9 Effective tips on how to write product descriptions to boost eCommerce sales

“Today, you’ll learn how you can transform words into powerful content by writing high converting product descriptions to help you persuade your online shoppers into their path to purchase to drive your eCommerce sales.”

In this blog, we’re going to share our top 9 most effective ways to write killer product descriptions with a few minor tweaks! But first of all, it’s very important to understand why the product descriptions writing process is so vital if you want to increase your eCommerce sales.

Why are product descriptions so important?
The difference between a good & bad product description
How to write an effective product description
What next?

Why are product descriptions so important?

In the eCommerce world, a well-known fact is that the quality of how you write your product description can either make or break a sale. Why? Essentially, when you write a product description, you aim to help people decide what to buy. A recent eCommerce study found that 20% of purchase failures directly result from missing or unclear product information. Also, over 90% of online shoppers state that product descriptions are a huge factor in their purchasing decisions, say experts. But despite such information, the majority of online eCommerce businesses still write their product descriptions in the wrong way!

This is simply because companies are not putting enough effort into writing high-quality copy, and most importantly, they lack the knowledge they need to successfully push their visitors straight to that “Add to Cart” button. Product descriptions that sell have two primary purposes:

To explain features
To prompt potential buyers, the area where most copywriting efforts go towards

But before we start diving deep into this article, we want to make sure that you understand the difference between SEO copywriting vs SEO content writing. We know that the technical aspects of your products are essential, however, it’s equally essential to use high-converting product descriptions as an opportunity to persuade people into buying from you. Furthermore, if you’ve been struggling to develop solutions on how to boost your eCommerce sales, writing product descriptions that sell will considerably drive traffic through search engines and help you use tactics like urgency-building, social proof, CTAs, and so much more.

And let us tell you one more thing that we’ve learned from running A/B tests on hundreds of product detail pages for our clients: optimising your product descriptions is one of the highest-return, lowest-investment improvements any eCommerce manager could ever make! With a little bit of effort and a few handy tips from us, you can start crafting or quickly optimising your existing product descriptions to create your ideal prospects and returning customers go, “wow, I think I need this!”. But how can you tell the difference between a high converting product description and one that leaves money on the table?

The difference between a good & bad product description

Here’s something to ponder upon – product descriptions are similar to the 24/7 in-store retail associates for your online shop. And similarly to live retail associates, they can either help or damage your conversion rate for potential shoppers. If your product descriptions do their job well, they will draw visitors to your products and increase your conversions, and however, if they do their job poorly, they will only frustrate people and push them away from making a purchase.

So, what makes a product description “bad”? We believe that it doesn’t necessarily have to do with the length of your copy, it more comes down to if your product description is self-explanatory and if it’s showcasing why people should go ahead and buy it. Our top factors that make the difference between a great product description and a lower performing one are:

Image quality
If people can skim the content with ease
If it has enough details
The clarity in explaining what the product does
If it mentions added value or benefits
If they speak to their targeted audience

Put it this way – if you read a product description and you still have some questions about it, then it didn’t do its job too well. But because we want you to write excellent product copy, here’s our simple tips on how to write a good product description.

How to write an effective product description

One thing you must never forget is that by writing product descriptions, you are aiming to help people look and find the right products for them, and only after that to persuade them into eventually making a purchase. Ok, onto the tips themselves! You can easily use our following 9 tips when crafting brand new product descriptions or improving your current ones. Trust us – you can quickly transform a bad product description into a high-converting one by following the best practices below.

Tip 1. Write like your target audience in your brand’s tone of voice

Before you start writing a single word, you need to know how to build your perfect target persona. A customer avatar doesn’t represent any single group within your target market. Instead, it must combine the characteristics of your ideal buyers.

An important step here is to undertake thorough research whilst paying specific attention to the kind of language that your customer base is using currently. Once you know these, you can go ahead and start using the exact words to make it much easier to connect and nurture engagement. Understanding your potential buyers will allow you to empathise with them whilst speaking to them directly. Our suggestion is to talk in a conversational way to get their attention and convey your messages more resoundingly. When writing any eCommerce product descriptions, try to ask yourself questions like:

What kind of words does my target audience would engage with?
How would I speak to a buyer in a face-to-face conversation?
What words are people using?
Who is my product made for?
How does my target audience act and behave when shopping online?

Once you’ve found the answer to those questions, make sure that your product descriptions still sound like your brand voice. Is your brand’s voice professional or conversational? Do you like to use tongue-in-cheek humour, or do you keep things more straightforward? Once you’ve found your answers, try to write your product description copy cohesively and believably, and don’t forget about the power of bullet points! That leads us to our next tip.

Tip 2. Use bulletpoints for scannability

People love skimming, as, in this age of information, not many people have time to read everything they find online. This is why putting the most important details out there is vital, and you can easily do so with bullet points.

By writing your product description in bullet point format, you will provide a concise way to display the most critical information or add a visual element to an otherwise dull page. Whilst our focus in this article is on how to write better descriptions, it’s worth mentioning that your eCommerce landing page design is essential as well, so make sure to check out our blog on how to design the best eCommerce landing pages for some extra tips and tricks.

Tip 3. Find the right format & length for your brand

When thinking about how to write catchy product descriptions, you must ensure that your products are correctly named and formatted. Why? To increase the probability of your customers discovering them whilst browsing the internet.

The more people are discovering your products, the higher the chances of obtaining more sales. It’s important to understand that the product’s category will also impact how you write the product description. What we mean by that is in case you are trying to sell a phone, the chances are that the product description for it will be much more detailed compared to a T-shirt, right? When writing your product description, try to think carefully about:

Your brand name
Colours
Size & Quantity (size refers to the size chart or unit of length for clothing or accessory, and quantity is the number of units in a package)
Keywords and what the average searcher will type to search for your products

Keywords – another favourite topic of ours! But we’re not only talking about search terms or simple keywords here. If you want to know one of the best ways to increase eCommerce sales, make sure to check out our blog on how to do keyword research like a pro. Essentially, the formatting of your product description will influence people’s perceptions of your products. Research states that a paragraph or a text format is recommended when selling techie products or specs-driven items (such as computers). However, as mentioned before, bulleted type content will always gain more attention than long chunks of text. Also, keep in mind that not all people like lengthy product descriptions, so finding the right length will help you get 50% more clicks, as experts say.

Accelerator

As a rule of thumb, you can simply follow the policy requirements of the platform where you are listing your products. For example, Amazon allows using a maximum of 2000 characters for product descriptions, with 500 maximum characters for key features. That should make your job a lot easier instead of trying to figure out the perfect product description length.

Tip 4. Persuade using features & benefits to motivate purchases

Did you know the saying of “people are not buying products, they’re buying feelings”? Well, when we talk about product descriptions, that saying has a lot of truth in it.

You must ask yourself a fundamental question: “What emotional pain-point does this product solve for my customer?”. Once you know the answer, point out the problem directly. This will create a sense of urgency and a desire to buy, especially if you will write down all the practical benefits of your product whilst adding the more profound emotional outcomes that come with it. The average customer attention span is minimal, and this is why to pitch your product in the best way possible, you must entice people with a copy that will assist them in finding the right product. Here are a couple more questions to ask yourself to drive shoppers into conversion:

What are my product’s basic attributes?
Why should people use my product?
How is my product better than my competition?
Where could they use it? Home, office, indoor, outdoor?
When could they use my product? Summer, Christmas, birthdays?
How does my product work? What are its technical features?

Tip 5. Answer questions & clear doubts

Try to think about a time when you were shopping online. I bet you were uncertain for many reasons when buying a new laptop, for example, as you might be wondering if the product is of good quality, how can you tell if the product is right for you or if you’ll receive it on time, etc.

Here is where you could provide golden nuggets to your potential customers! In your product description, try to answer as many questions that people might have in their minds, especially those that are doubtful. And remember that the higher the item’s value, the higher the risk. Your product description should provide enough information to clear any doubts, as lacking valuable information will prevent people from buying your products. And the best way to write your product copy is by thinking about your customer’s desires and goals.

Tip 6. Write in a persuasive & descriptive way

You should aim to appeal to people’s emotions to convert them successfully, and this is why creating emotionally charged and compelling stories will help you increase the perceived value of your products.

Take advantage of people’s imagination and turn it into something engaging and entertaining to read by using influential words such as:

Suddenly
Now
Introducing
Amazing
Exceptional
Sensational
Revolutionary
Quick
Hurry
Magical

Finding the best words to change people’s minds from simply browsing on your landing pages or website to converting is not a hard job to do, and it’s very fun! You could use many words to describe your products, as words work like magic – you can take something simple and transform it into a real conversion magnet. We have a lot more to tell you about how to write persuasive copy for your landing pages to drive more sales, but for now, let’s move on to our next tip on how to write compelling product descriptions.

Tip 7. Make your copy SEO-friendly

In case you are not sure how to write product descriptions for SEO, stay assured that you are not alone, as SEO can seem quite complex and challenging, we know.

To make it easier for you to create product descriptions for SEO, and to increase your traffic, simply follow our tips below:

Include high-volume keywords – you can simply use a competitor research tool like KWFinder to identify keywords related to your products
Include titles, meta-descriptions and image alt tags on product pages – these will directly affect your CTR
Display star ratings and product prices – you can easily do this by using what’s called “microdata”, where all you need to do is add a bit of code to some of the information that’s already on your product landing page so that Google can see your product price or aggregated review ratings

Tip 8. Use visuals & mixed media

Appealing to people’s five senses should be your aim when creating your product descriptions. In the digital marketing world, we call this “sensory marketing”, and trust us, there’s a lot of research to back it up.

Essentially, what sensory marketing means is that eCommerce brands should try to recreate experiences in writing. You can easily do so by using adjectives and relatable comparisons whilst incorporating all the elements that can prompt visitors to click on your CTAs. If you are writing text-heavy benefits or features for your products, make sure you add corresponding images for everything. Your end goal is to create a balanced overlap and interaction between text and visuals, such as images and videos. Visitors often want to cross-check with images when reading a product description, so make sure you have everything displayed in images, clearly written in text.

Accelerator

If you want to point out a specific feature or more, you could simply write in your product description “see pictures” or “as shown above” in brackets. Sometimes, you would be surprised to know how easy it is to miss a sale simply because you lack imagery in your product copy.

Another golden tip we have for you is to increase your product landing pages with social proof. Why? Because most people seek advice from others before buying anything online. Place all your reviews and testimonials in your product descriptions to add trust and credibility and encourage people to convert. Most studies have shown that 65% of shoppers believe that high-quality images are much more important than product descriptions, so whilst adding social proof is a good trick, remember that visuals are the key!

Tip 9. Use our simple eCommerce product description template

And because we genuinely want to see you succeed, we have a quick template that could be your starting point for writing your product descriptions. But keep in mind that it’s a very flexible start, so think of it more like a blueprint that you can customise, depending on what you are trying to sell, your target audience, and your brand.

Write a descriptive headline – use a product title that will hook visitors, and focus on connecting with them on an emotional level
Focus on writing about the product benefits – explain why will the consumer benefit from it
Add some additional motivation – increase credibility with social proof, product reviews, or urgency via CTAs
Use familiar language – so that your target audience can connect with your brand and products
Use a lot of high-quality images – but mix them up with chunks of text

What next?

Knowing how to write product descriptions that sell will always require one thing – flexibility. People’s ways of thinking and buying are constantly changing, so start by evaluating your existing product descriptions using the tips and examples we listed above. We know that it takes time, but one of the best ways to increase your eCommerce sales is to put more effort into writing good product copy. But writing good product descriptions is a tiny part when thinking about your eCommerce strategies. In case you’ve missed it, we have some great articles on how to create a complete eCommerce digital marketing strategy in 2021 and how to save time and improve your eCommerce ROI with marketing automation that you should check out!

If there is one thing you should take away from this article, it should be that optimising your product descriptions doesn’t have to be as difficult as you thought! From our experience in optimising hundreds of eCommerce sites, we know that even the slightest improvement to a product page copy can significantly increase your sales.

If you’re struggling with improving your eCommerce landing pages, you can download our FREE landing page audit tool, which contains a lot more valuable information that you should know when launching a new service or product, including directions for writing your product copy.

At Lnet Digital, we know the ins and outs of how to grab the specific visitors attention through well-crafted landing pages for all our eCommerce clients and much more. If you are interested in creating engaging and persuasive landing pages, you can simply book a FREE landing page consultation with us, or if you want to get the most out of your online sales, you can also book a FREE eCommerce digital marketing consultation and one of our friendly digital marketers will happily assist you in optimising all your eCommerce efforts for conversions.