Your product descriptions, along with their essential partner-in-crime – killer images, are the heart and soul of your online store. Unique and compelling descriptions can help you sell more goodies, whilst dull and badly written ones can have potential customers heading for the hills (or rather a competitor!).
A product description fulfills two essential requirements for your online business:
- it attracts relevant search traffic to your store, and
- it encourages the visitor to buy the product from you.
To achieve the first objective, you need to include the keyword phrases that people use when searching online for products like yours. These could be very specific, like “red patent leather high heeled shoes size 8”, or the less focused “Christmas party shoes”. (Tip: the more detailed the search phrase they use, the closer they are to making that purchase). Use keywords in the product page title and the image title, and weave related words through your copy too.
Enticing a visitor to buy requires a more engaging approach. You need to create vibrant and “chatty” copy that relies more on creative writing. Don’t be lazy and just paste in the manufacturer’s description – there are likely to be other places your visitor can buy this item, and this is your only chance to convince them to buy from you!
In addition to the specific descriptors, like sizes, colours and materials, try to explain the value of buying this product, how it works, how you can use it and the problem it solves. You might want to try suggesting other products you sell that would go with it as part of the product description.
Sound daunting? Try this. Imagine how would you encourage someone to buy this item if you were talking to them face-to-face. Picture them as you write, and explain to them why they should buy this wonderful thing.
It’s also worth checking out how your competitors are writing product descriptions on their sites. Shoppers are constantly checking different websites for the best deals and you need to stand out.
When you’re done, read it over again and again for flow and any spelling or grammar errors before you launch it online – you don’t want to appear unprofessional. Try and get someone else to read through it too.
When you are selling to such a huge, distracted and time-pressed market, you have to grab attention quickly and create the feeling “yes, that’s what I’m looking for!”. Focusing some of your precious time on creating beautiful photos and enticing descriptions is hugely important to the success of your online store.
I’ll write another post about creating your own great product images soon. Stay tuned!