Ecommerce Tip #3: Product Descriptions

If your product images are the bait then your product descriptions (product copy) are the hook. Product copy is often one of the most neglected aspects of an ecommerce store. Lets face it, it’s not fun (for most of us), it’s quite laborious especially of you have a significant amount of products and for those of us who did not graduate as an English major it can be a really daunting experience to not only write product descriptions but to do them in such as way to improve you conversion rate.

What To Do?

Well, if you happen to be gifted and know how to write awesome product copy that creates additional buzz and increases your conversion rate, good for you! For the rest of us who struggle with this task here are my secrets to producing product copy that is good enough that it won’t negatively affect your conversion rate:-

• Create a standard template for all your products and USE it for all your product copy.
• Generally I keep my product copy to 1-2 paragraphs with short sentences detailing why someone would want to buy the product and trying to answer any questions a potential customer might have straight away.
• Beneath this I usually include a dot point (not numbered) listing of key features in very short sentences.
• I will then usually have some more technical information below this (compatibility, version numbering etc). Again very short sentences.
• If required I might then link to an extended product description maybe at the manufacturers site or make available a link to a PDF download of further documentation.
• The whole product copy is built in such away that someone can quickly scan over it and pick up the key information that helps them remove any doubt about the products suitability for them.
• Remember that by the time someone starts to look at your product copy that have already made a conscious or maybe sub conscious decision that your product appeals to them and it is the product copy’s role to now provide reassurance and confirmation that this is the right product for them.

That Old Chestnut, SEO

There are a number of other factors that need to be considered when preparing your product copy including search engine optimisation and the effect it will have on the ranking of your site especially for keywords and customer enquiries.

Now, I’m a firm believer in hand crafting your product copy so that it reads as if you are speaking about your product naturally and not like you’ve spent half a day using keyword generators and padding your copy with keywords at whatever the SEO experts believe is the optimum keyword density. Write your copy as you would naturally talk and the SEO will take care of itself.

Listen To Feedback

One of the easiest ways to improve your product copy is to listen to your customer feedback, especially customer enquiries. If you consistently receive requests for additional information or clarification on a product change the copy to answer those questions. You can be confident that if some people are actually taking the time to ask these questions that there is probably a lot more people who are just leaving you site with their questions unanswered. Ultimately you should aim to achieve as little product enquiry questions as possible because your copy is so carefully crafted that it answers any questions your visitors have.

When you decide upon your product copy template, implement it and begin monitoring it’s affect on your conversion rate.