5 Changes you need to make, to bring your resources to TpT search front pages

I know, we are getting crazy with the changes on the TpT search engines. Don't worry, I'm here for you. You just need to improve the product description. Yes, I know, is not easy when you have + 200 resources. But I assure you it will be worth.

 These are the 5 tips:

1. Make your descriptions long. What I do is describe the best I can the product. You want to use keywords but inside a paragraph. Don't throw just words there, search engines don't like that. Also I include my Terms of Use to make the description longer.

2. Always link to another (or more than one) of your products. Also, external links will work, like your blog or social media. You've probably heard about SEO. If not, follow that link to know more. It will help you to understand better how the search engines work and how you will benefit from it.

3. Use bold, italics, underline, etc. This is not just to make the description look clean and organized. It works for SEO too. You will not want to make all the text bold. It works better if you only highlight keyworkds. That way, Search engines think those words are more relevant than the others.
Here is a blog post to teach you write bold and cursive text on your product description using HTML code by Ms. Idealistic

4. Snippets: This is the first 2 lines of your description. Its really important you to use the most descriptive and specific words there, I mean keywords. What I do is to repeat the resource title, using some bold text.

5. Have lots of reviews on your resources. Some people make their products free for the first hours so they can get reviews. Also, you can join support groups like The Teacher-Blogger Club where teachers work together to make each others stores grow, by giving feedback and sharing their Social Media accounts.

6 Tools to Optimize your Product Promotion

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This is a recopilation of online tools that will help you optimize the time you spend promoting your teaching products, so you can have more time to make more products.

1. Pin4Ever

Pin4Ever is a set of power tools for Pinterest that help you quickly protect, organize, create, and upload your pins. Includes different features deppending on the plan you have, but my favorites are:

Bulk Image Uploading
Pin multiple images from your local drive or images from the web, including  Facebook,  Instagram, Pinterest, and other sites, with an optional time delay between pins.

Update Pin Descriptions/Links
Update descriptions and/or source links on multiple pins simultaneously.
Pin Anything Tool
Pin pages that don't have any pinnable images by taking a screen shot of any part of the page.
Top Pins Board
See your most popular pins (most repinned and liked) on this automatically generated board.

2. Canva

Great tool to make covers and Social Media Images

3. Trello

It's like Pinterest but to manage your own project. I love it!

4. Dropbox and Google Drive for storage

5. TweetDeck and Hootsuite allow you manage several Twitter and Facebook accounts from one dashboard

6. Photobucket and Imageshack for hosting your images when you need to have the URL.

If you know any other tools feel free to share them on the comments so I can make this list bigger.

How to: Place your cursor over the image and it changes {BEFORE AND AFTER}

A rollover or mouse over image is a great image effect you will have seen used on lots of blogs and websites. When you use this effect with an image or picture you add to your blog, the image will change to a different image once you hover your cursor over it. It's also a very easy to use and can have so many uses.




Here's a preview of a rollover image. Place your cursor over the image to see it change:





You will need to have your images in a hosting service like ImageShack.

This is the code we use to make the image:

<a href="TARGET URL GOES HERE"><img src="URL OF FIRST IMAGE GOES HERE" onmouseover="this.src='URL OF SECOND IMAGE GOES HERE'" onmouseout="this.src='URL OF FIRST IMAGE GOES HERE'" /></a>

You now need to customize the code by adding the images you want to use & the address you want it to lead to when clicked. I recommend to copy this code and paste it on the notepad and there you can edit it.

Once the changes are made, you are done. You can place the image in your blog posts/sidebar or anywhere html can be used. To place in the post content you just need to select the HTML tab on the upper left and then paste the code.

Working process: #1 Organization

I've been asked to write about my creative working process. This is the first post of a serie where I will try to explain how I work.

First step: Organization

I enjoy a lot this step. I'm a natural planner. Absolutely love to write "To-do" lists and make schedules. But this is not the main reason I do this step. Thing is I'm really busy, this is how goes a normal day to me:

5:00 am -Wake up, get my family ready to be in the school bus at 6:10 am. (You know, showers, breakfast, dressing, make up, kids being lazy and taking their time, me running, etc)

6:30 am - 2:30 pm - At work (I'm a full time PreK teacher)

2:30 pm- Get home, make lunch, help kids with their homework

about 6:00 -7:30 pm -Time for working on my projects (Includes a College Degree I'm taking, distance mode, Clipart and Teaching resources making, Blog and logo design, and writing in my blogs)

7:30 pm - Making dinner, clean the mess

8:30 pm -Go to bed (yes, I'm like a child, I need like 10 hours of sleep to be functional LOL)

So..... It's a lot

How do I do to work on my all projects in 1 and a half hour? Organization!

I use this little schedule + to do list to help me be fucus on what I have to do and don't forget anything:

I put myself deadlines every day to avoid procrastination. But sometimes there are incidentals that hinder me to finish that day's work. So, I write it on pendings and I work on it on sundays.

So, that's the big secret for me. I'd like to know how you get organized. Here is a blank page of my "Schedule + to-do List", please feel free to print it and use it for your own working process:

Enjoy!