Kristen
Hey y’all today on the savvy teacher cellar podcast, I am so excited to have Linda Williams on the show. Linda has been a teacher for over 34 years and she has experienced teaching elementary and middle school as well as university courses. She’s been selling science resources on TPT since 2013. And last year, she took her curriculum business full time.
Kristen
In today’s episode, Linda shares what she learned from taking SEO for teacher authors, and how she’s using SEO to grow her TPT business and her website traffic. We’ll dive into what Linda is doing to optimize her products on TPT, how she’s optimizing your website and the benefits that she’s seen from improving her SEO over the years. We also discussed the big question, whether to send blog readers to TPT products or to your website shop is a question every seller has to answer. And Linda has some really great insights to share. So grab your coffee or your tea and join us as we chat. All things SEO. Let’s get started.
Kristen
Hey, TPT sellers ready to see growth in your business. You’re in the right place. Welcome to the savvy teacher seller. I’m Kristen Doyle. And I’m here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that will really make an impact on your sale. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen
Hi, Linda, thank you so much for being here today.
Linda
Hi, Kristin. Thanks for having me.
Kristen
I am super excited to talk to you some about SEO today. I know we have talked about this a good bit in the past. And I’m excited for you to share some of your experiences and what you’re doing with other TPT sellers.
Linda
Well, when you first asked if I would speak on this topic, I had a sudden case of imposter syndrome. Kristen Doyle wants to ask me about SEO. Most of what I know about SEO I learned in your course. I’m not even a digital native, I got my first cell phone when I was in my 30s. But then I thought about it a little and I realized that maybe that’s exactly what people need to hear. You do not have to be an expert to see some real improvement in traffic by optimizing SEO.
Kristen
Absolutely. And honestly, it’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because I really want people to recognize and to understand that SEO is for everybody. And it doesn’t have to be big and scary as long as you know what to do. And you put some systems into place. And you know, you kind of have a process that you go through. So let’s talk a little bit about kind of how you’ve been using SEO, just to grow your business in general and what you liked about it.
Linda
I use SEO strategies on my blog posts and web pages. And I also used SEO strategies on TPT. My goal in both of these is to help people who are interested in my content find it. I’m not trying to trick somebody to get to my content that would have no interest in it, I really want absolutely the right people to find my content. And so that’s how I use SEO.
Kristen
And that really is where doing the keyword research and thinking about searcher intent. Which I know we talk a lot about in the course, is so important because you want to get those just right perfect people for your offers, whether it’s your free content or your paid resources, you want to get those right people to the things that you offer, so that you can really be a huge help to them.
Linda
Exactly. I’m looking for my ideal customer to find my resources.
Kristen
Absolutely. Let’s start with TPT stuff. So what are you doing on TPT? For SEO these days? I know a lot of things have changed over the last six months or so with the beginning of personalized search. And a lot of us can feel like we’re spinning our wheels and we can’t tell if the things we’re doing are working. What are you doing right now for TPT search?
Linda
So yes, TPT is a little bit more challenging to optimize for since we no longer can use incognito as a tool to see if our optimization is working. But I still feel that SEO matters on TPT. And there are a couple of things that we can still control and do to help people find our resources. So one thing I have changed is my URL titles. I’ve edited my titles to make sure they have key words in the title that a teacher might look for. I took out all the vertical bars and now I use space hyphen space if I want to have separate keywords in the title.
Kristen
And I always try to encourage people to see if you can do it without anything. See if you can even do it without the hypen at all, because it just makes your title reads so much more naturally. And it makes it look like something a teacher is interested in, it really can be better for your SEO overall. So I’m glad to see that you are moving in that direction for sure.
Linda
I feel like it made a huge difference to take out the vertical lines and to put this space hyphen space for my separate terms. I also tried to think about my ideal customer. And I think what might they be searching for? What words would they use? Sometimes, if I’m unsure what words a teacher might call something, I do a little bit of research in Facebook groups, I might say would you call this a tab book or a layered book, or I might try to find out what it is that a teacher would call something do you call it a bell ringer or a warmup?..
Kristen
And Facebook groups are such a great place to pull your audience or even if you don’t have an audience, just scrolling through other Facebook groups. Of course, you want to be very mindful of the rules of different groups, and you don’t want to go doing audience research in someone else’s group, especially if they’re another TPT. seller, you want to be very respectful of that.
Kristen
But even if it is someone else’s group, a lot of times you can just scroll and look, do some searches around the thing that you’re looking for. And just see how teachers are talking about those things. Look at the words and phrases that they’re using, it can help you title your products and give you keyword ideas. But it can also help you create a better product because you’ll see struggles that they’re having or things that they need. And it really can be so super helpful.
Kristen
I think a lot of times it’s an underused resource, especially from people who don’t have their own Facebook group, because they feel like I can’t just pop in someone else’s group and ask these questions, because that’s not fair. But there are so many ways to use those groups that we’re in even if we aren’t doing very obvious overt audience research.
Linda
And content groups are really helpful for looking for information about terms that teachers might use. I might ask somebody, what do you use for warm ups? Or what do you like for warm ups? And you can get a lot of information that way?
Kristen
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you are using some of those strategies to help you figure out what to search for on TPT and how to title things based on what teachers are looking for.
Linda
So my URL titles are long, I’m trying to use all of the available real estate to put terms that a buyer might be looking for. So it’s not necessarily the same title that goes on the cover. In fact, it probably is not the same title that goes on the cover, that will be something more reader friendly. But in my URL title, I try to use all of that space to have enough information that the search will know what my product is about.
Kristen
Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing to think about with those titles of your products on TPT is that when a buyer is looking at it in the search, the title is the thing that stands out the most other than the product cover image, which we won’t talk about covers today, since we’re focused on SEO. But the title is the thing that stands out the most other than that image. And when they get to the product page, that title is in this huge font front and center right in their face. So it really is that first thing for them to really get a good idea of what this product is going to be so that they want to continue scrolling down and read your description and learn more about your product.
Kristen
They see that title before they even see the button to click the preview. So you want to make sure that that title is giving a holistic picture of what all is in this resource, what skills or standards, is it covering? What can the teacher expect so that they immediately think, Okay, this might be what I need, and they’ll keep scrolling or click into the preview to learn more about it.
Linda
I agree. The other piece that I believe is important for SEO on TPT is the description, especially the first three or four lines, I tried to describe the resource with important information, I will say what the unit will cover what the students will learn or how it will benefit them. What is included in the unit. If there are standards that the unit addresses, I cut and paste the standard and put it right in the description. I want the search engine to comb through my description and to see what my resources about and who it is for and hopefully connect the right people to my resource for TPT. I think the two things we can work on that we have control over in terms of the search is the title and the description.
Kristen
Yeah, absolutely. And it is so important, especially with personalized search going on to focus on the things we can control. Because even though it’s not as maybe fun, but because we can’t just tweak a title and suddenly see it move in search anymore, we don’t get that instant gratification that we used to. It’s important to keep in mind that that same search algorithm that was moving you to the top, when you tweak to the title before personalized search, it is still there. And it is still what’s initially separating out those resource results, and deciding which results go into personalized search.
Kristen
So if you don’t have that piece done, well, then you stand at the chance of disappearing and personalized search even more, because you don’t have that first layer done. I think it’s easy to forget, with the personalized search going on that that first layer is still there, and it has not changed.
Linda
I agree.
Kristen
Definitely want to make sure that we focus on those things, even though it doesn’t feel as fun. It’s kind of like knowing that Google Search takes longer, but it is important and doing those things, to set yourself up for future success today, because this is just the nature of it. And unfortunately, the quick wins with TPT have kind of faded away lately, and it has turned into a long game very similar to Google.
Kristen
So speaking of Google, let’s kind of shift gears and talk about website SEO a little bit. When it comes to your own website. Let’s talk about what you’re doing in terms of SEO, what are you doing there that’s maybe different from TPT? And for everyone listening, Linda is on a self hosted WordPress site. And that, of course, what platform you’re on changes some of the how you’re doing things.
Linda
Okay, well, I’m really excited about SEO on my own website, I feel like I have a lot more control. And so I’m probably putting a lot more time into that right now. On my own website, I tried to optimize every page and post. I use rankmath as a plugin tool that helps me think about SEO and helps me think about maybe the things I haven’t considered, whether I’ve written the post myself, or whether I’ve had a VA write the post and leave it for me as a draft, I always go in and try to optimize the post or page.
Linda
There are several things I always do. So one is I use headings, and I make sure I have one of my key words in the headings. I adjust the permalink snippet and title, I use images and I put words behind the alt image. If the image is of an ecosystem worksheet, that is probably what I will write in the alt image. This makes it clear for someone who is visually impaired. But it is also a way to tell Google what my blog post is about.
Kristen
Absolutely. So it’s important to do that, to take that step to make sure you have that alt text, especially for accessibility reasons to good for visual impairment. But it’s also good for those people who just have images turned off on their phones, a lot of people will turn off images and things on their phone because they just want a clean reading experience. And so then this is good for them as well. Or maybe they’re in a place where their bandwidth is a little low. And they just need to be able to read quickly without having to wait forever for those images to load. And so sometimes getting that all text in will really help people know what they’re missing if they don’t see those images. And of course, like you said, it’s good for Google as well. Anybody who is currently on Yoast, were you on Yoast prior to rankmath?
Linda
No, I’ve always used rankmath.
Kristen
That is what I recommend. So that’s probably why you started there. I know Yoast is super popular and it’s great. I have no problem with Yoast, I think it’s a great plugin. But I love rankmath so much because there are some things they include that Yoast does not. And because of the way that they do their writing, Yoast gives you a red, yellow, or green light. But you have no idea where within there you fall and I love that rankmath gives you a score from one to 100. And as a teacher especially, it’s just so easy for me to see how I’m really doing when I can see that score.
Kristen
So is my green light a 99? Or is it a 90? And is my yellow light like a 70? Or is it like 89? almost good enough? Because sometimes that can help me decide like, do I need to force something that doesn’t feel natural? Or can I just be okay with maybe a slightly lower score? It’s so helpful for me. And if anybody is thinking of switching or wondering what that’s like rankmath does have a tool, when you install rankmath And you have Yoast already installed it will transfer all the data over for you. So super easy to switch if you ever want to.
Linda
Yeah, I like rankmath too. I feel like it’s gamified it a little bit for me. So I feel like oh, it’s a 79 I know I can do better than that. And so I go through the tips that rank math has given me on the side and I switch when and then I can see the score moving up slightly. And yeah, I really like how rankmath has made it easy for me to tell how I’m doing on a particular post or page. Rankmath will also let me know if my post is too short or if I’m overusing a keyword so that I’m not keyword stuffing. And it will let me know if maybe I need bullet points or shorter paragraphs to make it more readable.
Kristen
It used to catch me on this paragraph in length a lot. I’ve gotten better at doing it myself, I just kind of naturally am writing with shorter paragraphs now. But that is one of the big ones that it would catch me with. And I know so many teachers struggle with keeping things concise, because we’re teachers, and we want to teach and explain. And sometimes that’s as simple as just hitting enter, adding a line break in the middle of a paragraph because it does make it so much easier for people to read. And less overwhelming for people. It doesn’t feel like so much work when there’s a lot of whitespace and they can kind of skim as they go better.
Linda
And I think in general, people like to read like that, especially if they’re on their phone. They like to read short paragraphs or bullets broken up by pictures, images, maybe a video. I think people enjoy that kind of reading on their phone particularly.
Kristen
Yeah, especially on phones. And as I know, I have shared in multiple places every time I check to see what is the current percentage of people in the world using websites on their phone versus on desktop, it creeps up a little more every time I check those stats. I believe the last time I checked, it was hovering around 60%, which is up from 50% like it was a couple of years ago. And it just keeps climbing. So we really want to be mindful of things like how big our text is on our website and how long our paragraphs are. Because something that feels like a short paragraph on your computer can feel like it goes on for hours when you’re scrolling on this tiny phone screen.
Linda
That’s true.
Kristen
And then it feels overwhelming to people because it feels like work. It doesn’t feel like a fun thing to read anymore because they’re scrolling so long.
Linda
I also try to do things that I know Google likes, I have incoming links and outbound links when they make sense. And I try to make sure that there’s plenty of original content.
Kristen
Absolutely, yeah. And especially with AI coming around. And people are doing a lot of talking about how to use AI to make our workflow a lot faster and to save time and our businesses. But it is so important that we have original content on our site. And you always run the risk with an AI tool that it is spitting out very similar content for everyone who asks a similar question to the one that you did. So I would just encourage everybody to make sure you’re doing something original and use AI, feel free to use AI, but put your own spin on it before you go and copy it in and hit that publish button. Make sure it is reflecting you and your business and your perspectives and philosophies about things. So that it’s that original content that Google wants to see.
Linda
I agree. And I think that with AI becoming more and more popular, and probably more and more mainstream, our original content might become even more important to set yourself apart and to rank high in Google.
Kristen
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I think it’s great. It has some really good uses. There are a lot of times with podcasts episodes or other things that I’m creating, where I have these ideas in my head. And I’m just not seeing the right way to put them in a logical order. And I can pop those ideas into an AI tool. And they really helped me organize my thoughts in a way that makes logical sense. So I think it’s great for things like that for kind of gathering and organizing your ideas. But you really do have to make it your own and make sure that is staying unique, both for our reader experience. But obviously also for Google.
Linda
There’s one more thing I’d like to say about blogging in general. It’s just that I hear a lot about people talking about email lists, that that’s the one part of your business that you own. But your blog is also a part of your business that you own. And you have total control over it. You can edit it at any time. You can add links, you can have lead magnets to email in a blog post. You can change it and I have blog posts that are 10 years old that still have traffic to them. So your blog posts are a really good tool to be using for your business.
Kristen
Absolutely. In fact, when I check my Google Search Console stats, one of the blog posts that does the best in search specifically, it’s like six years old and it is just consistently at the very top as far as click throughs that I’m getting and visibility in search. So definitely your blog and your email lists are probably that would be the two places that you own. And I’m saying blog and website kind of interchangeably. I’ll just add, there’s the same thing in my mind. Some websites have a blog, and some don’t. But a blog is a website, a website might be a blog, I think it’s like squares and rectangles, right.
Linda
And anything I’ve done with SEO on blog posts, I’ve also done on pages within my website. So I agree, it’s the same thing.
Kristen
Yeah, I think a lot of people forget, they’ll do the SEO on the blog post, because they’re thinking about it. But then they’ll forget about your homepage and your about page. And if you have a storefront, you can do all those same things for SEO and your product listings. Every single page on your website has the same SEO capabilities as a blog post. And a lot of times people forget about that. So thanks for bringing that up.
Linda
Landing pages too. Like if you have a landing page for, say, an email magnet, then that would be great.
Kristen
Yeah, and I know sometimes we want those to be a little secret. But sometimes we want those to show up in search for anybody. So definitely optimizing those for search is a good move for sure. Big question that TPT sellers ask when it comes to having a website with a shop on it. And also having your TPT store. People are always asking, Where do you send the traffic, from your blog posts, from your emails, all of those things? And I’m curious to know, where do you send people? Do you send them to TPT? Or do you send them to your website store?
Linda
This is a great question. In almost all of my blog post, I tell my buyers that they can get the resource either in my store on my website, or in my TPT store. I provide both links, and I tell them that the resources are identical, and that they can purchase safely and with confidence in either place. I believe there’s different types of buyers, some want to use what they’re familiar with, like TPT, and others seem to prefer my personal store. It’s important to just assure the buyers that the purchases are identical and that their purchases are safe and secure.
Kristen
Yeah, absolutely. And that is something I’ve seen a lot of people moving toward is just telling people, you can get this either place here or both links, it’s the same, and you can get it in either place and just giving people that option to go where they want to. I go back and forth in mind, sometimes I will list TPT and sometimes I will list my own store. And I like doing that for SEO reasons, because then you’ve got the internal link within your website. But you’ve got that external link out to TPT as well.
Kristen
I call those my sneaky external links. Because Google thinks they’re external, because they’re going to a new domain, they’re going to TPT. But it’s really still my world. Right? So going to me just me somewhere else. I love doing that. And I know some people have started adding that option to their product pages as well, just to link over if you’d rather buy on TPT. I think it’s really smart to do both.
Kristen
Because like you said, some people are just familiar with the TPT. And they want to buy their stuff where they already have an account and they’re already comfortable. But then there are those people whose districts tell them they can’t buy on TPT. Or they’re afraid they might get in trouble for buying on TPT. Maybe they have other reasons they don’t want to who knows,
Linda
Or they’re in another country. I’ve had a lot of buyers on my own personal store that are outside of the United States. And I think that’s really interesting.
Kristen
Yeah, TPT is worldwide. It’s everywhere, but it’s maybe not as popular outside the US. And so if they found you probably through Google search, then they’re able to buy right from your store and the added bonus for you as you get to keep that 20%. Right.
Linda
Right.
Kristen
It’s always good. No one’s complaining about that part.
Linda
But I will also say on the flip side, my website is my number one driver of traffic to my TPT. Store. So when I look at traffic trends, I want to make sure people know they can go there as well.
Kristen
Yeah, absolutely. Because there is that know, like and trust factor with TPT that people know that TPT is a safe place. They already are comfortable with the fact that they get lifetime access to what they purchase. I know that’s a question I sometimes get on my own stores. Do I have this forever? How long do I have access. And so people just kind of have that comfort level with TPT already and maybe they’ve already created an account and save their credit card and whatever and it just makes it easy for them to check out there.
Kristen
So we definitely want to make it as easy as possible for people to make a purchase if they are ready to. So last question, what has been for you kind of the circle back to the big picture right? What has been kind of that overall benefit for you to using SEO for your business?
Linda
So I really really feel like SEO has helped me to drive traffic both to my personal store, and my website and my blog, and also to my TPT store. It’s just helped people to find me, and to find my expertise and my resources.
Kristen
And it will keep helping them find you for years and years to come, which is one of I think, the biggest benefits of spending the few extra minutes to focus on your SEO when you’re publishing a piece of content. Because those few minutes you put in now can really help pay off in the long run, like I shared with a post that is six years old, and is still one of my top traffic sources for my site.
Kristen
Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. I know that people will so appreciate your perspectives, and your insights on how you’ve been using SEO. Tell us if people want to get connected with you where they can find you. And I know you have some stock photos and things for sellers. So share a little bit about that as well.
Linda
Okay, my husband is an amazing photographer, and he takes photos all over the world. And we’ve put those photos into some products for teacher sellers to use commercial free, and they don’t have watermarks on them or anything like that. And so I’ve just put those as a line of product in my store.
Kristen
Awesome. And so Linda store is teaching science on TPT is that with Linda Williams, I know your website is
Linda
My website is Teachingscience.us And on TPT, my store is Teaching Science with Linda R Williams.
Kristen
And we’ll drop links to those in the show notes as well so that everybody can find you and get connected there. Thank you so much for being here and chatting with me today. Thank you. This was fun.
Kristen
Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of the Savvy Teacher Seller. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Linda on how she used TPT SEO to scale her business and drive more traffic to her website. If you’re interested in learning more about website and TPT SEO, be sure to check out SEOforteacherauthors. I’ll teach you everything you need to know to improve your visibility and grow your TPT business just like Linda did. Head over to SEOforteacherauthors.com to learn more and to sign up for the course.
Kristen
As always if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share it with teacher sellers who would benefit from it. Thank you so much for listening. I’ll talk to you soon.
Kristen
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please share it with another teacher seller who would also find it helpful. For more resources on Growing Your TPT business. Head to Kristendoyle.co/TPT. Talk to you soon.
