E-Commerce is big business. There are 326.4 million domains registered according to the latest statistics published in VeriSign’s Domain Name Industry Brief (March 2016). Hundreds of domains go live every hour. Many of these new sites will be e-commerce; whether your company sells to the next state over or across oceans, competition is fierce. It is important to keep your product descriptions interesting and informative in order to keep your customers’ attention and wallets on your site.
8 Tips to create product descriptions that convert
Below are best practices and creative ways to turn your site visitors into customers:
1. Use your target market to tell a story
Selling apparel becomes easier if you can describe when a customer might wear that article of clothing. Look for social media tags featuring your products and write your next product description with that customer’s experience in mind.
2. Present complet information about the product
Your product description should be conversational while mentioning the best features about the product. You can name drop brand while describing the item. Keep the technical information such as material for the bullet points.
3. Match the writing style of the product description to the tone and style of the website
Your company’s unique brand should be developed throughout your site, even down to the copy! If your customers expect refined and cultured, deliver product descriptions that aspire to these qualities. If your customers are more irreverent and enjoy sarcasm, give them a bit in your descriptions of new products.
4. Write separate and unique product descriptions
For multi-site companies featuring the same products, write separate product descriptions for each site. Each of your sites should have its own theme and target market. Use the differences to your advantage. Your SEO team will thank you and your websites have a higher chance of showing up beside each other in a search engine.
5. Don’t be afraid to use humor or reference pop culture
If your target market are English majors buying hardback novels of new classics, throw a pun or two in your product description. As one of thousands of English majors I know, we all love a good pun. A word of warning, especially if you venture into the pop culture realm, research whether your target market shares your tastes and values.
6. Use general content for evergreen products
Unless you are selling a dated planner or time- specific item, try to keep the product description from shouting about an upcoming event. This will keep your inventory relevant long after the event has passed.
7. Encourage one person outside of your team to offer feedback before you publish
This is a great opportunity to get the photographers with the writers and create some give and take to present the best possible version of your product to customers. The writers may ask for a specific alt photo and the photographers may ask that the writer call out a unique feature.
8. Link back to your products (and their wonderful product descriptions) in your company’s blog posts
Your products can stand on their own but a boost never hurts. Use the company blog posts to generate interest for new items or to make a Best of Seasonal Items list. Link back to your products and check the analytics to see which of your items are selling through the posts versus organic search.
Competition in the e-commerce industry is heavy and you have the tools you need to succeed. Your website is the new storefront and your product descriptions are your salespeople. Enlist your salespeople to do the heavy lifting of your products and you will see sales increase.
Have any more tips for improving product descriptions? Tell us below or tweet us.