The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
The Fastest Way to Make Your First (or Next) Sale on TPT
Ready to stop feeling invisible on Teachers Pay Teachers and start making sales with confidence? We break down a simple, repeatable strategy that helps you pick the right product, target the right buyers, and build real momentum—starting with a timely seasonal approach that delivers quick wins. Rather than guessing, we use search data to validate demand, identify first-page openings, and choose keywords that align with how teachers actually shop during high-interest holidays.
We walk through live examples like “subtraction third grade Halloween” and “Halloween division activity fourth grade” to show how review counts reveal demand and how zero-review results signal space for a new listing. From there, we map a streamlined workflow: batch creation, fast cover development, and preview assets that clearly show value. You’ll learn how smart cover design—square format, bold Halloween palette, and unmistakable theme cues—can lift click-through rates, and why tight grade levels and tagged standards increase trust and conversions. We also break down how to write a keyword-rich title and snippet that boosts search visibility without sounding robotic.
The final piece is momentum. We share practical ways to spark that crucial first purchase by posting to your existing audience, even personal social feeds, and using early sales as a credibility signal to the marketplace. After the holiday, we review data—views, conversion rate, ranking—and turn proven seasonal winners into evergreen resources with minimal rework. Expect real tactics you can apply to any niche: validate demand, optimize listings, share strategically, and scale what works. Subscribe, leave a review if this helped, and grab the free guide to your first $100 on TPT so you can take action today.
Dowload the free guide here!: https://rebrandedteacher.kartra.com/page/your-first-100
Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TUlKqVdYors
Check Out My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/laurenfulton
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurentschappler/
My Other YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LaurenATsch
Free Rebranded Teacher Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/749538092194115
Welcome to the Rebranded Teacher Podcast. My name is Lauren Fulton. I'm a full-time teacher author and seller on Teachers by Teachers, and I help other teacher entrepreneurs grow their TPT businesses in a way that's purposeful and sustainable. So if you're looking for actionable, step-by-step ways to grow your business are in the right place. Let's get started. If you've been feeling a little invisible on TPT, kind of like you're just putting products out there and they're just floating around in space and no one's purchasing, no one's finding them, then this episode is for you. We're going to talk about how to make your first sale on TPT. Or if it's been a while since you've made your first sale and you're ready to make another one, we're going to be talking about how to make your next sale on TPT. Now I'm going to be showing you kind of like how to be doing some research and how to really look at what product you should create and what exactly you should do. So I'm going to explain the steps as I go, but if you are listening via podcast, you're going to want to make sure that you check out the YouTube version of this video because I'm going to be sharing my screen with you and showing you all the stuff as I go through the steps. So I've been selling on TPT for over nine years now. I consistently help teachers by teachers sellers scale their businesses to their first$500 a month all the way to$5,000 a month and beyond inside of a couple of memberships that I have. But today we are focusing specifically on how to get your first sale on TPT or how to get your next sale if it's been a while. So when you get to that point where you're starting to feel invisible, where you're like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like I'm putting products out there, but it seems like nobody is finding them. That's when we really need to get strategic. And in fact, I would argue that you should do this at the very beginning. But most of us, when we first start, we don't know how to be strategic. We're just trying to put out a decent product and trying to keep our head above water. So let's talk about how to get strategic so that we are sure that we are creating something that buyers want to purchase because we ultimately want them to make a purchase for us. So I'm going to do a little bit of research and I'm actually going to go seasonal. If I'm looking to make my first sale on TPT and I'm in a hurry, one of the things that I recommend is trying this technique with a seasonal resource because I think it's a little bit easier and you can kind of get some practice in with those seasonal items. So I have these emoji math activities, and I have several different resources that I've created and I've created Halloween versions of those resources. You can see it's September 27th. I'm going to upload all of these to TPT, but I kind of want to know like I'm getting ready to go on maternity leave. Should I create any other Halloween versions of this? Is it going to be worth it? I created these for an event that's going to be off of TPT. So I'm just uploading them to TPT because I have the product. But I want to know, like, is it going to be worth creating another one of these? Because they're pretty easy to make and I can make them pretty quickly. I'm just going to use what I have right here to see will any of these get any traction? Like, number one, is there demand for this topic during Halloween? And number two, is there a place for me on the first page with a resource that's brand new that has no reviews and has no sales? Okay, because these are gonna be brand new resources. So I'm gonna say, I'm gonna start with the very first one. I'm gonna say subtraction within 1000, Halloween. And I'm gonna just start with Halloween and just see where that lands me. And I see like the very first search result, it has like zero reviews, which you might think like initially is like, oh goody, like I could land on the first page. But the fact that there's like zero reviews tells me there's like not very many people purchasing this. This is not gonna be great. So let's say subtraction third grade, and there we get a lot more traction. I've got 718 reviews, which tells me that people are purchasing that because you have to purchase in order to make a review. So a lot of people are purchasing 17, 17, so a steep drop off 44 17 0 0 5 1 0 0. So this tells me that there is a really good chance. So I'm gonna mark this one. If I were trying to decide whether or not to create this product, that would be green. Like create that product, and I'm gonna put in the margin over here keywords to target, which by the way, this is how I outline when like the order things are done in. So I like create all of the resources at once. So I create the PowerPoint, I then send it off to my VA, but you could do this yourself. You could batch, then turning them into PDFs, batch create the cover and previews, batch converting. So I created an evergreen version of the product, and then I created a second version that was fall or Halloween. So like batch converting them and then batch upload to TPT. So you could create something very similar to this. So the keywords that I'm gonna be targeting because you know I'm gonna forget by the time it comes to upload are subtraction, third grade Halloween, or some version of that. So I could kind of play around with this and I could say third grade subtraction Halloween, and I might get a little bit of different search results for that, but it looks like I'm still seeing zero reviews, zero reviews, more zeros. So it still looks like there would be a place in the market for me, like targeting third grade subtraction. I could also do subtraction, Halloween, or Halloween subtraction activity. Third grade. I get a little bit of different search results, but for sure, like I still get this right. I'm gonna lead with subtraction because it seems like there was more, and then Halloween towards the end. It seemed like there was a little bit more demand for that. It seemed like there were more resources that were selling for that. Okay, so but that's a green light. So that would be one where I would say, okay, people are purchasing this, they're looking for it, they're buying it, and there's a spot on the first page of search results for me. So that would be a green light to go ahead and create the activity. Now let's try division with whole numbers. Division, activity, fourth grade, Halloween. So I see nine, nine, and then zero, zero. So I'm not seeing, I see another one that's 31. So this isn't seeming too promising to me. Like, yes, I could probably land on the first page, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of traction for that. So I'm gonna try division with whole numbers, Halloween. Ooh, one review, 44 reviews. Let's try Halloween division activity. Let's see where that lands me. 346. That seems a little closer. 44, 254. Okay, so I'm gonna scroll down and do I see any zeros because I wanna see a zero because that would let me know that I could potentially land on the first page. I don't see any zeros for that, but because there's more traction for that, I could try fourth grade. Just tacking that on at the end. And there's a spot for me there, and let's try just third grade. And that's not nearly as popular, but we would go with fourth grade. So we would probably target fourth grade, and we'd say Halloween division activity, fourth grade. So I would say that that one is maybe like a yellow light. Like this is okay. Like we could do that. Halloween division activity fourth grade. But oh, actually that's fifth grade. Let's go back. I bet there's more for fifth grade. Nope, not great. Not great, but there's still a spot for me. So I could do fifth grade. Okay, fifth grade. Now I could do percents and I can go down the list and I could choose different topics. So obviously, if I had a tight niche, which most people are gonna have starting off, you're gonna have like third, fourth grade, or fifth grade and sixth grade. In my case, I've been doing this for a really long time. So I have a really broad audience from like third grade all the way to calculus, even though I don't really make a lot of that far up resources. I kind of usually go to algebra two and a few geometry, but that's about it. But I have a pretty broad niche. So I like to create something for each one. So I could go in and I could say like multiplication facts. What if I did a multiplication facts activity? Halloween facts. Just take the rest of these off. 523, 436. So I'm seeing a lot of resources with a high number of reviews, which means that they're really popular, which is good. That tells me that buyers are looking for them and they're making purchases. When I scroll all the way down to the bottom, the lowest number of reviews that I see is nine reviews, and my resource would have zero. So not a big chance of me landing on the first page unless I add on third grade. And if I add on third grade, like a grade level to this, then there's a spot in the market for me. I could do multiplication facts like third grade multiplication facts for Halloween. Anything like that, that might work. So like multiplication facts. And then let me see what I typed in. Halloween multiplication facts, third grade, third grade. And I can also check to see what happens if I put in fourth grade. Could I rank for that too? Because I could do something like third, fourth grade. And it looks like there's just not nearly as much traction for that. So I could put fourth grade on there, but I'm and I would probably show up, but it's probably not a lot of people are gonna be searching for that. So this tells me between these two, like these are two really good options. Now I could continue with this and I could find probably some that are not good options, but these two are good options for me. I could do either one of these and I know which keywords to target. So now I've got a Halloween resource. I've got a resource that's about to be season specific. And the reason that I've chosen this seasonal resource is because it's gonna give me some opportunity to get like an influx in views. It's a little bit less competitive, like I said earlier, and I can probably create a couple of different topics for these. So I can create like one template and I can choose a couple of different topics. So those are both green-lighted topics. I would create both of those potentially and put them both up on the market. If I only had time to do two resources or even had time to do one, I would just choose one of those and do the one. If I have time to do two, I'm gonna do both. Or if I have time to do more, I might do more, but I'm just gonna stick with the green ones. If I'm short on time, especially like I'm not gonna just create a random like addition. I'm not gonna just create rounding or place value. Like I'm not just gonna create and choose a random topic. I'm going to go do the research ahead of time to make sure there's a place in the market for me with that resource before I create it. Now, the next thing that I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a look. I'm gonna go back to what was showing up in those green searches. I see the covers look Halloween-ish. Like this one has spiders, it has the little witch's cauldron on there, this one has little monsters, this is a ghost activity, and I can see the ghost. These are coloring activities, and I can see the characters. So I can see the Halloween theme on the cover. Now, this particular one, I can't see the Halloween theme on the cover, but they've kind of picked some Halloween-ish colors. But across the board in general, the resources that are selling, you can clearly see that it's a Halloween resource. And then I can take a look at what's ranking, but doesn't appear to be selling as well. And I can take a look at those things and I can maybe draw some conclusions based on those things. Do they look outdated? Are the covers not square? Like what in particular is causing people to maybe kind of like scroll over them? Maybe it's the color choices where yes, they look Halloween ish, but across the board, I'm kind of seeing like green, purple, orange, like even across different sellers, these greens, purples, oranges, kind of having that mixture that seems to be attracting buyers, attracting customers, and kind of drawing their eye in. So that can be something that I keep in mind when I go to create the cover, is that I want to include some Halloween clip art. I want to make sure that it looks Halloween-ish and that I'm using Halloween colors and that I'm using playful and bright colors as well. So making sure that I'm incorporating those things. So I'll show you my traditional covers for this particular resource that I'm thinking of creating. The traditional covers look like this. So when I go to create mine, this is obviously for an older grade level. When I go to create it for a younger grade level, I might want to keep that in mind. And I might want to choose maybe a different color other than yellow. Something that, you know, maybe instead of having this emoji math, having this little emoji face on here with the just the little round face with the tongue sticking out, maybe change it to the ghost. And then it's obviously going to have other clip art on here because it'll be Halloween themed, but maybe kind of exaggerating the clip art a little bit more and even using the word Halloween because I was seeing that on a lot of these, where some of these even have just like the word Halloween on there, and kind of say rethinking through my color scheme a little bit more. So even if that's just taking this yellow rim around and turning it to that green that buyers seem to be attracted to, maybe using that purple and then using some orange down here, kind of playing around with the colors to get to play into what buyers are clearly attracted to. Now, before I completely go all in with that, I'm gonna go ahead and choose the second set of keywords that I had already targeted before. So, like the subtraction, and I'm gonna try to make sure that they I'm seeing something consistent with that across the board. And I'm still seeing for sure some oranges, some Halloween colors, a little bit of purple, some green. So I'm still seeing those same types of colors. Things are looking a little bit different for this different set of search results, but I'm still seeing the same kind of colors pop up and I'm still seeing Halloween characters show up on the covers to make it look like extra Halloween y. And so I might really want to think about that when I'm creating my covers to really play into that, especially for those younger grades. Now, once I get these listed, I am then going to, if I have any kind of an audience, whether that's social media, even a personal social media or something of the sort, I'm gonna post to that. And there is no shame in posting a resource that you're proud of and putting it on your personal Facebook page, putting it on your personal Instagram. You never know when another mom who has a child at the grade level that you teach might want some extra practice for their kid. Or when another teacher who teaches in your district or a teacher friend that you know may say, Oh, I could really use that in my classroom and go ahead and make a purchase from you. Just making that first initial sale can not only help you and like that's a win because you've made a sale, but it can also help tell the search engine algorithm, hey, people like this product. People are willing to purchase this product, they're willing to spend money on this product. And so sharing with the audience that you have, even if it's your personal audience, this is a really great way to kind of help people find out about you. I know I will purchase from friends if I know a friend has put something up on TPT and it's something that I could potentially use. I don't make like pity purchases or anything like that. Like I'm not gonna just buy just to buy, but if I know, like, hey, I could use that resource, or it's a preschool resource, or it's something I could use with my own kids, then I will go ahead and make that purchase to support them, but also because I feel like it's really cool. Like I can tell them, like, hey, Smiths so-and-so made this, or you know, so-and-so's mom, your friend's mom made this resource. And I get a lot of enjoyment out of purchasing from my friends and your friends and your teacher friends and mom friends can too. And people can just be really proud and supportive. And nobody is gonna think it's weird. I promise. Once you've created these listings, you're gonna share to whatever audience that you have, and you're going to make sure that you take those same keywords that you put in your title and you're gonna put them down in your snippet. Now, let me show you where your snippet is. Your snippet is this first few lines where it says unlock the fun in algebra one math with this innovative factoring trinomials activity. Any word, any keyword that you choose to put in your title right here, you're going to want to make sure that you add it into your snippet right here. Okay. That's gonna help buyers find you. It's gonna help you be more searching and optimized. And you're gonna want to make sure that you've created a preview that accurately showcases your product, that tells all of the value that your product has to offer, that showcases all the value that your product has to offer and explains how your product works and the benefits for using your resource. So, like no prep, self-checking, things like that. All of that is really good. If you can tag your standards, you want to absolutely make sure you tag standards and make sure you tag appropriate grade levels. So I don't want to just choose random grade levels. I want to make sure that I'm creating for a specific grade level, creating to meet specific standards, and I'm listing only for those grade levels. So this in particular actually is not correct. I would actually list this for ninth and 11th grade, which would be algebra one and algebra two. Even though, like technically, you can do algebra one in eighth grade. I would not list for eighth grade because it's an algebra one and an algebra two skill. But one of my assistants who uploads these resources for me, a lot of times she will just make her best guesswork. And then I come in after her and I kind of tweak and change things after she's already uploaded. So this is one of those things that I would kind of change because it's not designed for eighth grade math. It is designed for algebra one. So, in general, what I would recommend for core subjects that where you can tag a standard is to only tag grade levels that correspond with standards that you can tag. What this is gonna do is it's gonna signal to the customer if you're targeting a third grade math teacher or you're targeting a third grade reading teacher that the resource is truly specifically created for their third grade students, not for a fourth grade student or a fifth grade student. And so if I see third, fourth, and fifth on a resource as a teacher, I could think like, oh, maybe it's gonna be a little bit too difficult for my third grade students. I might be looking at the preview like extra closely to make sure that it really would align with what I'm teaching. And so I just don't want this, like in an effort, I think a lot of times in an effort to widen their net and to cast a broader net with a resource. New sellers and even some experienced sellers will kind of overcast that net. And then they end up with a lot of people who come to look at their product who won't make a purchase, and then that kind of lowers their conversion rate, which could lower their search engine ranking, and then ultimately it doesn't give them the desired outcome that they want, which is just more purchases and more visibility on TPT. And so the way that you're gonna get the most purchases, the most visibility on TPT is by choosing the grade level and standards that are appropriate for your resource. And then once we've done all of this, this is just going to help sell the product that we know should be getting views. So we know it should get views, we know it should be able to rank on the first page of search results. Then that's when I'm working towards crafting a preview and a product description that is going to help pull that sale in, help reel that buyer in. So this would be my strategy for making my first or next TPT sale, it would be to create a seasonal resource using data. So really taking a look at the market, researching what's on the market, and letting the market speak to me and tell me where I can fit in and what type of resource that I should create, and then how to market it by creating a cover that the market is going to respond to or that the market has historically responded to. So this would be my very simple strategy for getting that next sale. Now, this is probably going to air after Halloween. So this is talking about a Halloween resource, but you could do this with Christmas, you could do this with New Year's, you could do this with Valentine's Day. Whatever your next holiday is, that's what you're gonna do this with. And you can do this over and over again. And then once that holiday is over, you're gonna take a look at your data and see what were my conversion rates? How did I do? Did this strategy work well? If so, how can I replicate the success for the next holiday or how can I replicate the success with an evergreen resource? If you want to make more than just one sale and you want to work your way towards your first hundred dollars on TPT, I have a free PDF guide down in the description. It's a guide plus workbook that's gonna help you get your first$100 in sales on TPT, because I want you to be making money as quickly as you possibly can. You can find that free guide down inside the description. If you've already made$100, why not make a hundred more? Go grab that guide right now. It's absolutely free and you don't want to miss it. As always, thank you guys so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to see the screen share that I was doing so that you can watch as I walk through each of these steps, kind of demoing this with products on TPT, and you can see what I'm talking about as I'm going through search results and things like that, then make sure you check out the YouTube video. You'll find the link to that video down inside of the description. Thanks so much for being here, you guys. I'm gonna see you right back here next week.