A great product description is written for one ideal buyer, in your own tone of voice, and it turns the product's features into benefits for that buyer. It backs up every claim, is easy to scan, and is checked for mistakes before it goes online. These 10 tips show you how to write one.
Selling online is easy. Marketplaces such as eBay and Etsy and simple shop software let anyone open a shop. You do not need to be a big company with a warehouse the size of Amazon's to sell your products online. As a private person, you can sell things you made yourself or things you no longer need. As a small local shop, you can reach a much wider audience.
But opening an account or setting up a small online shop is not everything. An attractive landing page and good search engine optimization (SEO) matter, of course. What is overlooked far too often is that a remarkable product description persuades customers and turns visitors into buyers.
Why a good product description is crucial
The product page is the last thing customers see before they either leave the shop or put the product in their shopping cart. Next to an attractive picture of the product, the page shows the product description. Because it is the last thing a customer reads before the purchase, it plays a big role in persuading them to buy.
Product descriptions are often generic. They come from the manufacturer, or someone wrote them who has no experience in writing to sell. Such descriptions are bland, boring, full of technical details, and unattractive. And if you care about SEO, the text you got from your supplier is a problem: the same words appear in many other shops, so search engines have no reason to prefer your page.
You do not have to be a marketing expert to write a good product description, though. If you like words and care about your product, these tips will get you there.
Before you start writing
Before you write your product description, think a few things through. Look at your product, in real life or in your mind, and consider the following.
1. The ideal buyer
Every shop and every product has a target group, and so an ideal buyer. Your product description should reflect that. If you write for no buyer in particular, or for a huge crowd of very different buyers, the description will have neither rhyme nor reason.
Instead, picture the ideal buyer for the product and write the description for him or her. Choose the right words and tone for them, and answer the questions they are most likely to ask. Address the problems they may have, and avoid words or phrases they would dislike.
The easiest way is to imagine talking to your ideal customer, then put the way you speak and what you say into your written description.
If you are unsure who the target audience of your product is, talk to the person responsible for marketing. Details such as age group, interests, and the needs that bring people to the product help you imagine your ideal buyer.
2. Find your tone of voice
Your tone of voice is your company's character put into speech, or in this case into writing. Using your own tone of voice in your product descriptions does several things at once: it speaks to your target audience in their own language, sets you apart from the competition, and makes your company easy to recognize.
First-time buyers also get the right impression of your company's culture and personality straight away. Are you fun? Dry? Serious? Easy-going? Show it in your product description, so that people can relate to your brand and the product.
However, do not say directly how fun or competent you are. Let the content and your tone do that for you. Instead of stating that your service is excellent, show it with a friendly, approachable tone and understanding words.
To find your company's tone, think of five adjectives that best describe your culture and philosophy. Also write down what you are definitely not, for example rude, cold, or vague. For more on this, see using different tones in writing.
3. Features and benefits
Before you start the text, work out what to write about. First, you need a list of the product's features. A bullet list of the technical details of your product or app helps you answer your customers' questions.
Then ask yourself: How does your product improve the customer's life? What problem does it solve? How does it make the customer feel? Does it make daily tasks easier?
With these questions in mind, you can turn your list of features into a list of benefits that customers will enjoy once they own your product. At the end of this step, you should have a list of the benefits a customer gets from your product and the problems it helps them avoid.
A list of benefits also makes it easier for customers to compare products. If your shop does not already let them view products side by side, help them by giving every description the same layout. That way, they can compare benefits and technical details much faster than if they had to pick the information out of different places in each text.
So make sure that important information that sets products apart is presented in the same way every time: material, dimensions, requirements, size, color, volume, and so on.
Writing the product description
With a picture of your ideal buyer in mind and your company's voice in your ear, you can finally start writing. Here is how to write a product description that persuades customers to buy.
4. Paint a picture
With the groundwork done, writing a first draft is easy. You know your voice, and you know what your product can do for the buyer. Rank your list of benefits so that they follow a logical, easy order.
Could a customer have any problems using your product? Address them too, and take away the customer's fears and doubts. If your product is on the expensive side, describe the value the customer gets for the price. Does it look difficult to use? Put the customer's mind at ease by explaining briefly how easy it really is.
Remember, this is your first draft. Whatever comes to mind goes into it: everything you want the customer to know about your product, all the benefits and solutions to problems, information about how to use it, and any reasons that justify the price. Just write, and do not worry too much about grammar, spelling, or style for now. That comes later.
For now, you simply want to get everything down and put it in a sensible order. One popular and appealing way to do this is to tell a story, for example how the product came about or how it fits into a customer's day.
5. Justify superlatives
Do you think your product is the best, the first, the most advanced, or the easiest to use? That may be true, but superlatives without an explanation sound empty and hard to believe. Back them up: list the benefits that make your product the best in its field, describe briefly how easy it is to use, or give other facts that show why it stands out.
If you cannot provide the facts that prove your product is the most advanced, do not say it. Tone down your copy and use strong words without a superlative.
6. SEO
For an online business, there is one more important thing to consider when you write a product description: search engine optimization. Search engines read your product page like any other page on the web, and the better your SEO, the higher the page can rank in the search results for your keywords.
So use your main keywords and key phrases in the headline and in the text, where they fit naturally. Images can carry keywords too, in the file name and in the alt text.
However, never sacrifice the readability of your text for SEO. SEO is important, but your customers always come first.
7. Less focus on dry facts and technical details
This article has said a lot about painting a picture and telling customers a story. But what about the cold, hard facts? You cannot always leave them out, especially when the information is important to your customers.
Many online shops solve this by not showing the technical details together with the description. The description is shown prominently, because it is what engages the customer. A link or tab named "Details" or "Technical specifications" keeps the dry facts out of the reader's first view.
Do not hide the link to the details too well, though. They are still an important part of your product page.
Review and edit
Now you have written down everything your product description needs to include. But the job is not quite done yet. Before you publish your product description or send it to print, it needs some fine-tuning.
Besides correcting grammar and spelling (the Spell Checker marks the mistakes in your text), this step makes sure that your product description is not only informative but also appealing and easy to read.
8. Engage your customers
Read your whole description and the list of benefits again, to make sure you have not forgotten anything you wanted to say. Then make sure the description engages your customers.
Your company's voice should already match your target audience, but also make sure that your language is easy to understand. Complicated, hard words annoy customers rather than win them over.
To engage your customers, use emotional language. You want to reach them on more than a purely informative level. Words that create feelings and sensory words are the way to go. Think of the human senses: where it makes sense, describe how the product feels, smells, or tastes.
But even with emotional language, do not waste your readers' time. Get to the point with a short story instead of filling pages with repetitive or empty phrases. Every sentence should give your readers something of value, without repeating what you already said. Avoid generic statements like "exceptional product quality" as well: they just make customers think, "Yes, they all say that." Give them facts instead. Facts make you more credible and build trust between you and your customers.
The product description is written for your customers, with your customers in mind. So keep the focus on the buyer and what they gain, not on your company. Use the word "you" more often than the brand or product name. Put yourself in your customers' shoes: would you buy the product? Do not stop until you know that your copy can persuade your customers to buy.
9. Readability
What good is a great, detailed product description if nobody reads it? Make your product description easy to scan and easy to read. A few simple formatting and styling tips make any text easier to read:
- Headlines and subheadings: they separate important sections and should be appealing, focusing on a benefit of the product or a problem it solves.
- Font size: large enough to read easily, for example 16 px for the text and larger for headings.
- Font color: use a different color for headlines, bullet points, and other highlights.
- White space: leave enough space between paragraphs, bullet points, and other elements.
Of course, this does not mean that you should leave out running text altogether. The mix is what loosens up a strict, boring layout and makes the text easier and more fun to read. In running text, keep your sentences short and simple. Images of your product, and of people using it, add visual appeal as well. If you have images or even a video, use them.
10. Customer reactions
Many online shops let customers rate products. Ratings have benefits and risks, but whatever you decide about them, you can use genuine positive feedback about a product in its description.
Has your product been featured on a website or in a magazine? Then mention it, ideally with a picture. Did customers praise it on social media? Then quote their post to show how much people like the product. Can your sales team show that a product sells especially well? Ask someone on the team for a statement about it.
Expressions like "best-selling", "press favorite", or "popular gift" show that the product is popular, as long as they are true. A name next to a quote from a positive review makes it more credible, and a photo of the person makes your company more approachable too. Always ask people first whether you may use their name, words, and photo.
For a longer text that sells, see how to write a killer sales page.