One of the biggest challenges that many eCommerce entrepreneurs face in creating product listing pages is writing the right product descriptions. A product listing page is essential because it has a significant contribution to the product’s saleability. This page should contain information deemed as vital about the product to provide Google the content that it needs to crawl your web page and to offer customers the information that they need. It should transition smoothly to your call- to-action button in order to persuade customers in clicking that “Add to Cart” button and complete a purchase.
Basically, the bottom line here is to convert traffic into paying customers. It’s not an easy task to do but the principle is as follows:
Know your target market
Writing product descriptions to appeal to a large buying audience is ineffective. This is because sounding too general is what you should not do as it will not speak directly to the audience that you want. To narrow down your market, you must determine your target audience. Once you’ve accomplished this, the next step is to come up with descriptions that will appeal to your audience in a more personal way. Make your argument realistic and relate it to the day-to-day life of people; it would also help a lot to add some humor to your piece.
On the other hand, if you can’t determine your target demographic, it’s best to review your sales history to know what kinds of customers are buying your products.
Make Your Descriptions Easy to Read
For the average internet users, well-written product descriptions are no different from the poorly written ones; if it’s too long, they either skip to the last part or just close the page. And, that’s what you want to minimize if not prevent from happening.
To encourage buyers to read your content, aside from making catchy headlines, create a divide between your ideas in your content and add short but concise subtitles for each point that you want to convey. It’s easier for your audience to pick up your content’s message and even if they are just doing a quick scan on it. Also, it’s easier to follow through as it can provide a visual space between the ideas, so your audience won’t get lost easier as they read, especially those who are quite dyslexic.
You can also do this by making easy-to-read bullet points that focus on the essential details of your product but make sure that you don’t overdo it. Bullet points should only be used for a brief and concise set of ideas and should be limited to just a little over five bullet points per set. Keep in mind that most visitors won’t read the entire description. Instead, they will scan for important and interesting information about the product. So, if you aggregate your ideas into a long winding set of bullet points, it’s going to be no different than a long and boring looking article.
Highlight the Benefits of Product Features
Buyers are not only interested in the features of a product but also its benefits. When writing descriptions, provide the relevance of the features to the day-to-day activities of the consumers. Make it as truthful as possible and convey the real-life benefits of the products, like how will it change the way they do things in their daily grind. Emphasize on the “how” not on the “what.”
Create a fun, friendly tone of voice and be consistent with it
Incorporating a friendly tone of voice into your product descriptions will engage the audience better. Harnessing a bland tone, on the other hand, makes for less persuasive product descriptions. Aside from the friendly tone, injecting humor or unconventional tone in your content will make it more appealing. Generic adjectives like “world-class”, “top-of-the-line”, etc., are already worn out expressions. Thus, consumers won’t easily buy into those claims easily (unless it’s backed by credible statistics and research). So, better cut back on those words and use more grounded claims instead. It’s also important that the tone should be consistent throughout your content. Keep in mind that consistency improves your branding efforts.
Provide proof when using superlatives
You will see many product listing pages on different e-commerce websites include superlatives just to tell buyers that their products are the best on the market. Providing consumers deceptive and unoriginal descriptions can affect your business, so it’s important to set the right expectations. If your product is one of the best on the market, then explain why this is the case. Otherwise, don’t make unrealistic claims. The safest way to make claims is to let your customers do it for you. Quote a satisfied customer instead to add more credibility to your brand.
Tease the readers’ senses
Writing product descriptions is like painting a picture in the consumers’ minds: you tell them through written words how your product works or feels when they use it. One way to accomplish this is by incorporating sensory words that help spark the buyers’ interest. For instance, if you want to describe chocolates, use words like “crunchy”, “smooth”, and “velvety”. Avoid using cliché and commonplace words like sweet which is far too common when describing such product. Instead, turn every feature into an enticing benefit with the use of more specific but positive sensory adjectives.
Edit your content to improve its persuasiveness
Editing your content not only means you are checking for spelling, punctuation, grammar, and other minor issues but also a way for you to be the reader of your own work. That way, you can have an objective overview of your written content, and you could gauge whether it’s appealing enough or not. Here’s how you can enhance the persuasiveness of your content.
1. Check the product’s list of features and benefits to make sure you haven’t missed any vital details.
2. Words like “we”, “us”, and “I” improve persuasiveness but if you want your content to be more reader-focused, make use of engaging words like “you” frequently.
3. If you want your product descriptions to be readable, replace highfalutin or difficult expressions with simple expressions. It’s not about the words that you use, it’s about how you use them.
4. When elaborating the features of a product, you should highlight one idea per go (sentence). Make sure to keep your ideas short, don’t use too much adjective, only use it when necessary.
5. One way to improve the credibility of your content is to provide specific ideas or description. If you are describing a product, say a mono bath filler, avoid using generic adjectives without backing it up with actual reasons why. Example, instead of saying “it’s a quality product” you can say “the product comes with a cool square design with polished edges.” That way, it will not sound cliché and will serve as an actual answer to the real question – why should I buythis product? In addition, when stating facts, it’s also good to include statistics to back up your claims, that is if such information is available.Product descriptions or contents, in general, are literally the building blocks of an eCommerce site. If you want your eCommerce business to strive not just in the Google’s algorithm but also in the eyes (literally) of your target audience, you need to start by ensuring the quality and persuasiveness of your written contents on your site. Not only will this help build your brand’s image but also be your channel in your conveying your message to the customers.
About the Author
Reymart Sarigumba is a content writer from iPrice Group. For more insights please visit iPrice Group Trends