Want to write product descriptions that sell? In this blog post, Alex shares insightful tips gained from years of experience working in the ecom space to help you persuade prospects to buy from you.

Having strong product descriptions that convince your customers to buy the items you’re offering is crucial for the growth of sales.

Many things can make a difference here: wording, tone, text length, SEO, visual representation, social proof, among others.

So what determines whether a product description is good or not? What are the tips and tricks for putting together those that work?

On this page, we’ll introduce you to the major points to keep in mind when writing your product descriptions.

Moreover, we’ll show you the descriptions of famous brands as examples. Yet before we jump right to the recommendations, it must be mentioned that in addition to creativity, there generally is a technical part too, therefore you might need the developers’ hand to tweak your eCommerce store, make use of Magento 2 consulting, or even optimize your product pages.

Address Your Target Audience

Having a clear understanding of who your readers are is the primary thing to focus on as you begin crafting your product descriptions.

If you know the standard “profile” of your buyers, then your chances of reaching out to them and persuading them to buy what you’re selling are higher.

Related post: 7 Proven Steps to Understand Your Target Audience

As such, it’s considered to be a proven methodology to use “you” as you address the recipients.

Unlike a broader unfocused description that simply lists an item’s characteristics, a “you” targeted text can create the effect of a dialogue between just the two of you (your shopper who is browsing the product at the moment and your brand).

This is the precise reason why the word choice that you use matters a lot. In some cases, using wordplay and various catchy comparisons and phrases works well.

Telling the story that’s behind the product and how it was created is another tactic to keep in mind.

Moreover, a common technique for catching the attention of a user is asking them questions. Either way, you must aim at being in sync with your audience. 

Similarly, if your audience knows a lot about the product that you’re selling, there’s no necessity in adding very long and extensive descriptions.

On the other hand, in case there are peculiarities in the use of the item and there are specific features that should be noted separately, then, of course, make sure to do that. Also, do your best to never copy-paste, that won’t do you good.

To give an example, this is a description of the Mermaid Tail Demi Dial Silver Boucle Mesh Watch on the official Olivia Burton website.

First of all, they use humor in the “Why Buy Me?” block, stating that the watch is “a mermaid in disguise”.

Secondly, the description itself addresses the reader with “you” and has not only the details of the item but also conveys feelings the buyer can have if they get the watch.

What’s the Product’s Value Point?

A highly important thing to have in a product description regards the value. If your product is better than other competing products in some way, wonderful, you can point that out.

But it’ll be even better if you highlight the value that your customer could receive if obtaining the item.

Some points here can revolve around solving a common issue that people encounter with similar things. It could be an emphasis on how the product is environmentally friendly. And the strong points of the item that can, for instance, save time, have benefits for health, their simplicity in use, among other things.

To illustrate the stated above, let’s take a look at the description of the VisionAiry Gel Lipstick on the official Shiseido website.

Apart from doing a great job with the visual side of displaying the item and offering to try it on virtually, the description highlights the “pros” of the lipstick. I.e., it includes information like “this breakthrough formula allows high levels of pigment to converge with water”, “color that stays put for six hours”, “a lipstick bullet that glides on to deliver bold, high-impact color in a single stroke”.

Make Sure to Have a Proper Layout

Any information that you provide regarding the product has to be properly placed on the page. This is vital for having a great user experience.

For this reason, it is wise to separate the description, details, usage tips, size guides, and any other information that you have in an organized way so that finding the needed information becomes intuitive.

This point also intertwines with the mobile version of your website. Since not everyone shops from their desktop computer, in an ideal scenario, you should make sure that all of your product details and description texts look well on screens of various sizes.

The bottom line here is that your fonts should be visible on a smartphone screen, and every element (pop-up, scroll, drop-list, etc) should be easy to use.

If not, then no matter how powerful your description is, it won’t work.

For a clearer picture, the screenshots below were taken from the official Puma website, both as seen from the desktop and a mobile device.

The shortened version of the description is first available next to the gallery. When clicking on the “Read more” button, it takes you to the section with a broader description that is conveniently placed separately from the product details. Plus, the text size and layout look properly on mobile as well.

Support Your Descriptions With Reviews

Another important feature not to miss is having proof of what you’ve told in your product description. And apart from statistics, research results, or any other data that you can use to back up the stated quality of your product or service, nothing works better than user feedback.

Placing sections with comments that were left by those who have used the item is a great step. This is needed for your shoppers to trust you as a provider and to find out more about the particular thing they’re thinking of purchasing.

Don’t know how to design a review page? 8 Customer Review Page Designs You May Want To Copy

One of the great things you can attempt to do to encourage your clients to write a review on the product they’ve got from you is offering to exchange their feedback on your website for a reduced price on their next purchase or some free stuff.

That said, take a look at the Monogram Logo Crewneck T-Shirt page on the official Calvin Klein website.

At the top of the page under the product title, there is a section with stars that rate the item that’s on sale. It leads to the larger Reviews section that’s closer to the bottom of the page where customer feedback on the item is collected.

Not only the actual texts of the reviews are there, but we can also see that 100% of the shoppers would recommend this item, as well as the scales that show how the item feels in terms of sizing (based on reviews).

Optimize Your Description SEO-Wise

Furthermore, incorporating the top practices of search engine optimization into your product descriptions can assist you in making your products simply found. Importantly, all the metadata has to be properly filled out, including the Alt texts of every image.

Speaking of what to place in your description, consider adding keyword variations, bulleted lists, as well as the major keyword in the title of the page. In a nutshell, this is how your clients will be looking for this item in the search, thus, try to make it easier for them to find it and your brand.

Below is a nice demonstration of that on the Peekaboo Wallet page on the official Fendi website. At the very start, we see the main keyword in the title of the product “CLUTCH WALLET” followed by a short description with another keyword phrase “Black leather clutch bag”.

The description itself also brings a keyword up “Slim Peekaboo wallet”. Finally, the details in the “Product Information” section are indicated in bullet points.

Final Word

In conclusion, product descriptions shouldn’t be overlooked as they can and do help to boost sales. Finding the right wording to relate to your audience. Including the value, the item can bring, as well as using product reviews, a smart layout to enhance UX, and SEO to make it simpler to discover the product are all pieces of the puzzle to pay attention to when writing product descriptions that sell

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About the Author

Alex Husar

Alex Husar, CTO at Onilab with 8+ years of experience in Magento development services and Salesforce. He graduated from the Czech Technical University and obtained a bachelor’s degree in Computer Software Engineering. Alex’s expertise includes both full-stack dev skills and a strong ability to provide project-critical guidance to the whole team.