Your Product Listing Must-Haves

Kirsten 0:00

Hey there, it's Kiersten? Do you have a quick second, I just wanted to give a big thank you to all my listeners who tune in to the creative teacher podcast. If you've enjoyed the show, please take a minute to rate and review. Wherever you listen to the podcast, it would mean the world to me. Thanks again for all your support.

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.

Guess what it's time for? It's time for another remix episode. This one is all about product listing must have so enjoy. I'm going to first share how I was able to revamp my product listings last summer and how it exponentially boosted my business and things to consider when you are changing up your store and changing up your product listings. And then I'm also going to go into the five components of product listing must have. So we're going to be looking at those five main parts of a product listing, we're breaking it down. And I'm just going to talk a little bit about each one. So without further ado, let's get started.

I've been a TPT seller since: 2013

So I was trying to start with the easier ones and then working my way through there. I also spruced up my store with my profile, logo and Banner. And I remember I had a little quote box that said new products coming soon. And I even made an A wrote a note to my followers. And I just said that, you know, I'm going to be really revamping my store, I'm going to be adding new products. So just stay tuned. And then I just went from there.

But I started with my best selling product. And from what I remember, my best selling product was some, it was a natural resources review game. And I immediately saw what I could do to update the resource and mate tried to make it more relevant and fun, I added more natural resources to the game. But our clues revised all of my actual text, my copy in the actual product, added more fun fonts, and backgrounds and images and all of that kind of stuff. And then I just also added more depth to the product itself. So I changed up not only the product listing, but also the actual resource, but definitely the product listing to enhance and appeal to potential customers.

So here are some things to consider when you are revamping your store, whether it's just your product listings or the whole shebang, you want to consider narrowing down your brand, I wish I would have sat down and actually decided which colors I wanted to go for. I knew I wanted some, you know pastel type of color, or just a rainbow of colors. I knew that for sure. But I wish I kind of sat down and actually thought about my brand. And thinking about what kind of products I want to sell, who I want to who my ideal customers were. And that kind of came naturally. So that's just something to think about is you know, think about the colors. You're thinking about your personality, what vibe Do you want to give off? What brand vibes Do you want to give off?

Another thing to consider is to analyze what is selling well, and what isn't. This was a big thing for me, I looked religiously at the product statistics, because I did want to just see what was really doing good all these years without me touching anything and which was which one wasn't. And I was able to clearly see which ones were really good. Which ones had a lot of potential, which ones I can really revamp because of you know, the fact that they're still selling with me not touching them for a few years, versus ones that I actually had to just take out or try to can change completely, because they just weren't selling very well. So that's just one thing.

That's another thing to consider is to just see what selling well and what isn't. And then a next thing to consider is some templates, start a template for your product covers, or your thumbnails or your even your description so that it's easier to update and make things cohesive for your store. So if you're looking going for a certain look in your store, then try to start with a template that you can easily duplicate and change up pictures and a title so that it's just easier on you.

All right. So with that being said, I want to go into product listing must haves, it's really things that make up a product listing that must be on point. And it's the main parts of a product listing really. So I'm going to talk about all five of those. And I'm just gonna give you a little bit of tidbits for each one.

But the first one would be the product cover, this is the first thing people see. They see this before the description, preview any of that kind of stuff, product covers can be make or break. And especially if they're showing up in search results. If you're looking at a lineup of products that you're considering as a teacher, then you want your product cover to stand out from the rest so that they can actually click to see what else is there. So when you are creating your product cover, you want to make sure that you have large text that covers at least a third of the page, you want to make it as big and eye catching attention grabbing as possible fonts that appeal to your customer and one to three photographs or pictures of your resource no more. So you do not want to overwhelm the customers with a whole bunch of pictures. And even better would be a really nice photo that captures your product in action. So just think about you know, keeping the product tuber simple, not too much going on but still effective at stopping the scroll and capturing attention.

The second part Have a product listing that we are always thinking about are the product thumbnails. These are three optional picture files that you can add when you're creating your product listing. And while they're optional, you definitely need to make sure you utilize all three. And I'm not just saying to us just a page from your resource, or a screenshot of your resource as your thumbnail, actually create a template and see what you can do to kind of highlight the features of each resource. So kind of like a small little commercial or ad or something like that, you're just kind of highlighting those big main features that would really attract the audience, and would make them want to continue to read more about what is in here resource. These, these thumbnails can also have keywords and phrases, large simple text, and pictures of your product and action photographs of your product and action, but definitely capturing still capturing the attention, but you're not going to just add a page. So make sure that your thumbnails are capturing attention with those main features or highlights.

A third must have that we always want to make sure to include in a product listing is a preview previews are also optional. But you should definitely make sure that you add a preview as much as possible. And this can be a little intimidating because it's a PDF file, people can actually download it. And it can be really hard to decipher what exactly you need to add into your preview. But one thing to do is to add detailed information about your resource, so making sure that you are touching on all parts of your resource, whether it is the mini lessons or the activities that are included. But of course not giving too much away, you don't want to give everything that's in that resource. So just kind of highlighting some different parts, you're adding some more detail compared to the cover and the thumbnail. But yet, you're still not giving away too much information. A preview is a really great way to also add a sample in from your resource. So if your resource is a year round resource, adding in a week's worth of activity so that potential customers can actually download and use it and kind of like a free trial period, and see if they really want to buy the whole product. So you can either do maybe a week's worth of activities, or just a couple of sample activities that teachers can actually use. This is just a really great way to showcase your product and see the quality of work that you are giving to them. So previews are definitely something that can benefit you and lead to higher conversions.

The fourth must have of course, you can't do anything without it is to have a title but not just a title title, you want to make sure that your title is simple, and SEO friendly. So search engine optimization is key. You do not want to be creative with titles, you want to be a straight forward with what the what the product is. And one way to kind of see what you you should add to your title is to cross reference it with other similar resources as yours. So testing it out with keywords, seeing what lands more products or more search results and kind of seeing where your product would land if it were to be changed that way. But keep in mind that it may take an hour to update into the search results. So that's something to consider as well. But Your title should be straightforward. And to the point. Let's say that my product is some math card activities for multiplication and division. So I would just really do multiplication and division task card activities, something that is coming up on the search results that people are more likely to search. If you were to get something creative, like Fun and Fancy multiplication task cards or something like that, people are not going to search Fun and Fancy multiplication task cards so they're less likely going to see your resource. So you gotta keep it as straightforward as possible. And then the last product listing must have would be, of course, the description. The description may benefit you especially if you have some potential customers that love to read everything and want to know everything before they buy. Your description is going to have the most information out of all of the product listings that I just mentioned. It's gonna go into detail. And of course you know, how much detail you want to add depends on the resource and depends on how long how big the product is. is, but some main things to think about are to make sure you're including everything that it includes. So your listing what is actually included. Another thing to think about is emphasizing with bold text, or all capital letters, things that are super important for the potential customers to know. Because there are going to be some people who are going to read every single word, but there's also going to be some of those people who aren't just going to skim it. But so bullet points, any way that you can break apart the text is a really great way to add to your description. But make sure that you're enticing the reader with a small snippet about why this product is really great for them, or what would engage them to come and actually read the description. And then you're going to also include what is in the product, if it's a set of vocabulary words, include the actual vocabulary words and bullet points. So that's just a really great way to increase conversion rates, because they can actually see oh, these are the vocabulary words that we're going to use, okay, that's really great. This is something that I can use with my students. So the more information you give, the better. But of course, you don't want to give away too much information. So the script description, you can definitely go all out. But don't be intimidated by really long descriptions, because most of the time, a lot of people aren't going to read every single word, they're just gonna skim it. So definitely have a good amount of information. So just the one thing you don't want to do is add too little information, people are less likely going to buy if they don't get as much information as they need.

ought like the sales I got in: 2020

And I'm just like a living testament of how product listings can really help. I have evolved so much from the product listings that I even had a year ago. And it's just, it's really just a matter of understanding how to create high converting listings, how to create covers that convert and all that good stuff. It's not just something that everybody can master, unfortunately. And so it's just really about learning and growing as much as you can and just being a little bit better than you were a year ago or six months ago. That's really the thing that is something to take away. So that's all I have for today. I will see you again next week with a brand new episode.

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.