Writing good Product Description can be a tiring process, especially if your eCommerce store owns a large product catalog. Nowadays, product description is everywhere in eCommerce store. This creates a new tricky problem for eCommerce store owners.

Product descriptions writing tend to look the same everywhere as most of the products are sold in several places at once.

Most product descriptions are awful. That’s why good ones have such a big impact. Yes, great product descriptions can increase your sales, but they can also achieve a whole lot more to your online store.

According to the statistics of onespace, 90% of consumers do their shopping online and 87% of consumers rate product description extremely or very important when deciding to buy.

What Are Product Descriptions?

A product description is a block of text displayed on a product page that describe a product’s value proposition to potential customers. A compelling product description provides customers with details around features, problems it solves and other benefits to help generate a sale.

It’s no wonder that the quality of a product description can make or break a sale, especially if it doesn’t include the information a buyer needs to make a purchase decision. Providing key product details is critical if you want the buyer to click “Add to Cart” and differentiate your eCommerce store from the competition.

Whether your products have a specific function or a personal purpose, all products exist to enhance or improve the buyer’s quality of life in one way or another. As the buyer browses, they naturally imagine having each product in hand, using it and enjoying it.

The more powerful the visitor’s fantasy of owning the product, the more likely they are to buy it.

Product descriptions have two main purposes: to explain product features and to prompt potential customers to buy.

The second area is where most product description writers go astray. While the technical aspects of a product are important, it’s equally crucial to use product descriptions as an opportunity to convince visitors.

Product descriptions give an excellent opportunity to use tactics like urgency-building, social proof, calls-to-action, and more. When it crafted properly, they also drive traffic through search engines.

What are the Benefits of good eCommerce Product Descriptions

You might think that product descriptions are not that important. Do they really impact on conversion rates?

Yes, they are. And they do a lot more than just increase the sales. Here’s the key benefits with kick-ass product descriptions.

• Better conversion rates. The product description is the key part of the product page. It’s up there with product price when it comes to convincing a visitor to convert. If you don’t have elaborate and useful information, you will be at risk to loose business. According to the study by NN Group, 20% of the time, a user failed to buy a product could be attributed to poor or non-existent product description.
• Better SEO. On-page copy is an key SEO ranking factor. Pages with small or no copy aren’t deemed as valuable by Google as pages with detailed and helpful content. Good product descriptions, can help your products rank better in Google.
• Fewer emails from shoppers. When shoppers aren’t sure about what they are going to buy, they will either leave the page or call or email your company. If your product descriptions meet their requirements, you will not loose the customer. You should reduce the number of calls or email you receive from shoppers, too.
• Fewer returns. With great product descriptions, customers should know exactly what to expect when they will receive the product. Poor product descriptions, can create a gap between the customer’s expectations and the real product. Better product descriptions mean customers are less likely to return a product they deem unsatisfactory.

What should a Good Product Description do?

A good product description should achieve a few things. Here’s what we believe the best product descriptions can do:

• Sell: Good product descriptions require to sell product. If users see the product for the first time, the description needs to convince them so that they don’t need to look any further.
• Build the brand: If your online store has a particular brand or style, product descriptions are a great way to reinforce them.
• Strengthen customer rapport: You can achieve customer trust in part by providing helpful advice in your product descriptions. In the same way that a store assistant doesn’t give customers the hard sell, your product descriptions shouldn’t either. Instead, try to describe exactly what your products have and how customers can use it.

Should you Use the Manufacturer’s Product Descriptions?

Whether or not eCommerce owners should use their manufacturer’s product descriptions is a frequent question that is often left vaguely answered. In short, it all depends on what type of products you’re selling.

Firstly, eCommerce retailers sell many different types of products: some sell fashionable items, some sell hardware and some also sell services. As you know, each product usually has a dedicated buyer, which means that it answers specific needs and desires for a specific unit. Based on that simple assumption, not all buyers are looking for the same details and descriptions.

Secondly, some eCommerce store sell unique products while others sell universal products.

Fashion brands and eCommerce retailers that sell unique products, they just have to create product descriptions.

As for the other eCommerce stores that sell more products, universal products, those stores should aim at providing better product descriptions than their competitors.

Ultimately, you’ll barely have any competitive notes besides your design, prices and shipping policy to convince your customers to buy from you.

Lastly, copying your competitors’ or manufacturers’ product descriptions means that you’ll have a lots of of duplicated content on your product pages. While this is not the end of the world for big retailers it could vastly affect smaller websites.

How to Write Great Product Descriptions

Here are the step-by-step checklist for crafting new product descriptions.

1. Do Your Product Research by Building a Customer Abstract

Before you write a single word, you have to know about your readers. A customer abstract doesn’t represent any single group within your target market. Rather, it combines all the attributes of your ideal buyers.

An abstract might be both male and female, young and old, high and low income. An abstract is the most prominent characteristics of your target market.

When creating an abstract, ask the following ‘What’ questions about your customer: 

What –

• Are their demographics (age, income, location, etc.)?
• Language and phrases do they use?
• Are their hobbies and interests?
• Are their most pressing fears, needs, and wants?
• Cultural references do they respond to?
• Are their values?

When undertaking research, pay attention to the type of language that your customer-base uses. Using the same language as them will make it easier to connect and build engagement.

A clear understanding of your potential customers acts as a guide when implementing all the other points on this checklist, providing you with the exact information you need. Such an understanding allows you to empathize with customers and feel like you were speaking to them directly.

2. Focus On Emotional and Practical Benefits

People don’t buy products, they buy feelings. This statement holds a truth when it comes to product descriptions.

Ask the basic question: “What emotional and practical pain-point does this product solve or what pleasure does it provide?”

Then focus on the problem directly. Many product description writers describe the features without expressly describing the pain-points that they remedy, whether practical or emotional.

By reminding customers of the specific issues they’re facing, you can create urgency and a desire to buy.

If the lumbar support feature of a chair eases back pain or the seal on a water bottle eliminates frustrating leaks, make sure visitors know about it.

For example, as per the above screen shot of iPad mini, you should include both the practical benefits of a product, where the iPad Mini allows you to “capture your biggest ideas whenever they come to you”, and the deeper emotional outcomes, like empower.

3. Make Your Product Descriptions SEO-Friendly

You are not sure about how to write SEO-friendly product descriptions?

SEO can seem complex and difficult. With meta-tags, keyword density, snippets, and with all other things, it can all get confusing pretty quickly.

But there’s no need to be hopeless. Writing SEO-friendly products descriptions is a relatively easy task.

Just follow the below simple rules:

• Add high-volume keywords in product descriptions – Search engines pick up the main keywords in your descriptions. Use competitor research and a tool like KWFinder to brainstorm and identify high-density keywords related to your product and include them in your product descriptions.
• Add titles, meta-descriptions and image alt tags on product pages – Meta-descriptions and product titles are crucial. They’re what a visitor can see on the search page, so these things directly affect your click-through rate. In fact, a good meta-description and title can make up for not occupying the first or second search result by tempting visitors to click.
• Display star ratings and product prices – In the below screenshot, some search results have a star rating and product price. To show these on your own search results, you need to use what’s called “schema.org markup” or “microdata”. By adding a little bit of programming code to some of the information already on your product landing page, Google will be able to see that it’s the price or aggregated review rating.

Don’t underestimate the power of SEO. Paying a little attention to keywords, meta descriptions, titles, and “markup data” can dramatically boost your search engine Click Through Rate (CTR), leading to more traffic and increase revenue.

4. Use Power Words and Proven Phrases, Avoid Cliches

Use some power words in product description, since they work. But avoid generic and overused language that customer don’t like. There is no special reason to avoid these words, the only reason is they are common and are not power-words or proven phrases.

Cliches represent product statements like “the best product on the market” or “excellent quality” or “loved by all”.

Try to be specific about product description.
For example, instead of just saying a pair of sandal is “great”, pick a specific feature, like the soles or design, and then explain why they’re so good and how comfortable they will be.

For example, in addition of saying something like “the best mattress”, Casper includes a quote from Which?, a respected review publication.

Just make sure to differentiate between genuine power words and cliches and always substantiate your claims with specific key points. If a commonly-used phrase can’t be backed up by concrete and clear evidence, then it’s likely a cliche that can be discarded.

Also, keep in mind that testimonials are very beneficial for backing up big claims, especially if those testimonials come from a reputable source.

5. Determine the Best Format to Describe your Products.

Determining the best format for the product description. Since some eCommerce owners only scan text on websites, it’s a good idea to have a list of bullet points that cover the most important product features. Bullet points should generally be used for specifications (like dimensions) or short phrases (like features) so that they are quick to go through and easy to read.

Unfortunately, bullet points aren’t the best way to give the product’s description and convince buyers that they’re looking at a great deal. They look cold and clinical on the page instead of engaging the buyer’s emotions or imagination. By writing a paragraph having three or more sentences or two about the product, you can set the scene and help the customer realize why their life up to this point has been incomplete without it.

This is your opportunity to establish your brand.

Following is the simple formula to writing compelling product descriptions:

[Paragraph(s) of Prose] + [Bulleted List of Specs or Product Features] = [Engaging Product Description]

6. Choose Aims and KPIs to Measure Success of Your Product Descriptions

You have to set your aim to measure the success of product descriptions.

You might be thinking that this is going to take a long time, especially if you rely on product descriptions from your retailer or manufacturers. And this isn’t a quick and easy process. But, if you can commit to write a dozen of product descriptions a day using the formula above, you’ll begin to see a variety of benefits:

• Increase in conversion rate.
• Decrease in cart abandonment.
• Lower return rate.
• Fewer calls or emails from shoppers.
• Improve organic search rankings.

7. Add Celebrity Endorsement and Customer Reviews

Include a dedicated section for customer reviews on product pages can dramatically boost conversion rate. Celebrity endorsement and reviews can also plays a vital role on conversion rate.

Many online visitors bother to see the customer reviews by scrolling down, so including testimonial will ensure trust building with the majority of the visitors that land on your product page.

Don’t include everything in. Select the best and make sure that visitors can see that.

The following are the good examples for product descriptions:

• Excerpts from the best customer reviews.
• Celebrity endorsements.
• Awards.
• Mentions in the media.
• The number of customers that have bought your product.

Phrases like “As Featured In” and “Voted Best Product By” are excellent ways of seamlessly integrating social proof into your product descriptions.

8. Make Sure to Add Corresponding Images

Everything on your product pages should fit together smoothly. The customer journey should flow from one element of the page to the next and prompting visitors to click on your Call-to-Action (CTA).

If you describe specific features of product, make sure to give corresponding images for visitors to check. Product descriptions are usually placed directly next to or below images, so there should be a lot of overlap and interaction between them.

It’s very important that the most desirable and original features of products are clearly displayed in images. If you have described these features, customers will often want to cross-check with images.

You can even encourage visitors to look at pictures by placing them directly in your description. If you point out a specific feature, include “See Pictures” or “As Shown Above” in brackets.

9. Make Descriptions Short and Sweet

Product description needs to be short or it won’t be read.

Short, easy-to-read content performs better than content that requires a lot of attention.

Here’s some advice for ensuring your product description doesn’t require the brainpower and focus of a rocket scientist:

• Use one or two-sentence paragraphs – Don’t be afraid of writing a paragraphs that are only a few sentences long. When text is nicely broken up, readers can move smoothly from one point to another. White space is also visually acceptable to read.
• Keep sentences short – Don’t make product description sentences too long. Generally speaking, longer sentences are more difficult to read.
• Avoid ambiguous words – Use plain English as opposed to more complex language. Stay away from multi-syllable words. The one exception to this is technical language written for a visitor that will definitely understand it.

10. Add Video Other Than Graphics

Videos other than graphics can be an extremely effective way to showcase how to use a product or why it is better than others. Many big brands use videos, graphics and text to drive the point home.

Product Descriptions Examples

Here are some examples of product examples.

Examples of How to Write Product Descriptions for Food

Writing product descriptions for food can be tricky. Different food products from ready-made microwave meals to rare thousand-dollar bottles of wine require unique description content.

Generally speaking, it’s appropriate to include the following information in food product descriptions:

• Ingredients – don’t need to be placed at center, but they should be included somewhere. Allergens substance should be in bold.
• Location of production – Mention where the food made or sourced from to highlight the food quality.
• Suitability for vegans, vegetarians, lactose-intolerant, etc. – Include this key information right at the beginning. People with special requirements will often see this type of product pages.
• Taste profile – Use sensuous language and comparisons to evoke a sense of taste.

Example of How to Write Product Descriptions for Jewelry

Pieces of jewelry are high-ticket products. Along with technical specs about size, color, and shape, include the following key points in jewelry product descriptions:

• Warranty information – Warranties are important for expensive products.
• Materials – What is the product made of? What are the exact specifications of the materials that has been used?
• Packaging – As jewelry is often bought as a gift, include details about the packaging.
• Brand information – Brand names carry a lot more weight. Everybody immediately recognizes the name after see the brand. Include all necessary information about the brand, including history, values, and manufacturing techniques.

Example of How to Write Product Descriptions for Bags

Bags are also high-demanded products. Along with technical specs about color, type and shape, include the following key points in bags product descriptions:

• Materials – What is the product made of like leather or rexine?
• Size & Color – As different size of bags are used for different purposes. Also add the available color.
• Brand information – Brand names carry a lot more weight. Everybody immediately recognizes the name after see the brand. Include all necessary information about the brand, including history, values, and manufacturing techniques.
• Special Features – Add special feature if any like waterproof or weatherproof.

How to Write Product Description: Conclusion

Product descriptions are not so hard to write once you have the right formula.

If you can use these tips into a specific, repeatable process, you’ll produce consistently a better product descriptions.

What’s more, as you test and refine product description elements, you’ll develop your own winning mix that works uniquely well for your store and product ranges.

So, time to implement and start tracking the outcomes.