What the Heck is SEO and Why it's VITAL for Teachers

According to Wikipedia, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a store in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid/free ("organic") search results.

In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines. 
 

The Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) seller should be concerned with two search engines mainly: Google and TPT's. Search engines have an algorithm that rank websites, or in the case of TPT products, according to a series of parameters. These parameters have never been disclosed. It is possible that the store's number of years, financial dividends, links and traffic to TPT will have an impact. Who knows?

But TPT discloses something very important in its Seller's Handbook: the most frequently terms used in its search engine. It is imperative that you are familiar with those. In your dashboard, under Information and Resources. Look at the list for May 2011.

 When you write the product title or description, you have to use this info.. if you want to be found by visitors to the TPT website. 

For example, we are the top destination for Fonts 4 Teachers.    

When I uploaded this nationally acclaimed program, I included the words "writing" and "spelling" in the description because it goes with the theme. That way your chances to be found increase dramatically. This has to be done naturally. 

 "Your product title and description should be written for humans, not search engines. Don't include a long list of keywords and phrases, and never include keywords or phrases that aren't relevant for the product you're selling. .... Keywords for search engine purposes should fit naturally into product titles and product descriptions rather than presented as lists, which actually are detrimental to Google searches". (TPT Newsletter)  

***Hopefully, I helped a little. This was not intended to be a scientific explanation, just a wake up call so as you continue learning on this topic and being able to create awesome product titles and descriptions. 

Next week Google.