Product Listing Series #3 – Titles and Descriptions

Kirsten 0:00

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast. We are on part three of the product listing series. Today's topic is all about titles and descriptions. So let's go ahead and get started.

We're going to be learning about the three components of a captivating product title and description, five steps to creating a description and some additional tips for titles and descriptions.

So for the title, we're going to be talking about the same example that I've been referring to in the previous episodes. It's my Enneagram for big kids. So I'll be sharing with you information about that. Just to go back to the basics to make sure we're all on the same page, the title is going to be at the top right above the ratings. And the description is going to be when you are scrolling down after you click on the product cover and you go to the main resource, you're going to scroll down and you will see that there is a description with information about the resource, we're going to be talking about ways we can make these even better.

So thinking about the three components to a captivating title and description, the first component would be to not get too detailed, but just giving enough information. So thinking the Goldilocks Rule, not too short, not too long, but just right.

This second component is SEO friendly keywords. SEO is an acronym that stands for Search Engine Optimization. It's something that we see everywhere, where there's a search engine such as Google and Bing, and also even Pinterest. You can search a keyword somebody's typing in. And based on what the algorithm is outputting, there's going to be a search result with really relevant data, depending on what people are filtering. And the input that they put in. Information that somebody needs to know is usually at the top, of course based on what is search. So when we have SEO friendly keywords, we want to make sure that the keywords we use are not too vague. It's something that's very popular that teachers will be looking up very frequently. The more you have these types of keywords, the more likely you're going to have more people see your products in the search results.

The third component to a captivating title and description would be that it describes exactly what you get. There's no fluff, it gets to the point, it tells you exactly what is in the resource. You might have bullet point lists of what is in the resource and what the product includes.

All right, so let's talk about the five steps to create a description, starting with step number one, the intro or summary, or also known as the snippet. These are the first couple of sentences of your description, and the first sentence or two will show up in the search results and Store Profile. You'll see the product cover you'll see the title and then you'll see the first sentence or two. This is something that needs to be super engaging and enticing to a potential customer. You want to hook them. So starting off with something like buy this resource. It's really great. That's not really engaging or enticing. It's not going to want people to click if they're looking at your resource in the search results. If you have something else such as need some fun and engaging games for students during distance learning. These math center activities are perfect for students who are learning online and in the classroom, think about a commercial, how do the advertisements get you engaged, think about how you can implement that into your snippet of your description as well. It's a hook that we want to think about. It's very similar to hook that we're when we're teaching writing to our students, you're hooking the reader, you want to hook the potential customer.

The second step is the why the research, you can describe why you created this research, or kind of like, Who is this best for which ideal teacher customer is is best for. You can also add in what made you want to help other teacher customers with a specific resource, what problem you've noticed, you could also potentially describe in detail, the actual science or the research behind your product to potential customers, that's always a great selling point. One of my product lines, my grammar task cards has research on task cards and why task cards can be beneficial in the classroom and in small group.

The third step to a great description is having what it includes as much detail as you can add, you can do a bullet point list of everything in your resource. And it can be by section or by type. You don't have to say what is in every single page, just think about the types of activities. If you have a vocabulary, resource or resource with a lot of key terms, having a list of those key terms or topics or standards that are included can also be helpful, you can always add those standards that are included in the description as well, not just like a concise standard, but actually writing it out like what standard does this hit on. For example, for my social studies resource I can I usually list out the actual lessons, and what topics related to those standards that are included. Adding it in multiple places definitely does not hurt.

The fourth thing you can add in a description is any extra notes or caveats or how it can be used digitally. If you have any extra notes that could be helpful for potential customers to know this can be really great for them. Another thing to add our caveats of what it is included what is not included to prevent buyer's remorse, and so buyers can know exactly what to expect. So be honest with that and just share what it may not include. So you could say something like this resource is not editable due to the digital nature award, the type of images used, this is not editable. I have a caveat for my growing bundle that not all units are added. And I share with them that there is a calendar of what will be added and when it will be added. But of course not everybody's can read it and they're still going to purchase in any way. But there's only so much you can do. The best thing to do is just add it so that more people can know about it and you will have less likely of a chance people will buy it and regret their decision. Because it's not as descriptive enough. Give them as much information as you need to. So you can help buyers or potential buyers make that decision that they need. Don't try to hide things or quote, trick them.

The last thing you need to make sure to add is information on how it needed to be used digitally. This can be important, especially when you have very many teachers that are possibly still teaching virtually or have some type of virtual component. So adding information about how it can be used digitally, or maybe it can't be used digitally. And that's okay, make sure you add that in, make sure you can share that there's a link that's included. You can also you know share information about how they can access the digital version once they purchase.

All right, now we're going to go into step number five at the bottom is adding some copyright and Terms of Use that you can utilize. This can be helpful for potential customers to know how they can use the product before buying. This is a way to help with any type of questions on what they can or cannot do. It's right there in the description and you don't have any like surprises. This is great if you are a TPT seller who also sells resources for TPT sellers. It's really helpful for me to know the terms of use and it's like right there on the description before I buy or have it somewhere in your product listing where you can say like this is used for and you just lay out what it's used for what you can't use it for. Can you put it in logos, all of that stuff transferable? It helps eliminate a lot of headaches. Next we're going to go into some tips for your title The first tip I have for you is to make sure your titles are straight and to the point and including the those important keywords both those short keywords such as grammar, and longer tail keywords such as grammar activities, or grammar task cards. So one example could be grammar task cards for capitalization, or you could even say something like capitalization task card activities for grammar. So, you can see how I'm not making it unique or cutesy. It's exactly what it is exactly what people would be searching.

Another tip I have for you is you can try testing out your title in the search results. So keep track of the previous title you had, and search where it is in the search results, see where it ends up and tweak your title, adjust it. And then after maybe an hour or so it takes a little bit to update, check your title and see where it comes up in the search results. Did it jump up did it jump down, it does take a little bit of time, maybe a day to kind of, you know, adjust its positioning. So that's something to keep in mind. But when you are typing in those keywords, you just see what pops up, see how it ranks. If it's not ranking very well, you can always either change it back to your previous title or try another keyword, Uber suggests is a great keyword research tool that you can utilize for free or you can purchase reasonable monthly subscriptions or annual subscription so you can get more data on what type of keywords are popular. There's also your data playbook that offers your keyword finder. It's a keyword tool I I'm not gonna like I don't know exactly the name off the top of my head right now. But that's always a great tool as well. If you want to keep track of certain keywords, you can submit it and they will tell you where its popularity is at a certain time of the year. All right, here are some tips for description copy. One important thing is to emphasize words with bold text, or underlining a tallix, adding bullet points, possibly emojis, think about how you can space out your description. So it's not just all one paragraph. And it's easy to just skim and scan as my fourth grade teacher would always say, because it's broken up, we've got those bullet points, you've got paragraphs for people who want to read that. So thinking about a variety of buyer behavior, buyer activities, and what could be potentially something that they would probably gravitate more towards, make sure to add a good combination of both.

Another tip I have is to make sure to include keywords throughout but don't keyword stuff. Keyword stuffing would be, for example, every two or three words, you're adding a keyword. And it's just sounding super unnatural when you're reading it. You see a lot of this happening. If you look on Amazon, and you see the titles and probably the descriptions of some of those different products that can get you in trouble that could penalize you. And also adding hashtags at the bottom, that's not going to do anything adding keywords at the bottom of your description. That's not good at all, either. This could potentially bring your ranking down in the algorithm. So make sure you're spreading out your keywords so that it reads naturally, not adding too much in too many condensed areas. And not adding of course too little because you want to make sure people are finding these relevant keywords that are hopefully in your resource. So Goldilocks Rule is key. The last is to not be too wordy or too detailed, there is a difference between having enough good juicy information and then having way too much information where it's reading like a novel. And people just are just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and they're really not getting a lot of anything. So just remember, you want to cater to those who are skimming. And those two really are going to actually sit there and read. Probably more likely than not a lot of people are not going to be reading they're going to be mainly focusing on those visuals, product cover thumbnails, and previews.

All right, I'm going to walk you through my resource and I'm going to just share information about my title and description for my Enneagram resource. So on my cover, I have Enneagram for big kids, but I recognize that likely people are not going to just be searching Enneagram for big kids. So my title itself is Enneagram personality types for big kids community building activities. So there's important keywords in there. Enneagram personality types, community building activity At ease. And of course, I'm not just putting it in there just for the sake of it, it actually is related to those keywords there. In my description, it is broken apart with first that snippet, have students discover their Enneagram personality type with a student friendly quiz and activity, encourage students to reflect and learn about themselves and their classmates with this resource, and help foster social emotional learning in your upper elementary classroom. The second section, I have it in bold, how does it work, and I talk about how the actual Enneagram resource is working and what the basic components are. But I'm not going into too much detail. If you look at it, it's really like a couple of lines of text like two or three lines for the whole entire description. The only paragraph that has more lines would be the one where it's the bullet point list of what this product includes. I also bolded specific phrases such as basic components of an Enneagram wants worries and best ways to learn. That was one of the things I highlighted. I also put in bold, this entire sentence, perfect to use with grades four through six as a classroom community building activity or icebreaker at the beginning, middle or end of the year. And right after that I'm adding what the product includes I list it out. And I'm very detailed. I tell you, you know, there's 54 question quiz to test versions. And then I'll go into more detail about the two test versions, results sheet, informational text, and I talked about the different informational texts included writing reflection activity, Enneagram class chart for teachers color, and black and white options digital link to Google Drive for distance learning. And then there's a couple of other things. But you can kind of see that I'm pretty detailed. I'm not just saying this product includes a test, informational text, reflection activity and results sheet, I'm going into more depth than you might think, is necessary. This is not a huge, huge resource. It's only about its total 35 pages. And I think that's including the print and digital version. So it's really not a lot. But I just I'm trying to spread out extract as much information as possible so that people can actually see exactly what they're going to get. And towards the end, I also kind of share some other selling points, you can have students complete these activities in one to two days or a week, depending on the level of the learners. And then I added some related resources. If you want instead of adding like your terms of use, or you know towards the end, you can add related resources and link those related resources. So I linked three other related resources. Sometimes I think this could help as well. And then I added my copyright. So there's not like 100% structure to a description. My description that I described to you with the five parts is just in general best practice what you should include what I think you should include, and hopefully you can pick and pull what you need it to craft your perfect description.

All right, hopefully this episode was beneficial. I'm excited to talk to you about part four, editing and publishing your product listing. So I will talk to you again next week.

Thanks for listening to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also follow me on Instagram at the southern teach dot designs. Have an amazing day.