One of the biggest challenges for Shopify store owners can be writing ecommerce product descriptions. This task can be a tedious and frustrating one. If you’re unfamiliar with writing copy then it’s easy to lack inspiration when faced with an empty field and a blinking cursor. How do you capture an audience and explain the excellence of your product quickly?
Product descriptions are a critical part of your brand's online presence. They set the tone for your brand, are crucial for SEO purposes when it comes to being visible in the search results, and also help persuade people to buy your products. While there’s no set way to write ecommerce product descriptions, there are some tips, tricks and tools to make it an easier and more successful process.
How Long Should Product Descriptions Be?
There isn't a ‘correct’ answer to this, as such. You want to keep it concise and convey the information quickly and in an easily digestible format. We’d recommend considering the following structure:
- Start with a short paragraph to explain the benefits of the product. Maybe include a real life scenario where the product works particularly well.
- Follow with several bullet points (which are easily scannable) to capture additional product details, like the materials it is made from, or shipping details.
What Tone is Right for Ecommerce Product Descriptions?
Before writing anything, you should concentrate on your brand and audience. If you’re a new brand it may be best to sit down and think about the audience you really want to appeal to. An existing business should take note of what tone of voice and brand voice has been adopted in the past. The tone of the product descriptions should match your company branding.
Setting out guidelines for all the content on your Shopify store will ensure there's a unified voice behind your company, one that your customers will come to recognise. It also helps create consistency if you have different people at the organisation writing ‘as’ the brand.
Write Descriptions To Minimise Potential Customer Questions
By writing informative product descriptions, you can save masses of time and money on customer service admin. Make sure that you think about what your customer needs to know about the product in order to make the decision to buy it. If you write your description well, the customer should be completely informed about the product, and comfortable enough with all the information that they will go ahead and click ‘buy’.
Many sales are stalled because the customer feels they are not informed enough, and sometimes the moment is lost. You must remember that online shopping can be challenging for a customer because they can’t physically view or hold the product.
Give Your Products a Story and Bring Them to Life
As mentioned, try to capture a combination of the physical attributes (size, dimensions, etc) and its benefits (what problems will it solve for your customer?) in the description. How will owning it add to their quality of life?
Even the most bland products can be brought to life with a little creative licence. A clever copywriter will combine product details, usability and desirability.
As an example, consider a product description for a pair of shoes. It could easily read:
‘These glamorous high heels are both stylish and comfortable.’
YAWN. The customer has probably read that on every website they’ve been shopping on. How about something like:
‘These glamorous 6 inch high heels will make you the envy of all your friends on the dance floor. Their stylish good looks are matched only by their comfort - no need to go home barefoot as these will keep your feet in dancing form all night long.’
You’re painting a picture for the customer of when they will use the product and why these particular high heels are better than any others (without really saying it).
Use Sensory Language
Using sensory words can be really evocative and help a reader imagine using the product. Describing the senses, such as smell, touch, sound, and sight, takes the reader into the world of the product rather than just reading about it. Descriptive words like colourful, sweet, soft, spicy, loud, etc., are the kind of thing you could use to elevate your product descriptions.
Make Use of Automation Tools and AI
AI technology such as ChatGPT can be helpful time-saving tools. A quick input can generate content for you - but a word of caution. The tech isn’t at the point yet where you can rely on it to simply generate your site content. You’ll find that a human editor is still required to make sure the description has the right tone of voice and says exactly what it needs to say. Still, it’s a great starting point and can really help get the process moving.
Product Descriptions Are SEO Gold
Having unique product descriptions is important when considering your website's SEO. In the descriptions you should think about what keywords you want to target and how to naturally fit them in the text. Not only does this make Google happy, it will also reassure the user that they’ve landed on the right page. There’s nothing more frustrating than landing on a site you think is irrelevant to your search. This will more than likely increase your bounce rate and affect your site’s rankings too.
Let Customers Write Their Own Descriptions of Your Products
Free marketing - get the hard work done for you! Enabling customer reviews on your store will allow previous buyers to write their very own description of the product, generating valuable, trustworthy UGC (user generated content) for your products.
Sometimes a reviewer will express a view or experience they had that is exactly what another shopper is looking for, which can really help when it comes to making more sales. Nothing is more reassuring than ordering something online that another shopper has been delighted with.
Even if you get a few 3 star, ‘average’ reviews, leave them on your site. These tend to give a little credibility rather than a page full of 5 star reviews which can look fake. There are integrations that make it easy to pull customer reviews into your Shopify site, too. We’d recommend checking out Yotpo and Klaviyo, two marketing automation platforms that have review modules.
Ask a Third Party to Read Your Descriptions and Give Feedback
Try to ask someone who doesn’t work for the company - a person who's unfamiliar with your products is more likely to be able to help you identify gaps or parts that don’t quite work that you would have otherwise missed. Take their suggestions onboard and adapt your descriptions accordingly. Then, once you’re happy with what you’ve crafted, publish your killer copy alongside the other elements of your product page like product imagery and videos to create a truly superb product page!
Hopefully that helps give you some guidance on how to get started with your ecommerce product descriptions. At Eastside Co, we’re the Shopify experts in everything from design and development to marketing, so if there’s any support you need with your ecommerce brand - get in touch with us today and a member of our team will be happy to help.
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