The Worst Advice I Received as a New Teachers Pay Teachers Seller

She accused me of gaming the TpT system. I didn’t want to game the system. I wanted to create a product listing worthy of the TpT Hall of Fame (No, that's not a thing. Only in my head.).

There are many ways to grow a TpT store. Some teacher authors use data and strategy. Some create products like I bake cookies each week (I bake a LOT). Some teacherpreneurs use social media because they have more followers than I have ants on my farm. 

None of those are better than another. Each is a different strategy.

Know where a TpT’er stands (and you stand) before you act on their advice.

Back to the story.

I was tracking my data trying to figure out what the best title was for my product. I posted about my Sheldon-level data tracking and asked a question in a Facebook group. 

A veteran teacher author replied, “Just try to do your best and create new products. Don’t worry about your title. That’s just trying to game the system. TpT has an algorithm that matches search to your product, so you are wasting your time.”

What she said made sense, so I stopped. Then, started working on more efficient tasks.

Or so I thought.

Until 6 months later when I realized she was wrong. I had the data to prove it. 

She was trying to help me succeed. I appreciated her time. But, she understood data and analysis as much as I understand Shakespearian sonnet structure. I know it exists. I hope to never come in contact with it without gloving up.

She was a product factory and I was a data miner. Two completely different strategies.

So how was I using this data? How can you use this data to make more money?

Optimizing Your Product Title is SEO

Think of Teachers Pay Teachers like Etsy for a second. As saturated as the Etsy jewelry market is, searching for “Gold Jewelry” will get a lot of results. 

But searching for “Gold Charm Necklace with Heart for Mom” will get a much more accurate result. So titling a necklace, “Gold Charm Necklace with Heart” would be best for that search, right?

With TpT we don’t always know what teachers are searching for and have to guess. So track the data as you make changes to the title. And for the love of numbers, please don't do this for all your products.

Do it for your top 5-10 earners.

(Think this is hard? All you need to do is write the name change and dates down. Still too much work? Then download your product statistics and save it to a folder every time you change the name.)

It Can’t Be Bought, If it Can’t be Seen

If you do a search using keywords you put in your title and description. Your product should show up. If it isn't, a customer isn’t finding what they need.

So figure out what the average views for your products is and boost the lowest performers.

You can search from your account or ask a friend to search for you. You can also search when you are signed out of your TpT account to prevent the algorithm from tailoring the search to your history.

SEO vs Gaming the System

The single most popular product in my store is Balancing Chemical Equations Worksheet. I’ve charged between $2 and $2.60 for it between 2017-to present. It's had 4-5 different names. It's 3 pages long.

These name changes have resulted in much more money. Without those changes, I would have made $862 on a single worksheet. Instead of $1186.

I kept data on it the whole time.

The Excel sheet recorded the search rank of a few worksheets over time. Yes, that took me forever. I’d rather scroll instagram than scroll TpT only to find my product ranks #405 in search. (Talk about boring tasks. But worth the $350+ reward!)

When I found a worksheet that had low views, I changed the title waited a few months and searched again.The results had me thrilled.

The title mattered. 

The price mattered. 

The number of reviews mattered.

I wasn’t gaming the system after all. I was developing strategy through research.

Now, you can benefit from the research. 

The Worst Advice Has Become My Biggest Asset

I’m so thankful for that bad advice experience. I’ve seen the same advice given out in multiple Facebook groups, on different blogs, and by different people. (Still good people giving bad advice.)

We are all learning. But, in the world of Teachers Pay Teachers and edupreneurship, I’d like to leave you with a challenge. 

Prove all things. Don’t just take advice. And don’t give advice based on experience.

Prove it with your store data or a friend’s store data. And if you are too new to have your own data, I’ll share mine.

Prove all opinions before making decisions.