If you’ve ever shopped online, you’ve likely seen plenty of great product descriptions and, inevitably, quite a few terrible ones.
Maybe some spoke to you, and maybe some turned you off from a purchase completely, but in a marketplace driven by ecommerce – in the U.S. alone, online shopping represents nearly 8% of total sales – what marketers have to say about a product can hold great influence over a site’s success or failure. Skilled product description writers know their copy directly impacts both conversion rates and a site’s SEO which are both critical.
1. Paint a Mental Picture
In a brick and mortar store, you can hold a product, feel the material between your fingers, and evaluate fit, size, color, and appearance in person.
In an ecommerce setting, on the other hand, product images and descriptions are the only resources shoppers have to make a purchase decision, so a poorly written description isn’t doing anyone any favors.
A good product description exists to paint a mental picture, creating the experience of seeing, feeling, and assessing an object first hand.
Through the use of evocative, illustrative language and tools like buyer personas, marketers can create a written representation of the personal experience online shopping lacks.
2. Build an Emotional Connection
Use of descriptive language is only part of the equation, however. The other half involves creating an emotional connection, inspiring need or want in a consumer.
Describing a little black dress isn’t enough; marketers need to take things one step further, providing a potential buyer with a linguistic adventure detailing what kind of feelings such a dress may offer.
A dress by itself isn’t necessarily exciting, but imaging the experience of attending a glamorous event in the aforementioned dress, for example, can be the missing piece of the puzzle a shopper needs to click “Add to Cart.”
Psychology tells us that emotional connections are paramount in influencing buyer decisions, making an ability to connect with shoppers is an extremely important tool in content marketing.
3. Provide SEO Benefits
You may be able to craft the best possible product descriptions on earth, but if no one can find your site online, shoppers will still pass you by.
Superb product descriptions can provide SEO benefits in addition to drawing in consumers, elevating your site in the SERPs in order to draw customer attention.
In order to reap the SEO benefits of your product descriptions, fresh, original, and high quality content with an emphasis on the right keywords content is a must.
Duplicate content and keyword stuffing can only hurt you, so playing by Google’s rules while still crafting compelling, creative content can help you create product descriptions that hit the mark every time.
Are your product descriptions worthy of an A+, or are you still struggling to nail a 4.0?
Tell me in the comments what you do to write product descriptions that wow!
