Always Use Descriptive Content
It should go without saying that customers prefer descriptive, well-written content. If they can click on a product and get everything they need to know from a couple of paragraphs, they’re much more likely to stay on the page. As well as reducing bounce rate, it also helps customers to consider that this is the product they’ve been searching for.
To ensure that this content is suitable from a customer and SEO point of view, you need to use relevant keywords. This may sound complicated, but once you start describing your product, you may find it a little easier. If you’re selling a product with the title “Fender Deluxe Stratocaster in 2-Colour Sunburst”, then the keywords should come naturally throughout the description. They could include:
- Fender Guitar
- Stratocaster
- Electric Guitar
- Sunburst Guitar
- 6-String Guitar
Without thinking very much, you’ll have already generated five or six good keywords that people are genuinely searching for every day.
Excellent grammar and punctuation are, unsurprisingly, a must, as well as keeping content as concise as possible. Customers don’t want to read reams and reams of content, especially if you can explain your product in two paragraphs.
Help Them to Imagine a New Lifestyle
We’ve all seen adverts for Coca-Cola, Nike, and Apple which show exactly what your life will be like with their products. With CocaCola, you’ll have weekly get-togethers with a group of happy, trendy friends, with Nike, you become an elite athlete akin to Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, and Serena Williams, and with Apple, you’ll be an innovator on the same level as Jobs and Wozniak. Rather than telling you how good CocaCola tastes, how durable Nike shoes are, or how technologically advanced Apple is, they show you the lifestyle that you’ll have. You need to mirror this technique in your product descriptions to gain new customers.
No matter what products you’re selling, from clothing to gym supplements, you’ll be able to create an ideal lifestyle for your target demographic. Customers may be looking for supplements because they want to hit their fitness goals more quickly. Use this as the starting point for writing your description:
“If you’re looking to trim fat, increase muscle mass, and smash your fitness goals, choose this product.”
Similarly, if the clothes you’re selling are aimed at high-class office workers, you need to offer a potential look into the future for them. For example:
“Add confidence and authority as you walk around the office with the high-quality, tailored clothing that we design.”
Focusing on goals is a great way to encourage people to buy a product. A good example is sellers of running trainers. People who run usually have a goal in mind, and typically this is competitive in some way. So you could use the below in your content to raise the stakes and push them towards your product:
“The newly designed [Insert Product] gives you the edge as you shave seconds off your personal best and beat your friend from work in the sprint finish.”
Set the Scene for Your Customers
Following on from creating a hypothetical lifestyle for customers, you can also set the scene for where they could use the products. If it’s a new pair of shoes, you could talk about how smart they’d look with their business suit, and if it’s a new guitar, you could reference the fact that the new scratchplate would look great under stage lights.
By employing this technique, you’re able to change a customer’s mindset. They’ll start thinking about whether they can now wear that suit without the shoes, or play under those stage lights with the new guitar. They’ll be so engrossed in needing the product, that all hesitation, doubt, and buyer’s guilt will go out of the window.
Remove Doubt and Buyer’s Guilt
Every customer gets a sense of buyer’s guilt when they’re about to complete a purchase online or in-store. It’s the moment where you ask yourself: “Do I really need this?” Your job, as a marketer, is to remove this doubt and guilt. Thankfully, there’s a number of ways to tackle this, including:
- Make It Seem as If Your Product Is Too Good to Miss
- “Nothing Will Shake up Your Workout Routine Like These Supplements”
- Make Your Product Seem Exclusive or Short in Supply
- “These Exclusive Guitars Never Stay on the Shelf for Long”
- Show How Your Product Is Great Value for Money
- “With So Many Features Packed into This Laptop, You Won’t Find Better Value on the Market”
- Advertise Products as Being Essential
- “Old-Skool Vans Are an Essential Part of Any Skateboarder’s Wardrobe”
In an online world where so much is available, people are now fixated on the idea of FOMO (the fear of missing out). This is how you take control of the internal conversation that people have when shopping. People don’t want to miss a great deal, exclusive product, or a money-saving alternative, and these are all things that you can amplify in your descriptions.
Things You Need to Avoid
As well as having lots of things to include, there are also things that should be avoided at all costs. These are things that put customers off, prevent you from being found online, or just don’t help with the work you’re trying to do.
Duplicate copy is one of the biggest things to avoid. As well as search engines hating it, and possibly lowering your ranking, customers are also bored by it. If they read the same generic description for each product that you’ve got, they won’t stick around for long. Customers want to be individual, and if all of your clothing sounds the same, it’s not going to go very well.
Using this content is also an indication that you’re not interested in putting the necessary work in. If you’re not, why would they bother spending money with you?
Following on from this, generic wording is also something to steer clear of. Again, it’s boring for customers, it shows a lack of enthusiasm, and, more than anything, it shows that you and your company are out of ideas. Lots of products are “amazing”, “fun”, or “nice”, but the product you’ve created can be so much more!
Moz, a website solely focused on SEO, has put together of terms to avoid, and we’ve collated them here to give you the best chance moving forwards:
- “Got, Get, or Gotten”
- “Get” always sounds out of place and a bit clunky. Suggest that a customer buys, tries, or gives a chance to a product instead.
- “Actually, Literally, or Honestly”
- These aren’t words that anyone should use, even in a face-to-face conversation. They’re only there to fill gaps in sentences, which makes them superfluous.
- “Stunning”
- Lots of people use the word, but that means that everything is stunning now. Does it really set your company apart if that’s the case?
- “Nice”
- Of all of the adjectives available, “nice” doesn’t really have any weight, nor does it sufficiently describe something.
- “Very, Kind of, or Maybe”
- Use better adjectives! If something is “very good”, then it deserves to be talked about in that way! Use terms such as “spectacular”, “extraordinary”, or “peerless”.
- “Sorry”
- This has negative connotations, and therefore shouldn’t be used in a positive product description.
Move up to the Next Level
With the knowledge you now have, your product descriptions should be attracting customers and search engines alike in no time. As mentioned throughout, lots of the techniques that are used are based on knowing what customers want. No one knows your industry and customers better than you, and this is where you hold all of the cards.
By combining your in-depth industry knowledge, SEO best practice, and the information in this article, you’ll have the best chance of succeeding in the online marketplace.