8 Ways to Optimize Your TPT Store for the Back-to-School Season

The back-to-school season is a golden opportunity for Teachers Pay Teachers sellers to get their earnings on the right track for the school year. It's a time when teachers are preparing their classrooms for the school year and looking for the perfect resources to help their students have a successful school year. With a little optimization, you can ensure your TPT store stands out from the crowd and attracts eager buyers. Let's dive into 8 tips that you can implement to optimize your TPT store. 

1. Titles

Your product title is the first thing potential buyers see. It's also how you can get found! It's crucial to make it informative and keyword-rich. To do this, you'll want your titles to be specific. Specific to the topic, type of resource, and who it's for. This will also help you incorporate relevant keywords that teachers are likely searching for. 

To help me with titles, I use a website called SellerSpy. I've been using SellerSpy, specifically their Keyword Generator (free version) and Title Analyzer (paid version) since the summer of 2023 to help with my titles and have seen true growth in my views and conversion rate on my products. Yes, just from tweaking the words in my titles! 

2. Covers 

While being able to rank in the TPT search results first few pages is great, it doesn't matter if buyers scroll past your product. To help grab buyers' attention, you must have eye-catching covers! To do this, you want to include the following things: 

• Your Branding: This will help your buyers recognize your resources. If they know & recognize you, they are more likely to purchase from you.  
• Images of your Product "in Action": Just like when you are looking for something in Amazon, you'll want to see the product to its fullest so you can make a solid decision to purchase or not. Teachers want to see how the product will look as their students complete it, or how to use it in their classroom. You can have worksheets partially completed, add in some school supplies, or show the final product. Whatever is necessary to give buyers a full picture of the product. 
• 1 - 2 Key Features: Of course, you should have your title on your cover, but you can also include a key feature(s) that makes your resource unique or special. This should not be full sentences, but some powerful keywords that teachers are actually looking for. 

3. Thumbnails

Once buyers click on your product from search, or from your storefront, they will most likely go to your thumbnails for some more info. Your thumbnails are where you want to show off more of the product in action and share more highlights and key features. You can have more text in your thumbnails than your covers, but you don't want to have a lot of text. Keep your focus on strong visuals, like more photos of your product in action that are different than what is on your cover. 

4. PDF Previews 

Your PDF Previews will give buyers a glimpse into your product. It should be showing and telling the buyer EVERYTHING about your product! There is no minimum or maximum number of pages the PDF preview should have, but you want to deliver all the important information and benefits of the product in bite-sized content on each page. Pairing the written info and benefits with more product images is ideal so buyers can visualize the product while reading about it. 

Note: You should have some type of preview for EVERY product (yes, even on bundles) on every paid product in your store. 

5. Descriptions: 

Each of your product descriptions should clearly communicate the benefits of your resource. When you describe your product, you want to write it as if you were describing it to your teacher bestie. AKA have a conversation tone and talk directly to the buyer. Whatever keywords you use in your titles, you'll want to use the same words in your snippet as well as casually throughout the description without keyword stuffing. 

Here are 6 things I like to include in my product descriptions: 

• Snippet - brief summary of my product
• Key features of the product explained
• Benefits of the product
• List of what is included 
• Aligned standards (Tag CCSS, TEKS and VA SOLs!)
• Related resources 

A big tip would be to keep the skimming reader in mind. Use shorter paragraphs and lists to keep buyers engaged & continuing to read. 

6. Featured Resources

The featured resources section is a prime spot to showcase your products. Under your store banner, you have 4 spaces to include resources you'd like to spotlight for buyers that come to your storefront. You can change these out whenever you'd like, but for the back-to-school season, you want to showcase products that are back-to-school or fall-related. 

I recommend keeping a relevant free product as one of your featured resources. Especially since we lost the primary free resource section (as of July 1, 2024). I would recommend not including a product that appears in the top 10 resources on your storefront. This is because buyers will already see the resource if they just scroll a little bit further. So instead, feature a resource that is not in your top 10, but is still relevant to the season. 

7. Note to Followers

A note to followers can be an important place to connect with the people who follow your store and enjoy your resources. It is important to maintain that connection with your followers so they keep purchasing from you.

As you've worked hard on your store during the summer, you'll want to update your followers on all the new resources you've added and any that you've made some major updates to. You can send a note to your followers once every 6 days. I'm not saying you NEED to send one every week during that back-to-school season, but you don't want to leave them hanging and only send them a note whenever there is a sale. 

8. Email Marketing (optional-ish)

If you are brand new to selling and this is your very first TPT sale, you may not need this, but it is something to consider as you continue to grow your TPT store and business. 

Just like keeping your TPT followers engaged with your note to followers, you want to do the same for your email list. I recommend nurturing your list with teaching tips and occasional exclusive freebie before the TPT sale. That way your email list is primed to open your emails during sale times. 

When the TPT back-to-school sale is announced, you'll want to plan, write, and schedule your sale emails so you have nothing to worry about during the sale. My friend Melissa Seidemann (@notanotherva on Instagram) is a teacherpreneur marketing expert. She has free email templates that you can grab to plug and play with for your TPT sale emails. 

By implementing these tips and ideas, you'll be well on your way to optimizing your TPT store for the back-to-school season. Remember, consistency is key. Regularly review your data and make updates to your products and listings. Small changes can make big waves in your earnings. Wishing you lots of luck during the back-to-school season!