How to Write Awesome E-Commerce Product Descriptions That Increase Sales

1. HOW TO WRITE AWESOME E-COMMERCE PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS THAT INCREASE SALES By Anupam Rajey Awesome E-Commerce Product Descriptions Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. As an E-commerce business owner what is it that you want your site visitors to do? Obviously…. to make the purchase! But it isn’t that simple. There is the entire process that the customer undergoes right from researching, browsing products on your site, decision to finally making the purchase. Understanding this customer journey is the key to understanding the fickle-minded and ever-demanding customers of today. Once you understand your customer and their journey down the sales funnel, you can then optimize the journey thereby conveying the right message at the right time. Having said that, let us first understand how to optimize the customer’s journey so as to convince them to go through to the final stage i.e making the purchase. What is one element on your product page of your E-commerce store that drives the customer to finally click on the “Proceed to Checkout” or “Pay Now” button? Website Design? Not really…well they attract the customer to explore the products but it’s not enough to hold them for long. Great UI/UX? Hmmm….They surely help retain the customer on the site long enough to maybe finally make the purchase. But do UI/UX alone have the power to make the customer take the customer through to the sales process?? Not quite. Proper Images? Attractive Prices? Maybe! While all the above elements on the e-commerce site help the customer decide they do not have the power to move the customer to buy. What is it then that finally convinces the customer to go ahead and buy the product? UX UI DESIGN

2. PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS Now I know, you’re probably thinking, do words have the power to sell? Surprisingly, they do! But if I am looking for a simple cotton T-Shirt, what additional words would I possibly need to finally decide to purchase it? Yeah…I know not all products require additional descriptions and we’ll talk more about the description for a cotton T-Shirt later in the following sections. But what if you’re looking for more complex products like smartphone, a digital watch or maybe a laptop? Images alone will not be able to convey all its features. You would need a detailed description that describes all its features and benefits so that the customer is convinced enough about the product to go ahead and buy it. Product Descriptions are an important aspect of an eCommerce store when it comes to conversions. Product description writing is a hard task. A good description isn’t just about describing the features of your product in a good language. There is more to a good description than just that. A strong product description not only conveys the features and benefits of the product but also makes the customer want it. Mentioned below are some of the points that must be borne in mind while writing a strong product description: 1.Know Your Buyer Know Your Buyer Buyer Know Your Before you go on to write about your product and its features, it is important to know the person or people buying it. Who are those people Are they male or female? What do they do? Are they students, working professionals or stay-at-home mothers? Their lifestyle, income levels etc You should have answers to all of the above questions while writing a good product description. For instance if you are selling cotton T-shirts, an athlete or a runner will have different reasons for buying it from a stay-at-home mother. An athlete would want Cotton T-Shirts because they are lightweight, feel soft on the skin and keep them cool especially during summers suitable for wearing for long runs, hikes etc. Team it up with favorite track pants and they have the perfect attire for marathons or hikes. On the other hand, a stay-at-home mother would want to buy it for everyday wear at home. Something to keep her cool, comfortable and relaxed the entire day! She simply needs to match it with her favorite PJs! Well…you get the picture! It is important to understand their personality, their needs, usage etc. A good product description should have answers to all these questions.

3. 2. Benefits your products offer While writing product descriptions people often get carried away with the descriptions and features of the product. Well, the fact is that your customers are simply not interested in mundane features. Instead, what they are looking for is that what benefit is in it for them. Have answers to questions like why would people want your product? What benefits it offers. For instance, if you selling a moisturizing gel-cream, a simple product description would read something like:- Made out of Aloe Vera gel derived fresh from the plant. Pure herbal product with no added chemicals contains sea water which is loaded with minerals. The description is simple, easy to read and does a fairly decent job of explaining the features. Now take a look at the description below:- This Aloe Vera gel-based cream could be just what your skin needs to stay hydrated during these dry winter months. Keeps your skin soft and supple while the sea water content prevents excess sebum secretion thereby clearing acne and breakouts. Which one sounds more convincing? Second one…why? Because the second description not just explains all the features but also incorporates the benefits that it offers to the customers. Get the difference? 3. Pay attention to the Tone The tone that you use in your product description is important. That is how you sound to the customer’s ears. Keep your tone direct and personal. Speak to your customer without losing your brand identity. Pay attention that the tone is consistent with the tone of your brand all the time. After all, a product description is nothing but a marketing copy that explains why the product is worth buying. The only purpose of a product description is to SELL! 4. Keep it short and crisp Nobody has time to read descriptions that are1000s of words long. In fact, studies show that people prefer shorter sentences and paragraphs as it is easier for them to comprehend and capture in their minds. The attention span of the online visitors is very short usually few seconds. Therefore effectively speaking, your words have only that much time to catch the attention of the reader. Avoid the use of unnecessary jargons and use power words that have the potential to appeal to the minds of the consumer. Not to mention that most online audiences consume content today on a mobile device. Long descriptions take up a lot of space on the small screen and require the reader to scroll further down to read the entire thing. That is not something you want as the reader might just scroll past the rest of the description. 5. Include Social Proof According to Inc. nearly 84% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust their own friends. Word of mouth can work wonders. People care about what other people have to say about your product or brand. It increases the confidence of buyers in your brand. Human beings are a social animal. They consider reviews as a part of their pre-purchase research and set great store by what others believe, what people think, believe, accept etc. Therefore social proofs have become an important ingredient for e-commerce product descriptions. Social proofs include the following • Endorsements • Influencer testimonials • User testimonials

4. • Reviews & Ratings • Awards and Key Mentions by authority bodies. 6. SEO Let’s just assume that you have a great website, great products, images etc but what next? Well…SEO i.e Search Engine Optimization. A great e-commerce website with great products is simply nothing if people don’t find out about it, click on it and visit the website. You need to make your site searchable so that it appears amongst the top five search results. Higher is the website’s ranking in search results, greater will be the clicks and eventually conversions. ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION PAGE SPEED ALT TAGS KEYWORD RESEARCH AUTHORITY LINKS SEO CONTENT CTR These are the following aspects of SEO that need attention:- Ø Use of proper keywords – Optimize the page titles, headings, product titles and descriptions with proper well-researched keywords that people use to look for your product/category online. Ø Image Optimization – Optimize images with well-defined file names and image alt tags so as to make your images searchable too. Ø Site structure and navigation – A well-defined site structure and easy navigation makes it easy for the search engine bots to access the inner pages of your website. Ø Internal linking – Presence of internal links on the pages signals the crawlers that page being linked to is also relevant and important and therefore will be easily indexed by the search engines. Ø Mobile version optimization – Now this one is a given! These days most people are online on mobile devices and therefore do most of the browsing, reading etc on mobiles or tablets. Therefore it is important that the website must be optimized for other devices too so users can access the full site on any devices without any hiccups. Ø Page loading speed – Another important factor. Online visitors don’t have patience. If your site takes too long to open or the images don’t open up properly they will simply exit. It is important to check the website loading speed on a regular basis and fix any errors beforehand. Sure enough, it is not an overnight thing. Rather it’s an overtime thing. Do it consistently and you will begin to see results.

5. 7. Readability Writing copies for the web is different from writing copies for the print. Nobody reads paragraphs on the web. Instead, they just scan the information with their eyes. So the key here is to keep the text to a minimum and the language simple. Showing off your literary skills won’t really help here. The idea is to use short sentences in short paragraphs which people can read and understand simply by skimming through. Just keep in mind these simple rules for easy readability:- • Use proper headlines with keywords to capture reader’s attention. • Use bullet points wherever possible • Keep plenty of white space on your product page. It is visually more appealing. Filling it with texts and too many images makes it look cluttered. • Use proper fonts to enhance readability and visibility. 8. Use Power Words and Phrases These are words that have the power to move customers by evoking some reactions/emotions/feeling in them. These could be anything – the joy of saving money, a sense of adventure, nostalgia, sense of security etc. Certain Power Words that have been identified to evoke responses in people and eventually help sales include:- • Discover • Free • Guarantee • Safety • Unique • Successful 9. Don’t Sound Promotional Now you’re probably confused that if the sole purpose of a product description is to sell, then why should you avoid being promotional?? Well…because people don’t like being sold to. The moment you make your product description overtly promotional, it loses its authenticity. Instead, make the description such that it educates the reader about that particular product and their benefits. Tell a story, use user testimonials to tell people about others (use names) who benefited from using the product. This will make it not only interesting to hear but will also help educate the reader how that particular product is useful for them which is primarily what they want to know before buying the product. 10. Avoid Cliché words and Phrases Words like best quality, excellent product etc do not do any good. After all, no manufacturer will say that their product is poor quality and customers know that. They don’t pay any heed to such words and phrases and simply ignore them. Rather than saying that your product is the best quality explain with the help of its benefits and features that why the product is good for them. Leave the rest to them. Don’t force your judgment down their throat or you’ll end up losing your customer! Simply hire any Ecommerce Virtual Assistant from us for product description writing services and give your business the growth it deserves. We offer tailor-made solutions to your eCommerce business from product data entry, to catalog processing to back office support; we are a one-stop shop for all your e-commerce needs.