When you begin a product-based business, the last thing you’re thinking about is writing product descriptions on your website. You might think your products will speak for themselves—they’re the best quality you could find, and you’ve poured your heart and soul into them. Of course, people will love your products and want to purchase!
All of that may be true, but there’s one thing left to consider. Your customers need to be able to find your products! So, you must optimize product descriptions to satisfy the search engines, like king Google. However, before you go stuffing keyword after keyword into a two-hundred-word description, remember that above anything else is the user’s experience.
Writing a perfectly optimized product description involves a seamless marriage between SEO friendliness and user-friendliness. Below are the things all great product descriptions entail.
Write SEO Product Descriptions in 7 Easy Steps:
- Describe
- Get specific
- Be concise
- Inform
- Make it unique
- Use keywords
- Don’t exaggerate
Describe the Key Features in Detail
Consider the perspective of your customer. When shopping online, you have hundreds of options to choose from for any given product. As the merchant, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you fail to highlight the qualities that make your product the best.
Online shoppers generally scan product descriptions, so using a bulleted list is a great way to grab the reader’s attention and quickly point out the information they need to know.
Understand Your Product’s Features
To properly convey your products’ details in a passionate and believable way, you must first have a thorough understanding of your products. For example, if you sell graphic t-shirts, you must know what 100% ring-spun cotton means.
Gaining product knowledge might require some behind-the-scenes research. It is possible you need to dig in and:
- Define the purpose of your product or specific techniques used when designing your product
- Demo or use your product before writing about it
- Evaluate what makes your product stand apart
- Ask the manufacturer for technical specifications
Once you understand your products, you’ll be able to write for your customer in layman’s terms and whittle down to the information that is important to them.
Get Specific About Your Ideal Customer
To write a fantastic product description, you must stop trying to write for everyone. Instead, get extremely specific about your ideal customer. Who is she? What does she like? What kind of shows does she watch, and what kind of sense of humor does she have?
Only once you’ve narrowed down who you’re writing for can you produce brilliant product description copy for your customers. It can be helpful to create a buyer persona and refer to it each time you write a product description.
Buyer personas are a representation of your ideal customer based on research and data. The more time and attention you put into developing your buyer’s persona, the better you can appeal to them with your product descriptions.
Use Concise Language
Avoid trying to show off your expansive vocabulary in your product descriptions. When customers are online shopping, they’re hardly looking to read copy that makes them think and wonder. On the contrary, online shoppers are looking for quick, concise language that gives them all the information they need as quickly as possible.
Cut through the fluff and get straight to the point.
Write to Inform
Search engines are combing through thousands of websites for descriptive language. While you might convince a person or two that your product is “best-selling,” you also might turn off the search engines and hurt your rankings.
Instead, focus on describing the features of your product in detail. In this way, you can provide meaningful content that teaches your customers why your product is the best instead of just simply telling them such.
Each Product Description Needs to be Unique
Even if you’re writing about two graphic tees in different colors, the description should be unique if they have their own product page. The uniqueness of the product pages is a critical element to the SEO of your website.
Unique product descriptions can be a challenge if many of your products are similar. It can be helpful to create a general content structure, like:
- Core features of your product
- Bulleted list of highlights
- Write about product usage or capabilities
Remember, you are writing first and foremost for a human being.
Strategically Use Keywords
Avoid keyword stuffing or the use of keywords in an unnatural way. Instead, focus on using a naturally flowing keyword just once or twice. Try adding a keyword to a headline, subheading, or image description.
Within your product description, try using Latent Semantic Indexing keywords or LSI keywords. LSI keywords are words that are semantically or logically related to your main keywords and phrases. For example, if you sell “tee shirts,” some LSI keywords to consider are:
- Graphic tees
- T-shirts
- Shirts
Avoid Exaggeration
Online shoppers can sniff out over-exaggeration and lies like no other, and many consumers do considerable research before they land on the product that they will ultimately purchase.
Avoid announcing yourself as an industry leader if you’re new to the business. Refrain from claiming to be the best quality or the best in town if you have no evidence to support these claims. Instead, be honest. If you’re new, own that fact and convey an eagerness to prove yourself. If you’ve had customer complaints regarding the quality of your products, definitely avoid saying you’re the best.
As you can see, writing a perfectly optimized product description involves multiple factors for consideration. You need to consider factors that search engine algorithms use to create their rankings, but you must remember you’re writing for a real person above all.
Gain in-depth, thorough product understanding, narrow down who your ideal customer is, and write for her. Include details about key features and make each product description unique and honest. Using these tips, you are well on your way to creating excellent product descriptions. Remember that SEO practices are always changing, so it never hurts to revisit older product descriptions and refresh them as you gain confidence in your optimized product description copy abilities.