Online shopping has become a highly competitive market ever since COVID-19 disrupted our daily lives. According to 99 Firms, over 85% of millennials in the US now shop online, with 52% of customers shopping online more since the pandemic started. Interestingly, 53% agree they will continue to do so even after the global crisis is finished.
For businesses, this means that investing in eCommerce development today can pay off in spades in only a few short months. In this sense, eCommerce product descriptions are some of the most important pieces of content you could write and optimize to boost sales. Let’s discuss product descriptions and how you can write them to engage more people online and subsequently sell more products in 2022.
1. Outline your Ideal Customer
Oftentimes businesses approach writing product descriptions without a clear target audience in mind. For example, if you sell handmade jewelry online, your target audience will likely consist of a predominantly female demographic. With that, it should be clear whom your product descriptions should address. Some of the information you should define before delving deeper into writing product descriptions includes:
Age
Gender
Education
Familial situation
Lifestyle and hobby choices
(Optionally) Country of residence and spoken languages
Defining these data points early on will allow you to address the exact types of customers you want to sell to. This will help you avoid generalization in your product descriptions and allow for personalization in your writing.
2. Emphasize your Products’ Benefits over Technical Features
No matter if you sell electronics, kitchen appliances, or smartphones, people will be more interested in their benefits than their raw features. What does that specific device do for someone to make their lives easier? Listing a product’s benefits before technical details is an extremely smart move when it comes to generating sales.
You will close more sales than you would if you started your product descriptions with details such as dimensions, weight, or model number. Those elements can be placed at the end of the description where people can read them once they’ve come closer to making a purchase decision.
3. Find the Right Keywords to Integrate into your Product Descriptions
With so much digital content being presented to us on a daily, you can’t fault your customers for a having short attention span. You don’t want to dissuade people from buying your products because you write product descriptions that are too long to go through. One way to mitigate that is to use the right keywords in your product descriptions optimization before putting the texts online. For example, for those selling kitchen appliances, keywords like “dishwasher,” “blender,” or “food processor” can attract interested buyers. For those struggling to write their college paper, integrating the keyword “write my college paper“ will work like a charm.
Tools such as Google AdWords and SEM Rush are invaluable in this area, as they will inform you of which keywords and phrases to use. This will not only improve your store’s online search ranking, but also make it far easier for people to read through each product description. Once a person spots the keywords they were looking for, they’ll be very close to buying that product outright.
4. Include Alt-Tags and Transcripts for your Multimedia Content
Lastly, the visuals you attach to each product description will play an important role in persuading people to buy your products. Even if your images and videos are of very high quality, some people will have a difficult time seeing them as intended. Some customers will have poor internet connections or choose to browse the web in text-only format. Others will have sight impairments and have no way of actually experiencing your multimedia content.
Alt-text tags and transcripts can help tremendously in this case. Write detailed descriptions for each image you publish on your eCommerce platform. For videos, you can write captions and provide people with transcripts of each video you post. This will be seen as a plus in your favor both with SEO algorithms and customers who will appreciate your efforts to meet their needs.
5. Carefully Proofread and Format your Product Descriptions
Once you’ve written your product descriptions and are satisfied with how much you’ve said about a certain product, you should also spellcheck your writing. Publishing product descriptions that lack a distinct tone of voice and writing style is not a good idea in eCommerce.
This goes double if you target young audiences such as teens and college students who spend time doing paper writing. Students who work on a research paper all day will likely want to buy essay papers online to submit a writing assignment successfully. These types of customers will quickly spot mistakes in your product descriptions and look for similar products to buy elsewhere.
Read through your descriptions carefully, format them into succinct paragraphs, and use bullet points, bolds, and italics to make the text even more legible. This is essential if you want to also attract mobile customers who have no time or patience to read the long-form text before buying a product.
Additionally, you should check product descriptions for poor wording that is unclear, boring, and difficult to read. In this case, you can pass your writing through an online paraphraser to turn it into a compelling and clear one. Furthermore, the tool will make your product description free of plagiarism.
Perks of Writing Good Product Descriptions
Now that we’ve reviewed how you can write better product descriptions to boost sales, let’s discuss some other benefits of doing so. While your sales are an essential part of managing your business, they are not the only perk you can look forward to. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, eCommerce is expected to account for more than 95% of all purchases by 2040. More than 2.14 billion people globally are expected to shop online by the end of 2021.
Businesses that adopt eCommerce fully today will reap the rewards of doing so in the coming years. You can expect your business to grow at a rapid pace following your investment into writing better product descriptions. Moreover, here are the perks that will most likely manifest for your business moving forward:
Improved online visibility for your store (SEO and SERP)
Give customers enough information to make proper purchase decisions
Build trust and credibility for your brand with both B2C and B2B leads
Positive word of mouth surrounding your brand on social media
Increased return on marketing investment compared to paid advertisement
Wrapping Up (Conclusion)
Whether your online store is in its infancy or if you operate a small arts and crafts storefront, writing good product descriptions is very important. Properly written product descriptions will help you attract the right customers more easily, improve your website’s search engine ranking, and even boost your sales with targeted promotions using Shopify discount apps.
Likewise, it will be much easier for you to index your products and organize them into distinct categories for shoppers to browse through. Take your time and write product descriptions for each item as cohesively as possible. Pair your writing with exemplary photos of said items and let the customers do the rest.
Image source: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/business-theme-internet-online-shopping-delivery-concept_1211500.htm
Author’s bio. Jessica Fender is a copywriter and blogger at Trustessaywritings with a background in marketing and sales. She enjoys sharing her experience with like-minded professionals who aim to provide customers with high-quality services.