Optimizing Your TeacherSherpa Pages
In this article, you will learn the importance of and how to optimize your TeacherSherpa pages for search engines. First, we will give you a brief overview of what metadata is and the different metadata elements. Second, we’ll share the importance of keyword optimization. Lastly, we’ll show you where metadata can be updated on your TeacherSherpa pages.
Why do I need to optimize?
If you are sharing materials on TeacherSherpa and you are a TeacherSherpa Content Contributor then your objective is not just to share materials with other teachers, but also to earn royalties per download. Optimizing your TeacherSherpa pages will increase your rankings in search results. Pages that rank on the first page of search results have the most traffic which provides you with the opportunity to generate the most downloads.
What is metadata?
SEO metadata is what shows up on the result pages when you do a search on Google or other search engines. It includes the title of the page and its descriptive text below the title (the meta description). Metadata is also one of the elements that helps search engines determine what a web page is all about.
Here is an example of the SEO metadata when Mad Libs for Kids Writing Activity is searched on Google or other search engines. 
What are the different Metadata Elements?
- URL – The URL is the link to the web page.
- Title Tag – The Title Tags are displayed on search engine results pages as the blue clickable headline for a given result.
- Meta Description – The Meta Description provides a summary of the content of the web page and appears in search engine results below the Title Tag.
- Meta Keywords – Meta Keywords helps a search engine determine the topic of a web page.
- Image Title – Image Title is the text that shows up when hovering over an image with the cursor.
- Image Alt Tag – Image Alt Tag is the text that tells search engines what the image is about.
On TeacherSherpa we automatically set your materials’ titles to be the Title Tag, Image Title and Image Alt Tag and we automatically set your materials’ descriptions to be your Meta Description. However, a teacher-author has the ability to change this if they choose.
What is Keyword Optimization?
Amongst the criteria search engines rely on, to understand the main idea of a page, is Keyword Optimization. This means how often words are used and in which context. For this reason, it’s important to make sure your URLs, Titles, Descriptions, and Metadata all have the main keyword you want search engines to identify as the most important.
Identifying Your Keyword Phrases
Basically, this means finding the phrase people search for that aligns with your materials. There is neither a right or wrong keyword or key phrase, so keep it simple. You can also use different online tools to help you identify keywords that are the most popular. (list below)
Here is an example for you to consider. Say you are uploading a reading comprehension activity. Because this is what the entire activity is built around, a good key phrase would be reading comprehension activity.
Other examples of good key phrases for an activity such as this also include:
Examples: reading comprehension activity
spring reading comprehension activity
third-grade reading comprehension activity
Keyword Optimization/Density
Now that you have identified your keyword phrase, you’ll need to strategically add it as much as possible without being spammy. We suggest adding the Keyword Phrase in the URL, in the Title, and if possible, three to four times in the Description.
Keyword density is important for SEO. Therefore, we recommend keeping your description focused on framing your keyword phrases. See the below example:
This Spring Reading Comprehension Activity is the perfect reading activity for both struggling and advanced readers, due to its differentiated question sets. Your students will love this Spring Reading Comprehension Activity during a guided reading lesson, as well as at a Literacy Center. Although this Spring Reading Comprehension Activity is specifically made for students on a 3rd-grade level, the differentiated question sets meet the needs of your students below and above grade level, too.
Updating your Metadata on your TeacherSherpa pages
- Update your Product Pages – You will find the SEO Metadata buttons below the Category and CSS sections when you upload materials and on the Product Page .
- Update your Folder Pages – Folders also have metadata which can be accessible via the small blue icon to the right of the folder title.
Further boost your search ranking
Build page “authority” to your TeacherSherpa pages by adding Backlinks and Anchors. Page authority, is in part, assessed by search engines based on the number and quality of backlinks and anchors that point to a page.
Anchor – Anchors are words or phrases that are hyperlinked. These words or phrase, preferably the keyword phrases, tell search engines more about the destination of the url that is hyperlinked.
Backlinks – A backlink is simply a url that points to a specific site/page.
Our suggestions is creating blogs for the materials you put on TeacherSherpa. On these blogs you can easily create Anchors by highlighting the Keyword phrase of each of your materials and hyperlinking them to the respective TeacherSherpa page. Doing the same for your folders and profile pages will further increase the “authority” of your pages.
Related Resources
- Find Keyword – https://app.kwfinder.com
- Understand more about SEO and Metadata – https://moz.com/learn/seo/what-is-seo
- Page Authority – https://moz.com/learn/seo/page-authority
Keep in mind SEO isn’t a perfect science simply because there are too many variables being taken into consideration by search engines to determine search result ranking. However, these few SEO tips will have a positive impact on rankings.
If you have any questions contact us at info@teachersherpa.com or via the live HELP chat icon on the site.
