How to Be Successful On Teachers Pay Teachers

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Inside: These are my best tips for How to Be Successful on TeachersPayTeachers (TpT)

It can be so scary starting a store on TpT. It seems like every teacher is familiar with the platform, so it's a great place to start selling your products to bring in money. Unlike other marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon, TeachersPayTeachers (TpT) is MADE for teachers, and the primary buyers and sellers are teachers.

This gives TpT the upper hand when it comes to products specifically for teachers, as well as finding what you need in search.

Because of this, teachers and sellers both love TpT! It's easy to find things to buy and easy to find the right thing to sell, and this is why it's my favorite place to start when you're selling educational printables.

Let's talk about how you can find success on Teachers Pay Teachers, where teachers (and designers, stay at home parents, daycare workers, and countless other types of people) buy and sell products!

Here's a quick guide to help you:

Some of the links below are affiliate links. That means I may make a commission if you click and buy. Please see my full disclosure policy for more information.

How Do You Have a Successful TpT Store?

One of the reasons why TpT is so successful is because of how easy the site is to use. You can create a free account and start uploading your products the same day, with zero upfront cost.

And because TpT takes care of all the payment processing, taxes, and file hosting . . . teacherpreneurs can focus on creating high quality resources instead of worrying about setting up a Web site, and all the nitty gritty that comes with that.

There are a few things that you need to do if you want to be successful on TpT:

Figure Out What Sells on TpT, and Make More of That

There are a lot of sellers on TpT, and some of the less successful ones will tell you that you can't make money on TpT because THEY didn't.

They didn't put in the time or effort, couldn't find success, so they think the whole platform is a dud.

I never understood that mindset, I'd rather help people succeed than predict their failures. We should all be working to lift each other up so everyone can find success.

Back to TpT, it's all about your products.

This may seem like a no brainer, but it's important to have high-quality well-designed resources. When teachers are looking for a resource to buy, they want to buy something that saves them money and helps their students learn.

What is a high quality resource?

When this product sells to someone, it should make you feel proud, or excited for your buyer. You want something that makes you feel good to give to someone and you know they'll appreciate the work you put in.

Make sure your resources are also priced well. It's a bit of a game to get pricing right, you might have to adjust your pricing strategy a few times before you find the perfect price for your product.

Using the search bar, you can easily find out a lot about pricing on TpT. I recommend when you are looking through prices of similar products and deciding what to price your product –pick a number in the middle.

Don't try to be the most expensive product or the least expensive. It's a losing game for everyone!

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Interested in learning more about creating educational printables? Join my Facebook group, where I go live several times a week to take questions and talk about creating worksheets on PowerPoint and selling printables on TeachersPayTeachers and MORE. Click here to check it out.

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You can also use the search bar to find ideas for what to sell. Not only is search amazing for finding ideas, it's also great for seeing what sells well.

I love going to the search bar and seeing what is trending that week in searches, and try to make something that would fit into one of those categories.

Every Thursday in my Facebook Group I go live and walk you through how to create a product and list it in about an hour based on what is in the search bar trends that morning.

Find Your Niche on Teachers Pay Teachers

I love finding ideas for what to sell on TpT, but it's also important to know what you like to sell, what sells in your store, and who your ideal audience is.

This is commonly referred to as “Niching down”, or deciding what you'll sell.

Everyone is different. You might love creating math products, or science curriculums, or even novel studies. Find what makes your heart sing.

Then make more of that.

Choosing a niche doesn't have to be difficult or time consuming. In fact, you might already know what your niche is right now. Others might take a few months to find theirs.

It took me almost two years to truly discover my niche, but it's been a lot of fun creating resources and going through this journey.

SEO Will Bring Your Shop Traffic

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on TeachersPayTeachers is one of my favorite things about being a seller.

I know it's a really scary term, SEO. It gives you the idea that you have no idea what you're doing. I'm pretty sure it's just the acronym, not the actual practice of SEO.

Just like any other blog or marketplace, it's important to use keywords on TpT so your products come up when users are searching a specific term.

My favorite way to use SEO in my everyday life is the search bar. If you click on the search bar in TpT, it will drop down everything that is trending right now. If you begin to type something in then you'll see different suggestions.

If it's on the dropdown menu, then it's currently being searched (or trending) on TpT, and those are my favorite products to make. When using the search bar it's SO EASY to find new product ideas for my educational printables.

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How Do You Grow on TpT?

Growing on TpT can be easy. At first, it's all about creating more products.

When I first began creating products on TpT, I tried to do a product every day for a month. I initially created 20 that first month, and I was so proud! Since then, I've tried to create as much as I can.

Creating a lot of products helps you quickly learn and understand what you like as a product creator, and what you don't like making.

Maybe you'll see after creating a bunch, you actually hate creating novel studies, but love creating writing resources for lower elementary students.

The more items you create in the beginning, the quicker you'll realize what you love and don't love about creating. But the main thing to remember is — to find success you have to keep going. Even when it's difficult. Even when you don't want to.

I believe in you!

Looking for more advice about selling on TeachersPayTeachers or creating resources?

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