It only takes a few minutes to set up an online store. Fill out your store’s settings, upload photos, and you’re ready to sell. Writing product descriptions that persuade consumers to buy in the first place, on the other hand? That necessitates a bit more effort.
To a new buyer, how do you describe a product? What information should be included on a store page, and how can customers be persuaded to click “Add to Cart”?
We’ll go over how to write product descriptions and give some examples in this post. These simple guidelines will ensure that your store listings are informative, genuine, and convincing—not to mention search engine optimized.
Sample Product Description Template
The template provided here serves as a starting point for your product descriptions. Keep in mind that this is a deliberately flexible starting point. Consider it a guideline that you will customize using the stages that follow, rather than a blueprint.
Use a product title that will pique your audience’s interest. If you can emotionally connect with them, you’ll get bonus points.
- Benefits-focused paragraph: Use a descriptive paragraph to show how the product benefits the customer.
- A bulleted list of significant product facts and features should be included after the description.
- Additional motivation: Use credibility, social proof, product reviews, urgency, and/or a call to action to remove any remaining buying barriers.
Outdoor Voices has a simple example of what this could look like.
How to Write and Optimize Product Descriptions (with examples)
Alright, you have your rough outline, now what? You’re going to use information about your customers, brand, and product to fill it in. Here are the steps you’ll take to do that:
1. Identify Your Target Audience
The first step in developing product descriptions is to identify your target market. You want to be able to specify which characteristics are most important to your potential buyers.
Understanding your buyer persona, which is a breakdown of the qualities of your potential buyers, is the first step. Your buyer persona will assist you in determining which features will be most beneficial to your clients.
Keep the following questions in mind while you write your product description:
- How did this user find your website?
- What are his or her general interests?
- Why would this person be particularly interested in your Shopify store?
- What would this person say to a friend about the product?
- What qualities or advantages would pique this person’s attention the most?
You’ll be better equipped to produce a product description that sells if you keep these questions in mind as you write your product copy.
Take a look at this product from The Salt Lady, for example.
The buyer persona is not just any random person looking for a lamp.
Instead, the consumer persona is likely to be interested in all-natural home cures, particularly when it comes to allergies. In this situation, the potential consumer is likely to be interested in knowing more about these solutions from the product description.
Rather than emphasizing the lamp’s ornamental elements, as most other product descriptions for lamps do, The Salt Lady focuses on the features that will most appeal to her consumer persona.
This ties in nicely with rule #2 for crafting product descriptions.
2. Put Emphasis on the Product’s Advantages
You are obviously eager to convey all of the benefits of your products as a business owner. You want to demonstrate that your product has the best features and specifications. The buyer, on the other hand, isn’t necessarily interested in the product’s little details. Rather, they want to know how it will help them.
A product feature is a technical statement about the product that is based on facts. A product benefit, on the other hand, describes how the product can help the buyer live a better life.
We can notice the essential qualities of the product as well as the benefits if we look at the product description of the highly unique item from above.
The product features listed in this product description are 100% pure Himalayan salt, a weight of 4-6 lbs., and an on/off cord and light bulb set.
Reduced EMF pollution, cleaned air, and reduced allergy, asthma, and headache symptoms are just a few of the product’s advantages.
Another example can be found in The Yankee Candle Company’s product description for their sample-size votive candle.
So, what distinguishes this candle from the rest? The direct benefits that it will provide to the buyer are the solution.
They clearly highlight the advantages of owning this little candle, most of them revolve around convenience. Rather than emphasizing the generic aroma or the role of a candle in the home, they emphasize the value of owning this specific sample-size candle.
Your product description’s content should persuade potential purchasers that it would improve their lives in evident, measurable ways.
Make an overview of your product’s features and benefits before you begin writing your product descriptions. Consider how the product either improves pleasure or alleviates a pain location.
Determine how each feature will directly benefit the buyer for each one you list. If the feature is 100 percent Himalayan salt, the advantage is that allergies are lessened. The beauty of a 1.75-ounce candle is that it may be utilized in small settings like a nightstand, a restroom, or an end table.
This type of feature-to-benefit translation will help you develop more appealing product descriptions in less time.
3. Share the Entire Story
An excellent product description should include all pertinent information, persuade the consumer of its merits, and carry an emotional impact. Buyer behavior is influenced by emotions, thus your product description is an ideal spot to provoke emotions.
How do you go about doing this? By filling up any information gaps that prospective purchasers may have about the goods.
In their product description for their Natural Amethyst Ring, Sivana Spirit does a great job doing this.
You’re considerably more likely to connect with potential buyers on an emotional level rather than a transactional one if you give a mini-story about the product. This is crucial for converting potential purchasers into paying customers.
Try to address these questions when it comes to telling a tale in your product description:
- Who created this item originally?
- What prompted them to create this item?
- What was the process of creating this product like?
- How would this product fit into the buyer’s daily routine?
Setting a scene like this will help the consumer see the goods in a manner that features and specifications will never be able to. If you can persuade the buyer to see the product as an emotional conquest or partner, they will likely forget they are being sold to.
4. Make use of Natural Language and Tone
Does your description seem like a real discussion you’d have with a buddy if you read it aloud? Or does it sound like a string of words created by a computer?
If your product description isn’t something you’d say to a buddy about the product, it’s time to breathe new life into it.
Using a natural tone, such as one you would use in a real discussion, will assist your buyer to connect with your business.
Nasty Gal excels at this, employing the tone of “fun-loving girlfriend” throughout the site, including in product titles.
Instead of selling traditional high-heeled shoes, they sell sassy shoes that one young woman may recommend to another.
This girlfriend tone dominates the website, from the product titles and descriptions to the color design and even the company name.
Using a consistent tone that is consistent with the brand promotes customer trust and distinguishes particular e-commerce firms from the thousands of others selling things on Shopify.
5. Use Power Words to Entice People
Humans are instinctively drawn to particular words and phrases that provoke an emotional response. This, fortunately for Shopify business owners, also boosts sales. By being aware of these terms and phrases, you will be able to persuade your consumers to take the plunge and buy.
These are “power words,” according to Jon Morrow of Smart Blogger. He has a long list of words that can assist you improve the appeal of your product copy.
Bangs Shoes uses power words in their product description, making you forget you’re about to spend $60 on a pair of shoes.
These shoes will help you “rock” life, whatever that means to you. They add “positivity” while you’re out “exploring” and improve your whole experience.
You can practically hear your closest buddy raving about these sneakers, which is exactly what the writers of this product description hoped for. Who can say no to a product that comes highly recommended by a friend?
Look for any descriptive terms or adjectives that could use a little polishing while you compose your product descriptions. Use powerful words like “stunning” or “sensational” instead of terms like “nice” or “high-quality.”
By including these good descriptive phrases into your product descriptions, you are quietly persuading shoppers that your products are intriguing, outstanding, and worthwhile.
6. Make it Simple to Scan
People have short attention spans and only read about 16% of what is on the page. As a result, your product description must be able to effectively capture that coveted 16%.
You may accomplish this by making your descriptions extremely scannable. As in, the buyer can find exactly what he or she is looking for without wasting time browsing through extraneous information.
Include bullet points, brief paragraphs with only a few phrases apiece, enough of white space, and multiple font sizes in your product descriptions to make them easy to scan.
For their chia seed bars, Health Warrior does an excellent job of creating a scannable page. They have varied font sizes, a short paragraph, and bullet points summarizing the bar’s main features.
Look for easy opportunities to use this same scannable format as you write product descriptions for your Shopify store. Bullet points can easily be used to list ingredients and specifications. The tale and key points can simply be condensed into a single paragraph. The title of the product can be used as a header.
You’ll be less likely to lose a potential buyer if you make your product description easier to understand.
7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Almost everything you do on your Shopify store should be focused on optimizing the content for search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the most straightforward method of attracting new clients to your page, which is the first step in persuading someone to buy your products.
The process of optimizing a website begins with keywords, which are typically the search terms used by purchasers to find the product they are looking for. You can easily determine which keywords are optimal for your Shopify store with a little keyword research.
For example, “women’s black dress pants” is a keyword that could be readily optimized in your online business.
When you search for “women’s black dress pants,” you’ll see that the top results include variations of the term, such as “women’s casual & dress pants” and “black dress pants for ladies.”
Look at the bolded terms in the descriptions to see what Google likes right now.
We can observe how they use this term on their site to appear in the search results by clicking on one of the entries on the first page.
They use the keyword, or a variation of it, at the top of the product page as well as in the product title.
For good measure, and in accordance with standard SEO practices, Shopify suggests including your keyword in your:
- Page titles
- Meta descriptions
- Image tags (called ALT tags)
- Product descriptions
Run your keyword using LSIGraph to produce a list of similar keywords for a better understanding of which keywords you might utilize for your product. This program explores the internet to see which pages for your chosen term have the top search engine rankings. The most frequently used keywords on those pages are then listed.
This will give you an idea of what is performing well on search engines right now and can be incorporated in your product titles and descriptions.
We can see from this list of related keywords that the word “cheap” is a popular search term that could easily be included in your product title or description. Keep in mind that the major keyword should be included in your product title because it carries the most weight with search engines.
Will including keywords in your product titles and descriptions propel you to the top of the search results page? Most likely not.
However, it will undoubtedly aid in making your product more accessible to people who are actively looking for it.
8. Use High-Quality Images
Even if you’re an expert at writing product descriptions, you’ll need high-quality images to accompany them.
Why?
Because a product image, according to 63% of customers, is more significant than the description or even the reviews. As a result, the photo itself contains an important component of your product description.
The buyer will be able to see all of your product’s essential qualities if you use high-quality images. They will also allow the client to envision themselves using these goods.
Vitamix, a company that sells professional blenders, for example, uses high-quality photos and videos on its product pages to help close sales.
Rather than telling you about the engine or the blender’s capacity, they show you an image of a blender full of food and an exciting movie about the motor.
You’ll also notice that they use attractive power phrases and highlight the benefits within the product description, which is quite short and scannable.
By demonstrating what the blender is capable of, both technically and practically, the consumer can quickly see having this blender at home, in real life.
You may not have access to a professional video provider to create anything so stunning, which is understandable. However, you may at the very least ensure that your product is photographed well and that its benefits are clearly displayed.
Wrapping Up
These guidelines were developed based on customer research and have been shown to increase sales. The primary message is that your product descriptions should focus on why your product will improve your customer’s life rather than pushing your product. And if you can persuade your customers to believe that, your sales will grow.