Are you an ecommerce business owner? Are your product descriptions persuasive enough?

Do your product descriptions transform visitors into consumers? Or do they just offer information about your products?

The biggest and most common blunder most copywriters often make is describing services or products rather than selling those with descriptions to their target audience.

So, can you really sell your product or service through description? Well, of course you can. What you should do is create compelling, attractive and persuasive descriptions for the items you sell.

In Ecommerce Marketing product description is one of the main factors along with product images & call to action. Today, I will discuss here five effective ways to write product descriptions that can actually sell your products. But before diving into that, let’s talk about first what actually a product description is and what fundamentals are behind it.

The Basics of Product Descriptions

According to Business Dictionary, product descriptions define as –

“Consumer’s view of a product that includes its benefits, form, presentation, price, purpose, etc.”

An ecommerce store is considered as a virtual place where consumers cannot touch or feel a product. If a consumer goes to a brick and mortar store and has any question about a particular product’s features, there are salesmen who can assist that consumer. But when it comes to ecommerce store, your savior can only be the product description. It is the most important factor when it comes to making people buy your product. A bad product description potentially turns a visitor away from being a customer.

Let’s have a look what makes a product description good and bad.

How a Good Product Description Differs from a Bad Product Description

Do you always need to be fancy to make a product description “good”? Well, of course not. As long as it explains what actually your product is and why somebody should buy it, it will be good to go. The most important factor is that a product description should be self-explanatory.

Just have a look at this product description by Lululemon .

After reading this one-liner product description, anybody can understand what this product is and who it is for. Though it has not gone into too much of detail, it surely explains that the product is a “soft lightweight crew” and it is for those who want comfortable clothes to use every day.  Usually, the selling factors of this kind of clothes are image quality (which seems good here), price, available colors, and sizes. All of these things are present here. So the text here is less important.

Even though it is not a detailed copy, it is a good product description.

Now let’s have a look at another product.

Can you understand everything about this product by just looking at it? You could probably guess. So, here’s have a look at its description.

Also, there are separate sections, describing advantage, technical information, features, technology and storing tips in detail about this product on its respective page.

This company has done a great job by writing a product description that clearly explains what the product does, how it adds benefits and other relevant information.

Both of the above product descriptions have achieved the same goal, giving consumers what they seek information about – nothing more, nothing less.

On the other hand, a bad product description does exactly opposite of that. If a consumer still has questions and confusions about a product even after going through its description, then my friend, it is surely a bad product description. Hope, you will not like to develop a bad description for your product.

Here are 10 surefire ways that will increase your ecommerce business conversion without any doubt.

#1 Have a Defined Buyer Persona

The roadmap for creating a good product description starts with defining the right buyer persona. When you sell a product, be it online or offline, you must keep your buyers in mind. Especially for online businesses, giving importance to buyer persona is one of the most crucial selling strategies.

Firstly, you need to have complete clarity about your customers; whether they are buying for themselves or somebody else, or any wholesale purpose. Then you need to keep in mind a few things, such as –

• Demographic
• Gender
• Age
• Interest
• Level of education or income
• Language

Other than describing what this handwash contains and its additional features, Method explains that the product can make a user’s hand clean, soft and supple in a biodegradable way. And that is what any customer will have interest on.

#2 Explain the Features of a Product along with the Advantages of Buying It

When you manufacture or sell a product, you focus on its features and want to grab the attention of your customers by highlighting those features. But is highlighting a product’s features enough to grab a potential buyer’s attention? The answer is a big resounding No. The way you get excited about your product specifications, a buyer may not feel the same. Always a buyer sees in a product how that gives benefit to him or her. Thus besides explaining a product’s specifications, you need to explain how each specification can benefit the customers.

Method has done the exact same thing with its product, let’s have a look at one of their hand wash products.

Other than describing what this handwash contains and its additional features, method explain that the product can make a user’s hand clean, soft and supple in a biodegradable way. And that is why any customer will have interest on.

So, develop a product description in such a way that tells all your customers how the product can make them happy. The more you will touch the personal chord of your audience through your product, the better ROI you can achieve.

#3 Use Bullet Points or Categorize the Whole Thing into Separate Sections with Headings to Create Scannability

In today’s age, there are only a few people read everything they find online. Rest try to find the most important details first. So, to make your product description easier to read or rather say scannable, integrate bullet points in it. They deliver a clear and concise way to showcase the most important information.

Here is a great product description that uses bullet points to highlight features.

#4 Don’t Avoid the Power of Superlatives & Influential Words in Your Copy

Using influential words, such as superlatives, adjectives etc. can make your product description convert. Do you know what these influential words are? Kevan Lee in one of his pdupliosts shared the ultimate list of words and phrases that convert, which includes words like suddenly, sensational, now, remarkable and many more. But including such words without justifying them may seem insincere to your audience. If your product is really the most advanced or the best, give particular proof why this is the scenario. Otherwise, tone your copy down or share your customers reviews that include your product is the most wonderful they have ever used.

#5 Make Sure Your Copy is Search Engine Friendly

The last but not the least, give importance to search engine optimization while creating your product description. Just make sure there shouldn’t be any duplicate content for the product. If you hires any content writer than guide them to use proper content and don’t copy from elsewhere. The words you use in a copy are not only for swaying your audience but also for optimizing the entire description for search engines. However, if you have already created your buyer persona and written product descriptions focusing that, using specific words and phrases that your buyer persona uses, then you have already optimized your product descriptions for search engines.

Furthermore, let me share some quick tips that will help you make your product copy more search engine friendly.

• Avoid using jargons unless your audience uses them
• Do proper keyword research using various tools and use them in product description
• Use long tail keywords, or rather say key phrases, in headline, subheading, and body text.
• Use Alt tag to optimize the product images

Remember, write your product descriptions keeping your readers in mind and optimize it for search engines.

#6 Keep your Tone/Voice consistent

The tone is the branding of your eCommerce store. When a visitor comes to your store, they expect a welcoming tone. The tone establishes a connection between the visitor and you. The tone is not a particular voice defining your brand. It can be humorous, emotional, or edgy. But, in all, it should connect you with the visitor in a friendly way. The tone in your eCommerce product description gives the potential customer a reason to stick to your site.

#7 Use Good Images

Images are the prime representation of your product. Your customers expect high-quality images for buying the product. The high-quality images bring credibility to your product. They will show all the key features of your product to the customer. They will also influence the buyer to imagine the use of the product in their life. Good images increase the chances of users buying the product. Brands use high-definition pictures and videos to show the features of their product. Hence, opting for a visual way to showcase their product’s features.

Because 63 of customers suppose that a product image is more important than the description or indeed the reviews.

For example, Canon does the same by providing both video and quality images to display the features of their PowerShot camera.

#8 Set Goals and KPIs

The ultimate goal of the product description is to convert the visitors into qualified leads. But, without checking you can’t infer whether the product description for an eCommerce website is working or not. For this, you need to set goals for the reach of the product description. The metrics help to measure the goal reached by different product descriptions. These metrics also known as Key Performance Indicators, include:

• Cart Abandonment
• Convert Rates
• Return rate
• Support inquiries
• Organic search rankings

With these, you can judge which product descriptions are working and converting rates and optimizing others accordingly.

#9 Use Story-Telling

Stories can do wonders with the sales of your products. Adding mini-stories makes an emotional connection with the visitor. The story can be about the benefit of your product, a story about a previous customer’s experience with using your product, or a story about the makers of the product. These stories draw your customer in and increase the chances of generating qualified leads.

#10 Do’s and Don’ts to write a good product description

A product description for an eCommerce website is a deciding factor in making or breaking a sale. To write an epic product description, follow the following tips:

· Go personal: Write the product description as if you are talking to the customer in real life. This creates a personal connection between the customer and you.
· Use superlatives: Boast about your product’s awards and 5-star reviews. Use superlative adjectives like top-rated, trustworthy, or award-winning.
· Focus on readability: The higher the readability score is, the more people it reaches. Hence, keep the readability score in check.
· Don’t use unjustified superlatives: False promises decrease the brand credibility. Do not use adjectives that are false or with no proof.
· Don’t use insignificant verbs: Avoid using insignificant and repetitive verbs like excellent or cutting-edge. They do not add value to the customer.
· Do not use jargon: Jargons always deplete the customer’s attention. When you use jargon in the product description for eCommerce websites may confuse the customer. This can result in putting off the customer.
· Don’t use copied content: The copied content affects the search engine ranking of your brand. It doesn’t add value to your customer.

What is The Importance of Product Description?

The product description is your chance to deliver credibility to your customer. It gives you a chance to present your product to potential customers and convince them of its utility for them. The eCommerce product description makes you stand out against your competition. While looking for a product online, the customer lands on the product page with many questions in mind. When customers find a similar product description it does not solve their problem. It does not help them and makes the impression that your brand does not care about the customers. It reduces their chances of getting back to the products on your site. The product description should answer all the customer’s problems and queries.

A google search optimized product description ranks your product higher in search engine results. It also gains customer trust and increases their chances of returning to the eCommerce site. A complete, concise, and clear product description makes you different from your competitors. Usability, specification, and features highlight your product to stand out against similar products. A good product description brings credibility to your brand and makes it trustworthy. The product description of your products solves customer issues and convinces them to buy the product. Hence, product description also contributes to increasing sales of your eCommerce.

Conclusion

A product description either make or break conversion of ecommerce business. Thus taking care of every minute detail of making a great product description is highly needed. Make sure that the product descriptions have been written for your buyer persona in a scannable format utilizing the apt tone. And don’t avoid optimizing them for search engines.

So, is there any ecommerce challenge you have faced while developing product description? Do share if any. If there is any secret of writing awesome product description you want to reveal, share it in the comment section. We’d love to know.