Are Your Product Descriptions Costing You Customers?

Welcome to another video in the SEO Copywriting Checklist series!

Today’s video is addressed to those of you in e-Commerce retail, and asks: are your product descriptions costing you customers?

Tune in as Heather shows what works, and what does not, in well-optimized product copy:

YAWN…There’s Nothing Here That Screams “Buy Me!”

Well-written product descriptions are a blind spot for a lot of e-retailers, as evidenced by this first screenshot: you have the picture, and then a very, very short description of the product.

As written, the text certainly does the job in terms of the product’s technical specifications, but it doesn’t have any descriptive copy that screams “buy me!”

There’s nothing here that is targeted towards the reader that will tempt them to take that next conversions step.

Compare this example to what you’ll find on the lululemon site…

Great, Descriptive SEO Copy

This second screenshot is actually just a snippet of the product page. There’s a big picture at the top and there are the technical specifications for the shorts down below, but there the similarities end.

The product description is definitely SEO copy – the keyphrases are in there – but the tone and feel of the content is very fun: it’s engaging, and it’s highly targeted towards their audience.

And the lululemon copy provides much more information about the benefits that people will realize when they buy these shorts, as opposed to the previous example.

So you can see how this content is much more compelling. Especially if you’re dealing with products with a higher price point, then the more compelling the content, and the more you can demonstrate that value and the benefits, the more items you’re going to sell!

Highly Descriptive Copy Sells – And Makes You More Money!

At the end of the day, highly descriptive product copy will help you make more money from your site. So if you’re selling products online:

– Think beyond super-short product descriptions.

I know in a lot of cases you may think it’s easier to just do it short and sweet, and let the picture do the selling, but in many cases people want to have more information. And because…

– People can’t touch the product online – so you need to create highly descriptive text.

Rich, descriptive copy helps potential customers visualize what it would be like if they owned that product, so it definitely helps them take that next conversions step.

And like the lululemon example, you can…

– Use tone and feel to differentiate your offer.

This is especially important if you are selling products that other retailers sell online as well – and it might be that you and your competitors have similar price points, as well.

So who are people going to buy from?

They’re going to buy from the site that they “click” with the most, so that tone and feel of writing towards the target audience can really help generate more sales!

photo thanks to StormKatt