SEOTpreneur Community

Welcome to something special.

The SEOTpreneur Social Network is currently in private pre-alpha.

(Read below to see what that means!)

What is the SEOTpreneur Social Network?

Imagine the TPT forum was made today in 2022. What might that look like?

• Prettier layout?
• Email notifications or private messaging?
• An app?!

FYI: the TPT forum uses software from twenty years ago…

If you scroll to the bottom of the TPT forum pages, you’ll see it’s “powered by PunBB.”

• PunBB software was made in 2003.
• It’s goal is to be a a simple, “less graphic alternative” to other bulletin board networks made in the early 2000s.
• It’s still updated to offer support for newer technologies and to fix security vulnerabilities, but the core premise is to be light-weight and not flashy.

Hey Team TPT! Thanks for stopping by!

Although I’d love to see a more modern TPT forum, let’s be honest, if I had to choose, I’d rather see your cash and time investments towards three things:

1. Increasing personalization in TPT search. (Yup, I’m a fan of your TPT Search Algorithm updates. Here’s why. Please continue all your great work in data-driven search algorithm updates that increase platform wide sales.)

2. Provide trustable, accurate and transparable traffic data that leads to sales (categories, grades, search terms, first page UTM tracking connected to the sales data that we can download).

3. A little badge beside stores who have completed your Easel by TPT training. Badges. Gotta love badges. Or, maybe a gold star.

Thanks for considering! Cheers, Mike Fuchigami

The SEOTpreneur Social Network is our online virtual clubhouse.

Think Stark Tower, redone as the Avengers Tower, and then nothing like that at all.

• It’s powered by WordPress software. (That is the only tool you should use for your Teacher blog or website. WordPress comes in different flavours but you can move your site from one WordPress host to another WordPress host. You can’t do that with proprietary sites like Wix, Google Sites, or Google My Business.)
• The social network features are powered by BuddyPress software.
• Actually, it’s powered by the paid BuddyBoss fork of BuddyPress, but potato, potato.

Want to see what the SEOTpreneur Social Network could look like?

• Check out the BuddyBoss page.
• We could have a freaking iOS and Android app like this.
• (Whoa, don’t get all excited. That feature costs $278 USD per month, not including back-end requirements + development labour costs.)

When can I get a SEOT hosted TPT website or join the SEOTpreneur Social Network?

Great question. Here are the five stages we’ll be going through.

Click here to see which stage we’re currently hanging out in.

1. Pre-alpha is where we set up shop and try to set up a minimum viable product that we can test.

2. Next, we will enter private alpha testing.

• At this point, a few select community members will be invited to test and tinker around the social network.
• It will be a horribly clunky environment with very little support that will require a lot of patience.
• At this stage of the game, we get to fix all of the critical bugs.

3. One day, we will slide into private Beta.

• In this part of the development cycle, we’ll have a production-ready product that will be open for a few more select community members to try things out.
• We’ll be looking for feedback about what you like, don’t like, and what’s missing.
• We’ll have identified some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to help us figure out if this makes business sense and if the project is sustainable.

4. On a magical Tuesday – actually, it might not be a Tuesday – we’ll feel ready to go public. But, we’ll be wrong. So, we’ll go into a public Beta.

• This will be a soft launch. Softer than the soft opening of The Bank in Ocean’s Thirteen
• When we feel like this will actually work, we’ll open the doors quietly. Friends of friends, neighbours pet goldfish, etc.
• We’ll have to confirm the KPIs will actually work. Does SEO content drive traffic in? Does our social marketing work? How’s the email list?

“Soft opening, grand opening. When they opened The Flamingo, one day it was closed, the next it was open. End of story. I know, I was there.

Saul Bloom, Ocean’s Thirteen

5a. A long time away from today, we might switch to a public release (which would be a marketing launch. Again, think grand opening of The Bank.)

5b. More realistically, we’ll be in a perpetual beta where we’re constantly adding and testing new features.

• Think about Pokemon Go. When it was first launched, the minimum viable product was glitchy; but people still loved it, and it exploded in popularity.
• Today, the kiddos in the classroom will scoff at us for playing Pokemon Go. (Is that still a thing?)
• Yes, it’s still a thing. And it gets better and better. The sun freaking sets in the game. The weather changes with the season. And trainers keep their shadow pokemon in torment instead of purifying them. (Well, yes, that’s a L50 Shadow Mew Two in my back pocket… but really, when he be any less grumpy if he was purified?)

Cheers, Mike