Home Biz Management How to Create Compelling Content for Your Product Description Page

How to Create Compelling Content for Your Product Description Page

From a pin cushion to a modular kitchen, there appears to be no limit to the sheer variety of products and services you can buy online these days. Apart from merely dot-com companies, an increasing number of traditional businesses are also choosing to have an online extension of their offline store in order to cater to those who predominantly shop online.

If you are keen on online shopping, or already have a website for your business, you would know how important the content on the product description page of any e-comm website is. It is at this page that a user makes an informed decision regarding the product that caught their attention on the catalog page. Whether he decides to go ahead with the purchase and add the product to cart or hits the back button to continue looking at other products depends entirely on the contents of your product description page.

Here are a few things to keep in mind and a handful of tips to craft compelling content for your product description page to help your products sell better.

Identify your target audience.

Identify your target customer: You may have done this already while creating your business plan. But it helps to do it once more, this time by asking additional questions such as:

  1. What segment of society does your target customer fall into?
  2. What are the questions that can be expected of them?
  3. What is the tone they expect your reply in?
  4. Why and when would such a person use your product?
  5. How is your product different from those of your competitors?

By thinking like your end customer, you will be able to identify most of the questions that may arise in their mind. It will also help you narrow down the tone of your content – should you keep it conversational and friendly, or should you use a more formal tone? Should the language address the customer directly or should you state all the information in third person?

Highlight the features of your product

Highlight the value: If you come across a new product on the internet, what would you rather know first? Detailed specs of the product? Or how it is going to benefit you? To convince a user to buy, you must grab their attention and guide it precisely to where you highlight the value that the user gets out of using the product! We are not saying that you should do away with the features entirely; we are saying that it would be wiser to incorporate and highlight the product’s real-world benefits along with the conventional list of features.

Keep descriptions short: On e-comm platforms, nobody likes sentences that run on for more than a couple of lines. Throw huge chunks of content at me when I am not there to read per say and I’ll exit the site sooner than I landed on it! This is why you must keep your descriptions as short as you can, but without omitting the required information. Make it easier for the user to scan the page and get the necessary information without having to sit and read the entire content on the page in order to find what they are looking for.

Keep the description short and simple.

Wrap up your primary product description in 40-50 words. This must include the name of the product, what type of product it is, and what material it is made of. You can have six to eight bullet points under product details that give further information to the user, such as the color and size of the product, the occasion it is fit for, the type of care the product needs, the type of warranty it comes under, etc. Keep in mind to include keywords specific to your site or product so that it’s ‘findability’ increases.

Another key point to have here would be the shipping details – whether the product is available for free shipping, a text box where the user can enter their PIN and see if their location is serviceable, and basic information regarding returns/exchange with a link to your Return and Exchange Policy page.

Avoid clichés: It has come to a point where every seller on the internet is claiming their product to be of ‘high quality’. So much so that those words have lost their meaning to most internet shoppers. If you can’t think of anything innovative to say, saying nothing is better than resorting to lines that scream unoriginality.

Never miss key information.

Never miss key information: Let’s say that you are selling a product or a piece of equipment that needs to be operated. It could be a simple stapler or a machine that needs to be assembled from scratch. In such cases, the product description page must contain information regarding the working as well as assembling of the product. Just think about it, nobody is going to want to buy a product without knowing how it works! Just like how you would expect a salesperson at an electronic store to show you how the newest model of a microwave works, your end customers on the internet also need a proper explanation in order to be convinced.

Beware of duplicate content: You might want to rethink your content strategy if you are planning on copy-pasting the same description you have used on other channels and marketplaces or worse, if you are using pre-written descriptions from your manufacturer. Create unique product descriptions to ensure there is absolutely no duplication of content anywhere so that you don’t end up in Google’s bad books.

Don't make the user think.

Don’t make the user think: The key to getting a good conversion rate is not to make the user think. It may seem like you have to spoon feed your users, but it is going to be worth it when your conversion rates shoot up after employing these practices! For example, if you are selling a product of size 5’X5’, you cannot expect the user to do conversions in their head, in order to visualize the actual size of the product. Wouldn’t it be so much easier for the user to make a decision if you showed them an image of the product next to a familiar, everyday object so that the comparison would give them a better idea? That’s one way to ensure that they add your product to their cart.

As an additional feature, you could also showcase a handful of real testimonials from clients. This will add a personal touch to your website and make other users feel that your business is friendly and approachable.

But remember, as long as your product description page has all the necessary information with a fine sprinkling of keywords specific to your site, is concise and easily scannable, you will be doing great online.