Teacher Seller Story: How Keira Lebrón uses Data & SEO to Grow Her Spanish TPT Store (Ep 34)

Hey y’all this week I have an amazing TPT seller Keira Lebrón on the show. She is here to share with us her story of how she’s grown her Spanish language teachers pay teacher’s store by focusing on her existing products, rather than cranking out tons of new ones. Keira Lebrón has been selling on TPT since 2017, supporting middle and high school Spanish language arts teachers, and since 2020, she has also been helping Spanish speaking teacher sellers start and improve their TPT stores.

We talk in this episode about how she is using data to improve her existing products, including the one most important data point that she focuses on how she uses SEO to grow her store, and how she’s been able to increase her sales. While she is a full time public high school teacher. Keira has some amazing insights to share with us that you won’t want to miss. So let’s jump right in.

Hey TPT sellers ready to see growth in your business, you’re in the right place. Welcome to the savvy teacher seller. I’m Kristin 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.

Hello, Keira, and welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, I am very excited. I feel like I’m your groupie. I love everything you do. So happy to be here.

I just love you too. I’m so glad that you’re here that we’re finally getting to record an episode. I have been wanting to talk to you on the podcast for a while because I know that you have such good insights that the rest of my teacher so our audience is going to love to hear. But before we dive into all of that, why don’t you tell everyone a little bit more about you and kind of how you got where you are now with your TPT store.

Okay, so I am Keira. I am from Puerto Rico. I am a teacher that went out of the classroom for a while and I came back. I started with TPT as a user first because I felt a little rough around the edges with teaching and I was looking for ideas on TPT, I started to find some ELA resources, not Spanish resources. But it was the closest thing to what I did. And I just loved to take ideas from TPT and implement them in my own classroom. And I started with my first resource there just to see what happened. I had never been good at selling anything in my life. So I just uploaded my first resource it sold, I was surprised. And then to make a long story short, after Hurricane Maria, I had a few weeks, I had an iPad, and I kept on creating. So that’s how i’m here. I’m starting my sixth year now on TPT.

It’s so interesting to hear as I’m doing these teacher seller story, interviews for the podcast, it’s so fun to hear how many of us started the same way. We were looking for things and it wasn’t quite what we needed. And we started making a few things. And almost no one I talked to says that they set out to grow this huge business, they just wanted to put some stuff up on TPT and see what happened. Because they you know, were looking for something that they couldn’t find.

Yes, definitely. I didn’t find anything in Spanish for Spanish speakers. And that is why what I started doing using things from my own classroom and making them TPT ready.

Yeah. And I know that market has grown a lot recently, but I’m sure six years ago, there probably was very little available.

Yes, very little. And I actually coach Hispanic sellers, so many of the new resources that are written in Spanish. They have come from many of my own students on TPT. So I’m proud about that and proud of them.

I’m so excited for the way that you are supporting Spanish speaking TPT sellers as well. I think it’s a niche that obviously like we said it’s growing and these sellers need support, too. So very excited to see where that goes for you and how you’re able to help some sellers.

Yes, I am excited about that, too.

So you have had some pretty amazing growth over the last year or two I guess. While at the same time you are working full time. You’re not constantly cranking out new products. You’re not all over social media all the time. So let’s talk a little bit about how you have grown your business with all of that going on.

So yes, as you said I am a full time Spanish teacher high school Spanish teacher right now. I coach sellers since 2020. And I am growing my business and exactly the last few years have been my biggest years of growth. Well, actually not, you know, my first year was like exponential growth. But that’s expected for any new seller. But yeah, after 2019 to 2020, it was like a little bit of growth. And then, after I started coaching sellers, it started sprouting really well. And I think it has to do, it sounds cliche, it sounds obvious, but I have focused on creating quality products, very thorough products from the beginning.

I am not a fastest creator, but I try to upload the best resources I can, so that teachers trust me, and I have a very loyal following that almost blindly buys everything I upload. I have focused in investing. Also, I have not been afraid of investing in learning from people that are better at me at some things. For example, yourself, I have taken your SEO course and your profit booster bootcamp and other people who are very good at things I’m very bad at like organization and managing my time.

So I have invested in just trying to squeeze what I have, and make it work for me. Of course, data tracking, I have invested much of my time data tracking, even before I had this amazing resource that is Data playbook. Even before I didn’t do it very well. But I was tracking my data, I was obsessed with looking at my traffic and my dashboard and see where my buyers came from and what was working in my business and stuff.

Yeah, and I think for those of us who were already looking at our data, your data playbook has definitely been one of those like, just exactly what we needed to take a lot of the load off, and give us an easier way to look at everything. I know I get questions all the time about what data points to look at. And you have been so great at using your data and figuring out what needs to be optimized for different resources. And using that to really grow your business, I’d love to talk about some of the specific data points that you will look at that help you make those decisions.

So I want to start with something that if you don’t have your data playbook I used to do, and it was just looking at, and my conversion rates. And my conversion rate was low. And I found that 3% or less was really low, I would focus on trying to get that conversion up. Asking like why are people not buying this? So I focused in my preview, because CBT says the preview is very important.

I focus on my preview and my description to make sure it was persuasive enough. Of course, I looked at if I had any obvious errors or mistakes in my resource in what I was showing in my thumbnails and stuff. And I considered lowering the price, I consider it but that is always my last resort. So that was something I was doing before YDP. I was also looking at my traffic. And in my case, I have a very segmented audience of US teachers and Puerto Rico teachers. And I needed to look at my traffic to see if I should adjust my message for those teachers. To adjust my messaging for Hispanic teachers or US teachers or somehow help them both.

Yeah, because the goal would be to try to reach both right?

Yes, it is for me, maybe it’s not for someone else. But for me, it is you know that US is where I can really grow because Puerto Rico is only that big.

It’s a smaller market. So yeah, absolutely. I definitely agree that if you don’t have tons of tools available to you, I know your data playbook is a big investment. It’s not something that is doable for every teacher seller, a lot of teacher sellers just aren’t ready for it yet. And that’s fine. But if you don’t have things like that available to you, I would definitely say your conversion rate is probably one of the biggest data points to look at, when it comes to figuring out why your products aren’t selling as much as they should, or just trying to get them to sell even better.

Once you get your conversion rate in a really good place, then you can start working on some of the other things like driving more traffic and that sort of thing. But that conversion rate really for me is kind of the that’s the baseline the most important probably. I’m second guessing myself. But yeah, I think I would say that the conversion rates if I have to pick one most important data point, that would be it.

I agree. And something I guess it’s very helpful to I used to look a lot at my wish list numbers. And when I sold those products with huge wishlist numbers, I just made sure that for the side wise sales, they were like in top shape, because I want my buyers to decide on them. So those are three things I looked at conversion, traffic, where do these people come from, and the wishlist numbers.

Wishlist is a good thing to look at in terms of, if you have, really high wish lists on a product that doesn’t sell very well, there’s a disconnect there. So then what’s going on? In theory, the products that sell the best probably also have the most wishlist because they’re the most popular. But if you’ve got a big disconnect between the two, then that could give you a clue that something needs to change with that product, too.

And I love that you said you look at everything else before you work on changing prices, because I think that is so important. Price is the easiest, fastest change to make. If I think I need to raise my price, I’ll do that in a heartbeat. Because it’s easy. And it’s quick.

Yeah, that wasn’t easy for me raising prices. But now it’s my favorite thing to do. When I get a pricing optimization recommendation, I’m like, Yes, this is super easy. And it usually is very effective. Because if data is supporting that decision, then you are golden.

That is one of the first things I look at when I sit down to look at my data every month is where can I raise some prices, because those are easy, I can knock them off my to do list and probably five minutes for all of the ones I need to raise. And it’s an immediate income booster as well. And I think you know, most of us, like you said, we are hesitant to raise prices on things. And that kind of speaks to what I was gonna say that we as teacher sellers tend to underprice not over price. And I think it’s a little bit out of fear and a little bit out of some teachers scarcity mindset that still sticking around in the back corners of our minds.

Yes. And as a Puerto Rican teacher, I definitely relate to that thinking, Is my audience ready for this? Can they buy this? And it turns out, if they really need it, they do. And I don’t feel bad about raising a price because my resource is worth that price. I am really saving these teachers time, I’m saving the dumb ideas, I’m helping them have a nice weekend or whatever. And yeah, I don’t feel bad about it as much.

Especially when the data shows. And if we’re feeling like we need to possibly lower price, then my pushback there is always go make your resource better. First, let’s make the product we’re offering better before we just slashed prices and turn it into $1 store.

Definitely. And you know what, I have a product that has been given me such a hard time with optimization. I think it has come a long way since I started two years ago with YDP. And the only thing I haven’t considered is putting some more pages in there or adding a digital option. So just give me an idea.

Good. Awesome. I love that. So you have spent a whole lot of time looking at data, you’ve also been working really, really hard on your SEO. And I would love to talk about that a little bit as well. Especially because you have a bilingual store. And this is one of those questions I get all the time is what if my products are in another language? What do I do for SEO? So you have really, when we were working together in the SEO course, we really honed in on what was working well for you. So I would love for you to kind of share some of that with my audience.

Yeah, I have a really sophisticated process. With my SEO, I just made quotes with my hands. I know that you teach us to use keyword tools and stuff, that has not been the best thing for me because I don’t find those Uber suggests thing works as well in Spanish. So my sophisticated process is just going through the TPT search bar, I input the word Spanish and then I follow it with each letter of the alphabet, wait a few seconds and see what populates.

So I may put Spanish, a Spanish b Spanish c, and maybe I’ll get Spanish comprehension. So I use the TPT search bar for that type of keyword research. For Spanish, it doesn’t serve me as well to do that. So I need to just think like a teacher. I try to think of as many synonyms and equivalent phrases for a resource I have.

My titles are the longest they can fit. I title in Spanish and in English when I can, or at least I add the word Spanish in there in English. Essentially, I think that for bilingual stores or in my case, I’m not really I bilingual store. I’m a Spanish store, and I do have a bit of bilingual products as well. But it comes back to who my target audience is in general or for a particular resource.

What language are these people searching for? What I have done is that I take Spanish as the primary language in my descriptions. So I make a really long description in Spanish, because as a Spanish for Spanish speakers seller, I know that my audience needs to feel confident in the authenticity of my resources. And I feel like doing Spanish first, works for me to gain their trust.

But I also know that half of my audience as from the US, and they will probably be searching TPT in English, because they probably don’t know I exist. So they are searching TPT in English, because that’s what they are used to. So after my long keyword heavy description, in Spanish, I add a little keyword heavy blurb in English. So my reasoning is that TPT will catch those English keywords for the people who are searching it in English. But I will convince them about my product with my Spanish description. And they will see wow, this is Spanish resource. It’s written in Spanish, and it’s written in really good Spanish, I trust this seller. That’s my reasoning behind that.

So I think if you are a bilingual seller, maybe you’re a Spanish and English seller, or French, you’re teaching a second language and your audiences in the US, by all means, I think you should describe it in English. But if you have some products that you feel might be useful in a Spanish speaking or a French speaking, maybe immersion environment, then I think he should include a little blurb in that language. I know for a fact that Puerto Rico teachers, if I describe all my resources in English, they would be a little apprehensive of buying Spanish, a Spanish resource from someone who describes their resources in English.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love that you are using both languages, I think it’s such a good way to like you said show that you are a very fluent speaker of the other language. And that’s so important for immersion programs. And anyone who is teaching in another country and truly needs these to be very accurate resources, it’s a good way to just show them that this is going to be high quality that they don’t have to worry about someone who is not a native Spanish speaker, or for people who are listening and maybe have a store with products and French, whatever language, a good way to show that this is going to be a quality resource, and that all of the wording and the grammar and all of those things are going to be correct.

Yes, like you need to strike a balance between being SEO friendly and being authentic for your target audience. That is what I think when I describe my resources,

Absolutely, it’s so important. Obviously, you and I both know, SEO really is important for getting your resources out in front of other people. But it is important to find that balance and make sure that your audience is seeing things not to mention, it will help you if people are searching in their own language to have both languages in there. And for anyone who maybe is listening and isn’t aware or hasn’t looked at products, like Keira’s that are in another language. They do show up at least in Google Chrome. If I go to one of your products, I immediately get a little pop up that says do you want this in English from Google Translate? And so that is super helpful as well. So I can see it into Spanish. But if I wanted to read it in English, I could switch it over and do that, too. Might not be perfect. It’s Google Translate, but you know.

But even Google Translate has come a long way, since I first started trying it out.

And I know lots of people struggle with how to title, their resources and whether they should be using keywords in Spanish or English or French or English. So I love that your advice really is do both. Because it helps you to reach a wider audience. And you may need to do different things for different products, depending on the target audience for that product.

Yeah, definitely. I do have some products that I have in English and Spanish. And I have English first in the description, just because I know that if a teacher from the United States is looking for that particular solution to their problem. I have some bingo templates, for example, that can be used in any subject and they happen to be in Spanish. So in that case, my description is English first and Spanish later because I know it has such a larger audience for English speakers. So It depends on the nature of the product itself. What I decided to do, but mostly when they are resources for a Spanish class I describe in Spanish first.

Well, it is obvious that the work you’ve been doing is really been paying off in terms of growing your business and growing your reach. And I’ve just been so excited to kind of watch on the sidelines ever since we got to know each other in the boot camp, and then the SEO course after that.

Yeah, I am very proud of that growth. Very surprised. And I just want it to keep going.

I remember you messaging during, I guess it was during the SEO course, I think in one of our coaching calls, you were so excited that your product had moved from like non existent, or I don’t remember how far all the way up to page one. And I feel like it was at the top of page one somewhere close to the top anyway, we were so excited. And then it just kept happening over and over, you’ve done such a great job.

It’s a shame that now we can’t see that working. I just trust that my resources are appearing when someone searches for them. I trust I’ve done a good enough job for that.

Yeah, it’s good that you were able to work on this kind of before, all of the changes with personalized search happen. So that you were able to really hone in on what works for you. And know that you can still do the same things. I’ve been telling everyone and I will say it again, since you brought up personalized search a little bit, the underlying search algorithm hasn’t changed. So everything that was working for search before should still be working. Now we just can’t see the proof anymore. And that is frustrating.

it is it was so fun to go incognito.

Everybody loves instant gratification. Now we need to trust that it’s working, and hope that we get some really good data coming sometime soon.

Yeah. Well, thank you so so much for being here, I would love for you to share with our audience where people can find you if they want to get connected with you down the road.

Yeah, so I have two Instagrams, I have my Instagram channel which is my TPT side account @lamisideespanol, and I have my teacher seller account which is @eduemprendeteI. And I give tips to Hispanic sellers.

We will drop links for both of those in to the show notes for this episode. So it’s really easy for people to find you. Thank you again, so so much for doing this today. If you were going to give our listeners one action step to take away from this episode. What would it be?

Oh, that’s not good at this. But I would say raise some prices if you have a really great conversion rate. And that product has never been in a hashtag sale or anything like that would skew the data, go raise some prices and see what happens.

I love it. That’s such a quick and easy takeaway action step to do for today. Go out take a look at some data and raise a couple of prices. Well, thank you so so much again. It was wonderful to talk to you today.

I’m so glad you invited me and I hope it’s helpful for someone.

Oh, I’m sure it will be.

If you would like to stay in touch with Kara and find out more about her journey or you’re a Spanish speaking TPT seller who would love to know more about how she can help you grow your teacher seller business. Be sure to connect with her at the links in the show notes. Talk to you soon.

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.