One of the mistakes of most online retailers is copying-pasting manufacturer's or stock descriptions. 'Farmer Update Algorithm' scans product descriptions of online stores, and places penalty on duplicate contents, for descriptions lifted from manufacturer's or competitors. Why Google uses 'Farmer Update Algorithm'? For simple reason, unique, effective and result-driven product descriptions are jumping boards to increase store sales.
The product description sucks because you don't know how to tell the story. Probably, the commonly unnoticed mistake is the focus of the story. The product should not be the king of the description, but the customer. How can the product help the customer? The goal is to present the product in a way of giving importance to the customer. Product-centered descriptions leave customers thinking how they can use the product to solve their problems.
Another common mistake is using biz-blab. Biz-blab is exploiting the idea of creating excitement on the mind of the customer with words like “state-of-the-art” when customers don't benefit from these words. It bothers a customer to read lot of these biz-blabs without getting enough information about the product.
Take at look this description on Pro-1 rod. It is an example of a reliable and effective product description. Forget about the industry jargon, the description is simple, understandable even by those who don't have any vehicle knowledge. It also provide a 'how-to-use' section to convey the necessity of the product. It is straight to its point without the long narration of fancy talks.
How can you write effective and sales-pitch product descriptions to make people what you are selling?
What's your product?Knowing and not knowing the product means a lot. It is impossible to make accurate descriptions without getting in touch with the product itself. You should not expunge the example of friendship; you can describe one if you had an intimate relationship. That's it. You must have an intimate knowledge of what you are describing. It is good to assume that your customer does not know anything on the product or the industry.
What's your target market?The tone of the description, the way it is shaped and the angle which it communicates the product are essential factors to the purchase decision-making of consumers. You have to immerse yourself to the feelings, behavior and perception of your target audience, as a whole, and you need to carefully outline the need of the demographic segment of your market. For instance, if you are targeting automobile owners, you need to be straight with the technical specification of the product and not on the aesthetic value.
How to present descriptions?Well, granted you already know about your product or the market, how you are going to present it matters. Time is an essence here. Consumers don't have eternity to look at the product description. They would scan or skim product descriptions, and a messy one is likely to scare off potential consumers.
What's your target market?The tone of the description, the way it is shaped and the angle which it communicates the product are essential factors to the purchase decision-making of consumers. You have to immerse yourself to the feelings, behavior and perception of your target audience, as a whole, and you need to carefully outline the need of the demographic segment of your market. For instance, if you are targeting automobile owners, you need to be straight with the technical specification of the product and not on the aesthetic value.
How to present descriptions?Well, granted you already know about your product or the market, how you are going to present it matters. Time is an essence here. Consumers don't have eternity to look at the product description. They would scan or skim product descriptions, and a messy one is likely to scare off potential consumers.
Take notice of the description for an ignition coil. In a glance, you can roughly tell the description is quite complete, though it is certainly copied from the manufacturer's descriptions, but it is certainly not effective. A consumer would leave the page, look for another product, which will provide simpler and easy-to-read descriptions unlike the one below:
What's your description template?The unreasonable and undefined fears of online merchants on writing descriptions compel to resort to copying-pasting from stock descriptions. What is the problem? Online retailers think they need to write unique descriptions and vary templates to make descriptions appealing. Wrong! A description template can do wonders to help consumers get the necessary knowledge about the product. A consumer can roam around the online shop comfortably flipping on product descriptions faster because you presented descriptions in a similar template, providing easier comparison.
What to write?As you need to be straightforward, 100 to 150-word description is enough, but you can break the limit if necessary. Use action words to describe the product and appeal to the sense of the consumer, while focusing on a need of a person. Hitting the senses of the customer can help to increase results or sales. Personal pronouns like 'you' and 'your' increase customer engagement and maintain a casual tone of the store. Even if you will use keywords on the description, it must be conversational and smooth. Of course, you also need to appropriate adjectives to accurately outline the benefits, features and specifications of the product.
Take a look at this description from Camera World. The phrase “delivers phenomenal image quality, high performance, and fast, intuitive operation” gives full overview of the product. Words like “provides”, “ensures”, “delivers”, and many more are moving appeal to the sensibility of a person. The paragraph description offers analysis or review of the product and the listed features offer faster skimming or scanning.
How to add SEO?SEO adds color and marketing pitch to the product description. Adding highly-competitive title keyword tags, using keywords on meta descriptions, inserting URL to the description, and displaying social media buttons are some of the SEO considerations you can add on the product description. Of course, the product description, itself, must be SEO friendly because in any website content is still king. Provide quality and reliable contents, and you will hit sales properly. Use keyword research tool to evaluate the competition, reliability and strength of the keyword you will use for the SEO.
What additional tools can I use?There are people who hate to read texts, even a single paragraph. You can use videos to highlight features and benefits of products. A person conversationally talking to customers on the product description is more effective than texts. In the same manner, you can also use infographics to show the product description. What appeals to the eyes, appeals to the mind.
