How to create product descriptions in the online store?

Are the product descriptions in the online store really necessary?

An online consumer survey conducted in 2017 found that nearly 90% of online shoppers believe that product descriptions are extremely important when making a purchase decision. At the same time, the same analysis showed that over-coloured descriptions, inconsistent with the actual condition of the product, became a reason for complaint in half of the cases.

Good product descriptions in the online store are necessary to provide the company with optimal sales profits and to build a unique and distinctive image on the web.

This happens for several important reasons:

1. The product description replaces the seller in the brick-and-mortar store.

It not only fully describes the product, its technical specifications, ways and benefits of its use. The text is intended to answer any questions asked by potential customers and dispel their doubts, related to the purchase. Just like the seller.

2. Raise the position of the page in the search engine

The product description is SEO text. Properly written, it engages users and search engines, which classify the text into the appropriate group and then display it on specific keywords typed by Internet users.

Even a perfect product will not sell in an online store if no one sees it. So let's take care of optimization for search engines.

3. Encourages purchase

A properly written product description shows the benefits, advantages and features of the product — in exactly that order. He puts the customer first and it is his needs and desires that he tries to satisfy. The lack of a description or its paucity can make a potential customer go to the competition and it is they who will finalize the purchase.

4. Reduces the risk of returning the purchased goods

Let's not deceive users and promise them pears on willow. The more specific and realistic the description we write, the greater the chances that the customer will not take advantage of the complaint option. We can additionally diversify the texts with active verbs and adjectives, affecting the imagination of consumers.

How to create professional product descriptions for your online store?

Professional product descriptions attract search engine algorithms and engage audiences. However, combining sales text with SEO text requires skill and balancing between the right keyword saturation and the language of benefits. How to go about it in order to squeeze as much as possible out of the description?

Product description as sales text

Creating texts for the Internet, regardless of their type, we should start with a thorough analysis of the target group and its individual representatives, i.e. the so-calledperson. This is the first step to understanding the needs, desires, requirements, as well as concerns and doubts of potential customers.

Thanks to the creation of a persona, we know who and how we are talking to. We obtain data about people (because it is good to create several representatives) through conversations with the customers themselves or the sales department in the company, during the analysis of tools such as Google Analytics or Search Console, as well as by reading customer comments on the brand's social media and in industry forums.

In building a persona, questions such as:

• What problems does the persona face on a daily basis?
• What does he want?
• What needs will the offered product satisfy?
• What is he most afraid of?
• What causes her doubts/fears?

There are tools for creating personas on the web, e.g. Make-My-Persona

Let's use the famous language of profit... and the language of loss

Essential in writing professional product descriptions is to step into the shoes of the customer (persona), understand their needs and refer to them in sales texts. For the purchase, the language of benefits strongly convinces, which helps to turn the characteristics and advantages of the product into real benefits for the consumer.

In the above description of sports shoes at the very bottom, the characteristics of the product are presented. The text itself contains advantages in combination with benefits that actually translate into greater user comfort, e.g.:

• GEL insoles applied in the sole (advantage) provide adequate comfort and cushioning of your feet (advantage)
• light and elastic foam... (advantage) makes the shoes guarantee protection and dynamics when running (advantage).

With the help of products we want to make our life easier, to feel better, younger, more attractive.When describing a product, let's make sure that the reader immediately knows that the message is addressed to him, as well as that the text is full of content that affects the imagination and creates in the mind of the potential customer images of his future with the product. If these images will be positive, the sale of the product is practically guaranteed.

People buy products that express who they want to be, not who they currently are

David Ogilvy

Copywriter and advertising creator

We can also approach the customer from a slightly different side — show him what annoys him in his life so far and how with the help of the product his situation will change for the better.

In addition to the language of benefit, the second violin plays the so-called language of loss. It is ideal in situations where we add an additional option to the product or service or the offer is limited in time. The thought that something may pass us by is for many an engine to make a purchase.

A professional description of the product should distinguish the product among competitors, show it in a new light. So that the consumer develops the opinion that there is nothing else on the market that can satisfy his needs in such a comprehensive way.

Let's take a look at the text below:

iPad can successfully replace a computer, and besides, give a lot of things that a classic computer will not be able to provide you with.

Finding a unique product feature is an art, but at the same time a golden mean to create an engaging product description in an online store that will actually sell.

Stimulating the Senses and Promises — The Art of Writing Persuasive Descriptions

We have as many as 5 senses, and each can be successfully interacted with the help of words. Professional photos of the product will also work great on the sense of sight - taken from different perspectives and showing up close its most important elements, as well as the object in its daily use. The words themselves will stimulate the imagination, if only we structure them in the right way, for example, “this dress will make you stand out from the crowd”.

According to olx, offers with a photo arouse 3x more interest than products without a product photo.

Let's look at the remaining senses and expressions used in product descriptions in the online store on a few examples below.

Flavor: Describing taste sensations works particularly well in the case of any sweet ointment or drinks, e.g. “melts in the mouth” whether “fluffy milk filling in a delicate wafer with crunchy pieces of nuts”

Fragrance:  used most often in perfume descriptions, e.g. by Armani “The combination of floral notes of black currant and freesia plays an emotional concert, thanks to which you say sì — in Italian: yes — to freedom, dreams, love and yourself”

Touch: describing the texture of an object or tactile sensations, e.g. clothing or bedding - “is smooth and silky to the touch”, “her fabric envelops the body.”

Sound: let's see how copywriting master David Ogilvy did it when describing Rolls Royce in 1958: “At sixty miles per hour, the loudest sound in a car makes an electric clock”

By making a promise about the way the product works or the effects that we will achieve thanks to it, we increase the chances of finalizing the transaction in the online store. It is important to present in the description only those benefits that we are able to actually fulfill. Let's show changing the life of a potential client for the better.

“fills in wrinkles and restores volume to the lacrimal sulcus, the concave area under the eye”

“enhance the beauty of women's feet”

But be careful not to overcolor. We can expose ourselves to negative reviews, product returns and, consequently, to a decrease in sales of the product in question and a decrease in trust in the brand.

Professional product descriptions — do you remember?

Important in the description of the product is the language in which we address the recipient. Matching your speech style to your target audience makes the text better read and is simply more effective. The user knows that the offer is addressed precisely to him, because it covers his needs and desires.

Quite differently, the product is described to a young mother, and differently to a mechanic with experience.

Let's use the power of active verbs, e.g. softens, accelerates, improves. Let's avoid “being” and “having”, which even kill creativity and dynamics in texts. Let's use the active page and put pictorial comparisons in the text.

The simplicity of the message also has an impact on the positive reception and commitment to the purchase. Avoid overly complex language and industry jargon. If we have the opportunity, let's include in the description of the product quotes of people who bought the product and are satisfied with it.

Let's use one form of return to recipients. Most often, it will be a form for “you”, chosen in marketing more and more often, because it simply breaks the ice. However, it will not work in the case of luxury products, where it is best to pay per “country”.

Some also wonder about the variation of verbs by types. If the online store offers products strictly for ladies, use the feminine form of verbs, in other cases the masculine form will be more optimal — it is more universal.

How to create product descriptions for an online store under SEO?

A description with a length of 1000 to 1500 characters will work best.Many stores use the breakdown of the description into two parts, thanks to which it draws the attention of the audience to the most important benefits of buying a product and at the same time encourages a deeper look at its contents.

The first description is right after the product name and next to the photo. The second is available below, e.g. under the “find out more” button.It is intended for those more convinced to buy, but still undecided. Its goal is to dispel doubts and better position the product page — by saturating the product description with phrases from the long tail.

Title of the product description

Include the model, brand and type of product. It will also work to include a characteristic in the title, such as color or battery capacity - that is, something for which the product is famous, stands out from the rest.

Avoid using product codes in titles and other abbreviations that say nothing to the client.

Keywords and their saturation

Let's start with the right choice of keywords. This is extremely important, especially in a world where the internet is overflowing with texts of all kinds about products. In order for an online store to stand out, it is necessary to position it not only on product phrases such as “sony Xperial4 smartphone”, but also on long-tail phrases such as “dual sim smartphone”, “smartphone with good battery”, which can be included in the extended product description - thus increasing the chances of the page appearing high in organic search results.

Professional product description in the online store is characterized by optimal keyword saturation —2-3 for the entire description is a sufficient amount. It is important that the end result is a text in which the selected phrases will become imperceptible to the eye, and the description will simply sound natural.

Formatting the product description

Let's apply webwriting rules. Short sentences and paragraphs, bold passages that we want the reader to pay attention to and bullet points, e.g. with the characteristics of the product.It is good to put a table with specifications and - if of course possible - a video showing, e.g. how to use. Thanks to this, the readability of the text increases and its intelligibility for the search engine — the description is positively evaluated by algorithms such as Panda or Penguin.

It is useful to include internal links in the product description — to similar or complementary products.

People buy with their eyes — let's take good quality photos

Good quality photos in the product description are half the success.They must complement each other with the text. It is best to have a complete layout of the product page at the very beginning - where there will be descriptions, photos, specifications or reviews.

The standard is photos of the product on a uniform, most often white background. However, the imagination and thus the sales are much better influenced by photographs showing the product in the course of daily use.

Photos of a running man, dressed in running shoes, will become more “selling” than a simple presentation of shoes on a white background. Although photos of an approximate sole or insole will also do a pretty cool job, because they will show the product as the customer would like to see it during a visit to the stationary store.

The compromise will be to combine the standard presentation of the product with its actual use.

Product photos and even videos are good to include in the extended description. Videos will play an important role especially when we want to show how to use the product, e.g. with all kinds of accounting programs or construction tools.

Remember that search engine algorithms, although very complicated, need a little help in understanding the images published on websites. From the point of view of building visibility on the web, alt attributes of images created for SEO will be necessary — describing what is on the graphic and containing specific keywords entered by users.

What to avoid when creating professional product descriptions?

Spanking the proverbial water

A not very specific description of the product, which contains only hackneyed phrases that say nothing specific about the product, will quickly escape the user's attention and certainly will not encourage him to take advantage of the offer. Professional copywriters are able to describe ordinary products in a unique and memorable way.

Copying from others

Regardless of whether it is from competitors or directly from manufacturers. Firstly, it is plagiarism, and secondly, we thereby lower the position of the store in the search engine. Google values unique content and rewards it with high places in the search ranking.

Too long descriptions

Let's not extend the description forcibly. This may be good for search engines, but the description of a product in an online store is primarily a sales text. Let it be concrete and affect emotions.

Duplicate the same descriptions

For different color variants or... similar products. With this action, we make it difficult to position the site - we are dealing with the so-called cannibalization of content.

Cannibalization of content is a situation in which several subpages of a given site are displayed in a search engine for the same keywords. This can result in less traffic from Google.

The ideal solution is a unique description for each color or type, but in practice this can involve a lot of time, labor and money. So, the optimal way out will be to create a single description and allow the customer, as part of the order, to choose the color option. We can also gently rewrite existing descriptions in places where the two products actually differ from each other.

Summary - what should be the ideal product description for an online store?

A professional product description for an online store first of all attracts the attention of the reader and encourages you to familiarize yourself with the information about the product. It is important that it actually describes the object of sale, affects the emotions and imagination of the customer.It should also fully answer the questions and doubts of the target audience, so as to minimize the risk of complaints after the purchase.

In all this, let's not forget that the product description is also SEO text. So let's choose the correct keywords that match the users' search and saturate with them the content of the description, its title and product photos.