Product Descriptions That Sell

Are your product descriptions doing their job? Follow these tips to improve them.

Product descriptions are one of the most important parts of an ecommerce Web site. They can help you reach your two main business goals: To increase sales and decrease returns. Here are some tips to help you write product descriptions that sell.

Use Keywords in Your Product Name and Description

The first step in getting people to buy your products is helping them find them. Give all of your products titles that include the words customers are likely to use when searching for them. This will help your site’s search function return the most relevant results for each customer.

Stick to Specific Adjectives

You want to sell your products, but don’t go overboard with adjectives that offer little to no descriptive value. For example “nice sweater” doesn’t tell the buyer very much, but “red, wool, cable-knit sweater” begins to form a pretty specific image of the product in the potential buyer’s mind. By providing as many details as possible in the description, you’re reducing the number of items that will be returned because it wasn’t what the buyer had in mind.

Proofread Carefully

Nothing says “unprofessional” like a Web site full of typos. Make sure you read everything over twice before you post it at a minimum. Ideally, you should have another person read it too (know any English teachers?). It can be difficult to spot your own errors because you already know what you wanted to say. Another person will catch them more easily.

Avoid all caps and excessive punctuation.

It’s tempting to use several question marks or exclamation points (or a combination) to express surprise or emphasize a point. Resist the temptation on your Web site. Excessive punctuation and using all caps and abbreviations common to text messaging immediately signal a casual style of communication and will eat away at your credibility. Remember, you’re trying to convince customers to give you their credit card information in exchange for good. You need to win their trust by presenting a professional image.