Thank you. So yeah, that's amazing to hear that, you know, and it's it is a pretty similar story, I think through many TPT sellers, you'll find that they're starting not really, you know, thinking of this as a full time business, it's just kind of like, oh, I created these resources, I can make some money off of it a little bit or, you know, a little extra coffee here and there. And there's so much more that goes into it. The the more you put into it, but it's totally Yeah. Yeah, it's it's amazing to be able to have that. But you said that you are kind of more passive with your TPT. Store. And you're focusing more on website design. And that kind of does have a segue into what we're talking about today, which is SEO. Yeah, go ahead and just let us know, what is SEO? In general, what does that mean? And why would that be important for a TPT? Seller?

Kristen 7:37

Yes. So simply put SEO is the process of creating your web content or updating things you already have, so that they rank really well in search engines. And this can apply to your product listings, to your blog posts, anything that you're putting out on the web somewhere. And the reason it's so good for passive income is that unlike social media posts, which have a shelf life of what about six hours before they disappear, and then email marketing, which really only works if you're super consistent and keep cranking out more content. SEO is something that keeps working on that content for years after you publish it. So it really does help build up the passive side of your business. Because it's the best way to generate that consistent traffic to your content over time, while you're doing the least amount of ongoing work. So there's work on the front end, but then it just keeps working for you for years.

Kirsten 8:34

the top result was like from: 2013

Kristen 9:12

y what we were putting out in: 2013

Kirsten 9:43

Exactly. Yes. That's why it's so cool. But what is the biggest challenge or mistake you notice that teacher authors are making when it comes to SEO, whether it's on their blog, or in their TPT store? What What's the biggest challenge notice a lot of people have,

Kristen: 10:01

I'm gonna cheat a little. And I'm gonna give you two answers, I'm going to give you a challenge and a mistake. Awesome. So I think the biggest challenge is finding the right keywords. Because for a lot of us, we maybe you're writing a post about literacy centers. And so you choose the keyword literacy centers, but that is so incredibly broad, that it's hard to rank for them. And then on the flip side, if you narrow down too much, then nobody's searching for that particular thing. So you might write number one, but if no one's searching for it, that's no good either. And that applies both on TPT. And also on your blog, I would really say, having the right keywords is probably more important on TPT, because of the amount of competition that there is, it is just really hard to rank number one, for something that's a super broad term when there's a ton of competition like there is on TPT. So it's really important that you find that sweet spot in the middle, where you've got a search term, that's not going to be too hard to rank for. But it also still gets a lot of search traffic. So I think that's the biggest challenge. And the biggest mistake I see is that TPT sellers who have a blog on WordPress, think that all they have to do to do well for SEO is install one of those plugins, and there are a lot of them, install an SEO plugin and get the little green light on that plugin, and then you're good to go. And fortunately, it is not that simple. I actually and I've shared this story a couple of times, so people may have heard it before. But I actually ran a little test and optimized one of my posts for something, a term I knew I had used in the post a lot. But something totally unrelated to the teaching content. I optimized it for cupcakes. And I got a 100 score on rankmath, which is obviously green, and everything looks great. But in the long run. First of all, I'm probably not going to rank anywhere in the top like 1000 for cupcakes, because there are a million cupcake recipes out there. Secondly, no one's searching for cupcakes wants my blog post about how to teach this lesson that happens to involve cupcakes, right? So that's just a simple example of how those plugins can really steer us in the wrong direction. If we don't understand SEO. So my suggestion is always to learn SEO so that you understand it and then use those plugins kind of to check your work not to drive what you're doing. Oh, that's

Kirsten: 12:42

a really great point. And a really great tip in general. I know. You know, it is kind of hard to you like with us coming from an education background, we you know, what is all this SEO trying to optimize everything. And we feel like a quick fixes, you know, a plugin that we might have for WordPress. And that's it. That's all we have to do. But there's really a lot that goes into it. And it can be a little tricky, but it's definitely doable. So those are some great tips that you have there.

Kristen: 13:14

Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't take a whole lot to learn enough about SEO that you then can use those plugins Well, right. Yes. Amazing. Not to mention, we don't have a plugin for TPT and SEO on TPT is so so

Kirsten: 13:28

so important. I know I that would be one thing like, I don't know if that's one thing we could amp up is I don't know, figuring out how we can get it to rank with some type of plugin. I don't know if that's even going to happen. But yes, definitely just knowing what to do with those keywords on TPT, even without some type of plugin. But in regards to product listings on TPT, there's a variety of different ways you can actually kind of go up near the top of the search results, even up on the first couple of pages. And what are some ways teacher authors could use what they know about SEO or what they learn through their blog or website and use that to help their product listings on platforms such as

Kristen: 14:18

TPT? Yeah, so I definitely think hands down, the best way to get more people buying your product is to get them at the top of the TPT search results. I have 100% seeing that in my own business and to get them at the top of the search results not for just one phrase or one keyword search but for multiple ones that apply to that product. When I did that in my own business is really when I saw my business, the passive side of my business just really take off. So my biggest tips there are think like a teacher. Think not about the product that you created because we all as we're creating a product we kind of have an idea in mind of what what it is and how it's going to be used, and we name it based on that. But think like a teacher, try to think outside of your own box, what other ways might a teacher search for this particular product, and make sure you're using those search phrases in your product title and in your description. Everything that I teach about SEO on Google searches really does still apply to TPT, as well, for a couple of reasons. First, the TPT algorithm is not that much different from what I have seen. There are some differences. And I'll talk about them in just a second. But in general, things you do for Google are going to help you on TPT as well. But the other reason is that TPT products as a whole do really well in a Google search. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. But a lot of times when I when I was in the classroom, when I was looking for a lesson idea, the first couple of things that popped up would be TPT products related to whatever I searched for. And the reason for that is that TPTs website itself is so big, and it cranks out content constantly think of how many of us upload a new resource every day, that is seen by Google as just constant content creation. So TPTs website has a lot of clout, I guess you would say with Google, which is helpful for all of us, because that means that our products can rank well, not just on TPT. But in a Google search as well.

Kirsten: 16:30

I've definitely seen some of my best sellers, like just on Google, like by itself. So that's pretty cool to see. And even in the images, like if your image search. Yeah,

Kristen: 16:39

there's product covers will pop up in image search, too, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Now, one key difference that we're seeing right now is that on TPT, the product title seems to be weighted really heavily. And I know a lot of people have caught on to that. And they are changing their product titles on a very regular basis. I've seen some kind of spammy things that I would encourage people not to do, like changing your bundle of, say, literacy centers, we'll stick with that topic. You've got a bundle of literacy centers for the whole year. And they're not seasonal. They're just literacy centers that cover all the different content for the year. But I've seen a lot of people putting winter at the front or Christmas or whatever season it currently is Valentine's Day is coming up soon.

Kirsten: 17:32

bryozoans go by, yeah, I was going to ask about that as well. And then in general, I guess there's a term called keyword stuffing that you might put in your titles or descriptions. What exactly is keyword stuffing? And why would that be not a great thing to do as far as SEO? Yeah, so

Kristen: 17:52

I would call that one type of keyword stuffing. The other type of keyword stuffing would be to just slam your entire product description with your keywords over and over and over. And when it's keyword stuffing is when it's too much when it doesn't read naturally. Or when you just make a list of keywords, just at the bottom of your description, those things are considered keyword stuffing. And they're bad practices, because they're not good from a buyer standpoint. So most search algorithms penalize that. And I know it's something TPT is still working on. And sometimes you can get away with some keyword stuffing right now. But I can promise you, they are working on it. And it is not long term going to be a good strategy. If that's something that sellers are doing, I would really encourage them to stop doing that now. Because if not, you're gonna be going back and redoing all your product descriptions, once they really get that part of their algorithm figured out.

Kirsten: 18:49

It's always just good to kind of go with the one that's gonna get you the best results in the long term. Just continue practicing that because regardless of something changes, you're going to still be able to stand out on top.

Kristen: 19:00

Yeah, exactly. And it's not a good buyer experience either. I know. For example, I have seen Valentine's Day literacy centers. And when you click on it, as a teacher, if I am looking for a Valentine's Day Literacy Center, I specifically want Valentine's content. Yeah, I want that theme prevalent. And a lot of times when people just slap that word in the front of their bundle title, you look at the content, and it's either maybe there's one teeny tiny Valentine's Day activity, or there's not any at all. And this isn't at all what those buyers are looking for. So what ends up happening is the buyer either they purchase it and they don't like it and you get bad feedback or refund requests, or they see it and they think that you're being spammy and they make a mental note not to buy from you anymore. Yeah, so either way, those are bad experiences. And I do know that TPT knows that this is going on. on. So I would fully expect them to start working on tweaking the algorithm so that that doesn't work anymore to get you to the top. That's

Kirsten: 20:07

great for that. So yeah, definitely make sure your product is indicative of what is actually in the resource or what your title is, what your title is, needs to actually indicate what the resources. But what are some other tips for teacher authors who might want to not only optimize their product listings on TPT, we had a lot of you had a lot of great tips with that. But what about if they want to optimize outside of TPT, such as on their blog or website. So like

Kristen: 20:38

I said earlier, I definitely recommend spending a little bit of time learning how SEO works, and what the best practices are, so that you are doing the right things that are going to be good practices for the long term, and not something that works right now. But that algorithm is going to tweak and fix it. Anything that seems too easy or too good to be true, you really should kind of raise a red flag. And you should really be thinking like, is this gonna be good long term because Google, just like TPT search team, Google's search algorithm team is watching those things. And when they noticed trends like that, they make changes to the algorithm. One perfect example is that on WordPress, and blogger and other blogging sites, you have the ability to tag your posts with different categories, labels, tags, depending on what your platform is, they call them different things. And it used to be that tagging, with all the different keywords you wanted to rank for was a really good way to get your posts to rank, Google figured that out really fast. And they immediately dropped that completely from the algorithm so that that no longer helps. Because what they realized was people would write something, and then they would just tag it with whatever they wanted it to rank for whether that was relevant or not. So it was like a way to game the system. And they found it and they shut it down. So if that's something you're still doing for keyword for search purposes, for keywords, stop. Best practice on your categories would be to use those in a way that just helps people find content on your site. And of course, if every post you have has 20 different random versions of the same keyword that's not helping people find things on your site. That's

Kirsten: 22:18

a great tip. So basically, making sure your categories are concise and easy for people on your website to navigate. Absolutely.

Kristen: 22:29

Absolutely. So that's just one little example of how trying to game the system doesn't work well. So it's really important to learn how SEO works and what those actual best practices are. That way you can use the tools that we have available really well to build some long term traffic to your site. For WordPress users, my go to plugin for SEO is rankmath. Now I know a lot of people use Yoast, it's probably more popular, especially in the TPT community. But I like rankmath because for a few reasons. First of all, it offers some things in their free version that you have to pay for on Yoast things like redirecting if you change a URL, so I highly recommend rankmath for that reason. The other one is, I love that Yoast gives you a score out of 100 as opposed to just colored dots. So it's still color coded. But instead of red, yellow, green, and you only really have three levels, you get actual numbers. So I can tell if I'm at the very bottom edge of green, or if I'm like at 100 I've done everything I can. And that is really helpful in terms of making your posts the best they can possibly be. That's awesome.

Kirsten: 23:42

I mean, I'm gonna make sure to link that in the show notes. So it's called rankmath.

Kristen: 23:48

Okay, right. It is and if you are on Yoast, for sure, but I think any other SEO plugin. When you install rankmath and activate the plugin, it will ask you if you want to import your data from Yoast. And it's just a one click you just say yes, please. It will pull everything you've done from Yoast in, and then you deactivate and delete Yoast and you just use rankmath Going forward, but you don't lose any of the work you've already done that way. That's, that's it's super easy to swap. That's great.

Kirsten: 24:18

So you mentioned about, you know, being able to learn more information on SEO and I know as teacher authors, there's we are always eager to learn and get a lot of help with our TPT stores to help it grow. So where can we learn more information about SEO from you because you seem very knowledgeable about SEO? It seems like that's definitely your jam. So where can we learn more from you? Yeah, it

Kristen: 24:46

is absolutely my thing. So I have a course called SEO for teacher authors, and I created it specifically to help TPT sellers climb to the top of search both on Google and TPT. partially so you can sell more, of course, because that is our business goal. But also because I think it's just so important to help you as a seller reach more of the teachers who really need your resources for their classrooms. What I found, as I was learning about SEO myself is that keywords can be super tricky in the teacher space. Not to mention TPT has its own search algorithm that no one else was talking about. And so I took all the things that I've learned from other SEO experts and from my own experience in testing and created SEO for teacher authors to address our specific niche, and to address the TPT search engine. So I would absolutely love for anyone who is interested in learning more about SEO to join us in SEO for teacher authors. We are opening enrollment this week. And there are three options depending on whether you want to go through the course at your own pace, or you want to participate in group coaching, or maybe you would like to learn it, but you really just want someone like me to do a bunch of the SEO work for you. So we have a an option for that as well. Hands down, the people who get the best results are the ones who come to the group coaching sessions. So that is always my recommendation. And you can find all the details at SEO for teacher authors.com.

Kirsten: 26:14

And I'll make sure to link that in the show notes as well. I love that you have this offer available and niche down to meet the needs of teacher authors. But not only that, you're offering a lot of different avenues of how they can learn from you. So that is amazing to have. So I have enjoyed this conversation. I've learned a thing or two as well, just having this conversation with you. But where can we find you online?

Kristen: 26:41

So my website is Kristin doyle.co not.com. And because I like to keep things super easy to remember I am also at Kristin doyle.co on Instagram or Facebook.

Kirsten: 26:52

All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining the show. You're actually my first guest I have for my podcast, writing. It's been a great interview. So thank you for coming. Awesome. Well,

Kristen: 27:06

thanks for having me. This has been super fun.

Kirsten: 27:10

What an amazing conversation. I really enjoyed listening and talking with Kristen, she had so many great things to say about search engine optimization and how it can be so important for TPT sellers, I'm going to share my creative action tip for you. And that is to take action with one of the tips that she mentioned during our conversation. Take the time to really take a look at some of your best sellers, or maybe some resources that you feel like should be getting more views but aren't and see what you can do to tweak any keywords to make it stand out a little bit more. Or maybe you have a website, see what you can do to take out all those categories or find those plugins that would work best for your website. There are so many great ways you can take action with all of these tips mentioned in this episode. That is the end of this conversation. That's the end of this episode. I hope you have an amazing 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.