How to Write a Compelling Product Description

What is a product description?

Product descriptions provide a general overview of an item, its features, benefits and use cases. Typically used on ecommerce websites, product descriptions are also found in manufacturer catalogs, social media platforms and other marketing materials. 

These descriptions are traditionally accompanied by a list of specifications and an image of the product, or in some cases even a product video. Product descriptions often occupy the most prominent real estate on the product page, putting them front and center as the salesperson for your company online. 

In the saturated ecommerce market, product descriptions can often be overlooked by marketing teams. As they are required to create and upload product listings in their thousands, teams often only provide a one or two sentence description that isn’t given the care or attention it requires. In some cases, marketers will simply upload the same description across a huge range of products just to ensure the product listing goes live on time.

H2: Why are product descriptions important?

The goal of a product description is to provide a potential customer with an overview of the product, preemptively answering any questions and addressing any doubts they may have. This ultimately lends to an improved shopping experience for the customer, better informing their buying decision and ideally driving more sales for the business. 

Product descriptions aren’t just important for the pre-purchase stage of the customer journey. They can also include relevant information for product after-care and usage, empowering the customer to take appropriate care of their product and lengthening its life. In turn, this offers an ecological benefit.

H2: What to include in a product description

While it depends largely on the type of product, the industry your ecommerce business operates in and the platform or marketplace you’re listing your catalogs on, there are a few regular attributes to include in a product description.

H3: Details and features

The bread-and-butter of any product description are the details and features of the product. This is typically the most important information that the customer wants to know and will either serve to confirm the item meets their needs, or highlight added incentives to drive the purchasing decision. 

Product description example: Coffee Machine

“This coffee machine can create a range of coffees and hot drinks in five cup sizes. The machine can also be connected to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to regularly update software.”

H3: Technical specifications

Alongside a well-written, engaging and informative description of your product, you will also need to display a concise list or table of the technical specifications of your product. This can incorporate anything from weight, dimensions, ingredients, electrical compatibility and many other attributes, depending on the type of product and industry. This is also the stage of the product description where any relevant regulatory information or legal certification can be included to offer reassurance and security to the customer

These are also important as if there are more than one version of the item (sizes, colors etc), then the technical specifications allow you to provide the information regarding the specific item to the customer.

Product description example:: Games Console

The console has a system memory of 16GB, with a 448GB/s bandwidth.”

H3: Product uses and suitability

The driving force behind the majority of ecommerce purchases is the issue the customer is facing and the solution that the product provides. That’s why highlighting this clearly in your product description can be the difference between a conversion and a bounce. 

Depending on the product, there may be a number of use cases as well, which means the potential customers of the product listing are browsing for a number of different reasons. Listing the use cases and illustrating the products relevance to helping the customer can make a huge difference. 

Product description example:: Window Cleaning Spray

“This spray is suitable for use on windows, mirrors, tiles, shower screens and other glass surfaces inside your home, as well as on car windows.”

H3: How the product was made and materials used

In industries such as fashion, beauty, electronics and more, information regarding the manufacturing process of individual products is now of concern to the consumer.  

Details of the process and materials used in the manufacturing of the product can inform your customer of the quality of the product. Hand-made products tend to be associated with more care and attention having gone into the production, while knowing the country of origin is also a way of ensuring the item’s authenticity. 

Information regarding the manufacturing process also offers insight into the sustainability of the product and the manufacturer.

Product description example: Extra Virgin Olive Oil

“This oil is made from 100% Koroneiki olives, hand-picked in Greece.”

H3: Sustainability details

As the focus grows on both businesses and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint and evaluate the sustainability of their actions, product descriptions can provide crucial information to better inform a buying decision. 

Including information regarding whether recyclable materials were used and the carbon output of the manufacturing process helps to provide a transparent overview of your ecommerce products. In addition, any environmental or ecological accreditation that your products possess can be used to boost the profile and assure your customers of your sustainability

Product description example: Shampoo and conditioner

“This dual shampoo and conditioner is recognized cruelty free by PETA and is available in an eco plastic-free bottle. Refillable and recyclable, the bottle is made to be reused over and over again.”

H2: How to write a product description 

The key to writing a good product description isn’t just in the contents, but also in the tone in which you engage with the reader and how you nurture the buying decision. As well as offering an overview, you need to be creating copy that addresses the ideal customer profile of the product. 

Through your writing, try to raise and answer questions that your ideal customer might have.  A good description should address the challenges or pain points that the ideal customer typically has, then highlights the solution that the product offers.

The language you use can go a long way to striking an emotional chord with a potential customer. This again depends on the industry. A product description for an item of clothing would differ greatly than that of a cleaning product, for example. For clothing, language needs to pertain to the style of the item (sleek, rough-cut, slim fit etc), whereas a description for a cleaning product would need to focus on the effect the product has (eliminates dirt, destroys germs etc).

As well as lining up your language with the product’s characteristics and benefits, it’s also essential to retain brand consistency throughout. A more authoritative, traditional brand might opt for a refined writing style, while a newer, disruptive brand could have license to be more casual in their words. No doubt you’ll be aware of your brand identity and tone of voice, however if selling items from another brand, it’s important to retain a similar tone of voice for the product as the manufacturer provides.

H2: How to manage your product descriptions with PIM

Now that we’ve covered how to create the perfect product description for your ecommerce website, you might be concerned over how to deliver these across all of your product catalogs. 

That’s where a PIM system comes in. This tool streamlines and automates your product information management processes. You can upload your product catalogs in bulk, converting thousands of spreadsheets to one centralized product database. From here, content can be analyzed to identify gaps or data of poor quality. This makes optimizing and enriching your product descriptions a quick and easy process. 

Once you’re happy with your product catalogs, you can synchronize your products across all of your selling platforms and marketplaces, eliminating the need to manually upload products in multiple locations. Any changes you make to your product catalogs are updated in real time across your channels. This automation frees up your marketing teams to focus on other products, and ensures product descriptions of the highest quality are delivered. 

Conclusion 

Product descriptions have the ability to not drive more sales, but improve the customer experience and even reduce your returns rate by better informing the buying decision. 

As one of the most significant influences in a customer’s buying process, product descriptions are a missed opportunity for many due to the time and resource constraints they place upon marketing teams. But when it comes to enriching the quality of your product data, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Better information is at the heart of a PIM, with the tools provided to centralize, optimize, synchronize and automate your product descriptions. This allows you to transform your product data to provide a better shopping experience and drive more sales, saving your marketing team thousands of hours every year. 

H2: Product description FAQs

H3: How long should product descriptions be?

There is no set word limit for a product description, as the amount of information required depends hugely on the type of product, its use cases and also its legal requirements and industry regulations.

As a general rule your product description should be as long as it takes to include all relevant information in an engaging manner, with full sentences over a copy-and-pasted list of product features. These short lists can be included on your product page, but for better customer satisfaction and search engine optimization (SEO), it’s best practice to expand your features into a description that engages and educates the reader.

Having said that, a product description shouldn’t be longer than it needs to be just for content’s sake. Both the user and the search engine can recognize when a retailer is repetitive and spammy in their content and it serves only to alienate the reader and put your page at risk of falling further down the search rankings.

H3: Can I copy and paste the same product description to similar products?

As previously mentioned, SEO is a key ingredient when crafting a successful product description. Search engines favor content that is original and offers a comprehensive view of the specific product. With this in mind, simply copying and pasting the same product description for the items in your catalog, no matter how similar they may be, isn’t conducive to a successful organic search strategy

While duplicate content doesn’t incur a penalty from Google or other search engines, your content will be viewed as less informative and authoritative as a result. This will, in turn, harm your rankings and bypass the opportunity to improve your search result visibility. 

As such, a good rule of thumb is to create a unique product description for every single one of your products. This of course can be time consuming, however there are ways to increase the efficiency of your product uploads and content syndication via a PIM.