Why you need a blog
Your Teachers Pay Teachers store needs a website (blog) to help it
- get more traffic
- help more teachers
- earn more money.
Blog posts have greater reach becuse they are shared more on social media and they give you the opportunity rank on many different topics in search engines that are relevant to your TpT products.
Having a website will also help you build brand recognition and authority in your niche. This increased perception and identification will make potential customers more likely to purchase your products.
Blogs also allow you more ways to make money besides your TPT products. Having a website will allow you to get affiliate commissions, advertising dollars, and will allow you to collect emails – which will be your most valuable asset.
How to start a free blog
Starting a free website is quick and easy.
There are three main providers; Wix, WordPress, Blogger from Google.
To begin, simply go over to the website of your choice and click the start the “start free button.” After registering you will choose your domain name. After that, set up is almost instantaneous, and simple.
The different options
Why you shouldn’t choose the free route
Free websites have their benefits.
Mainly, they are free and will allow you to get traffic to your TpT store.
But the downside is three fold:
First, your domain name will not look good. Instead of teachcreatesell.com you will be Wordpress.teachcreatesell.com or wix.com/teachcreatesell
While this might seem little, it actually doesn’t look good in the eyes of your potential customers. Which is going to hurt your perceived authority – one of the three reasons we’re doing this.
Second, you also have limited control over the blog’s layout and some of the content. Some of these hosting companies will even put their advertisements on your free webpage.
Overall, this will limit what you can do and frustrate you. It could also distract the reader who is no longer looking at your content but the advertisement for Wix in the top ribbon.
Third, most of the free blogs do not allow you to monetize the page, or they seriously limit the ways that you can do so. You will be able to link to your TpT products, but affiliates and ads are not permitted (except on blogger, which allows Google ads for obvious reasons).
Besides limiting the way you can make money and what you can do on your blog, free websites will have no customer service, so if you have any issues – help is not coming.
There are more downsides but they are more difficult to explain and not as relevant when you are just beginning. So let’s move on.
Why you should get a Paid website
Purchasing your webpage through BlueHost is quick and easy. Setup takes less than ten minutes and is done with just the click of a few buttons.
When you purchase your website through BlueHost, you get to pick your domain name (none of that .wordpress nonsense).
You also get an email attached to the domain name (chris@teachcreatesell.com), security features to prevent hacking, customer support, and the ability to fully customize your page.
You also get WordPress, which is the program you will use to build your webpage. WordPress is super easy, which is why over a third of websites on the internet use it.
Besides all of that, you can make money!
BlueHost web hosting begins at $4 a month! That’s less than your TpT premium membership (which you should have).
Websites have multiple ways to make money
On your website, you have many ways to make money. Just to name a few, you can promote affiliate products, link to your Teachers Pay Teachers store, advertise, and start a membership service. You can do very few of these (sometimes none of them) with a free website.
Having a webpage will pay for itself
In my first year if blogging, I had no TpT store, no products to sell, and no idea what I was doing. (A terrible strategy to make money.)
Despite having nothing to sell for the full year, my blog still made more money than it cost. Plus, I was able to capture a lot of emails so that when I did finally have products to sell, I had customers already waiting for them.
Having a blog for that long also allowed me to start to get good search engine rankings, which generated more traffic. When I finally figured out TpT, I had a good flow of teachers immediately going there due to my already established blog traffic.
What to do?
A blog is one of the best things you can do for your TpT store. If you want guided help on how to start a blog for your TpT store, I have a free course that will walk you through the steps. This course will show you how to get your domain and webhosting, customize your page, and help you write your first blog post to start generating money.
Purchase your web hosting through BlueHost and start blogging today to make more money and help more teachers.
Click here to enroll in my video-based online course, “How to Start a Blog for Your Teachers Pay Teachers Store.”