The moment a customer lands on your website to buy a specific product, it is your turn to guide the visitor through the product knowledge. If you consider the factor from the point of view of a buyer, you will find that the customer may have so many queries in the mind about the item. To encourage a visitor to purchase the product, you need to provide the information, specifications, and features of the product in a way that actually answers all the questions. According to the eCommerce statistics on Oberlo, only 2.86% of the visitors actually purchase a product at an online store. This means you are able to make sale to 1 in 34 people visiting your website. Maximum of customers revealed that they could not understand the product due to inadequate information or product description. If your product page is lacking professionally written product description copy, you are missing opportunities every time a visitor is on your WooCommerce store. In this article, you will find why product descriptions are so important for your business, how they motivate the buyers to increase conversions, and some essential tips and best practices to write an impressive and professional product description copy that sells.
Why Writing a Powerful Product Description Matters
When shopping for products at eCommerce store, people cannot see or examine the product physically. There is no sales counter person whom they can ask the questions in the mind. The visitors to your WooCommerce store only have the product description, some images, and a video (for certain items) to find a solution to their problems. This is why; product descriptions are more significant than the specifications and features, to impact the psychology of the buyers only next to the pricing factor. To make sure your content appeals to the target audience, an ideal product description copy should present complete and accurate information, present a story; show the benefits of purchasing the product, the value of the product in getting the specific work done. In short, the goal of writing a product description is to present a solution to the specific needs the customer may have. The product description addresses the requirements, or expectations that the customer may have when looking for the item. If you are able to provide accurate information and solution, it is game changer and if not, the customers may have to find something elsewhere. If you are able to provide accurate information and solution, it is game changer and if not, the customers may have to find something elsewhere. Web store analytics reveals the following consequences of not having proper product descriptions:
- Deviation from the online store in search of products on other websites resulting in high bounce out rate
- The rate of product returns increase due to mismatch of information on the product page and actual product received
- Buyers lose trust and urge to purchase from the same brand in future
In this post, we will mainly try to address the psychological aspects of the consumers while creating product descriptions. However, while writing product description copies, following are some vital aspects to focus on:
Optimize for Search Engines
According to Blue Opps statistics, about 93% of the traffic comes to a website comes from the search engines. With a market share of 73.34%, Google is the leading choice for the customers to find products and services (Smart Insights statistics 2020). With little efforts, you can optimize the product descriptions for organic searches. Appearing higher on the search engines can bring greater volume of target audiences or chances to increase conversions.
In-store Search Functionality
Customers may enter various search terms on your website to find products. You can experiment by placing relevant search terms in your product descriptions. It will help the visitors to find the exact product easily on your website. If you are not getting the results with the searches, use the right WooCommerce product search plugin to take your search experience to the next level.
Improve Paid Campaign Scores
Your success with the paid campaigns depend on the quality scores. Having a great product description allows you to earn higher quality scores that is used to determine certain metrics such as audience engagement, cost-per-click (CPC), etc.
Psychological Aspect of Great Product Descriptions
Having a quality product on your website does not mean you are going to make good revenue with the sales. Your success depends on the consumer’s understanding of the product and most importantly how it is helpful in solving their problems. According to Professor Gerald Zaltman of Harvard Business School, “95% of our purchase decisions take place unconsciously”. Understanding the psychology of your target audience is therefore very helpful to write persuasive product description. It can lead your customers to conscious purchase decision impacted by the subconscious mind.
Addressing the Consumer’s Needs
In general, our purchase decisions are guided by our needs. We buy a product only when it meets one or more of our needs. Abraham Maslow in his ‘Theory of Human Motivation’ has perfectly cited the various needs of a consumer in a pyramid structure popularly known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In this classification, the needs are placed in the ascending order from bottom moving up to the ‘needs for self-actualization’ at the top. Maslow has placed the fundamental needs – ‘physiological needs’ at the bottom. Every product is related to one or more of these five psychological needs. An understanding of these needs will help you to write product description that addresses the specific needs and connect with the buyer on the emotional level. For instance, if you are selling a food processor, you are actually selling something to provide relaxation addressing the physiological need (to save tons of efforts on cooking). However, a great product description copy targets multiple needs. Taking the above example lets see how your copy can address various psychological needs:
- Physiological Need: Serves multiple functions saving time every day
- Safety: Does the job automatically so no danger of cuts or hurts as with traditional kitchen tools
- Love and Belonging: It eases the life of your loved ones
- Esteem: A branded food processor is a great addition to the smart kitchen.
Language is the Key to Connect with Your Audience
You cannot speak to the customers to explain everything as in a retail store. Customers may take interest in a product description with too hard language or over emphasizing words. To write a great copy, follow the language your customer use when speaking about the product. One of the best ways to know this is through online customer reviews on forums and popular online stores. You will find some common phrases and words used by the real customers when writing these reviews. Include these terms in your description to connect with your target audience.
Include Sensory Words to Prompt Subconscious Mind
Choosing the sensory words for your product descriptions is an art. Descriptions with such words trigger the emotions of the buyers rousing an urge for buying the product. It is not about using jargons or redundant adjectives such as ‘incredible’, ‘remarkable’, etc. Instead, you need to choose words carefully depending on the type of product. More or less, they can be about touch, feel, look, smell, etc. For instance, if you are writing about a new smartphone, using sensory words about the appearance, colors, rear side finishes does the trick besides talking about the multiple camera resolutions or the operating system. The customers can immediately guess how it will feel like when they buy it. While a visitor is reading the description, the subconscious brain is impacted by these sensory words prompting the emotions attached to the product.
Elements of a Worthy Product Description Copy
Writing product descriptions is a complex matter. You cannot follow a general rule for all types of products or services. There is no universally accepted length, format, or language for all types of products. Every product is different in terms of category, type, features and most importantly the section of buyers it caters. Writing an ideal product description entirely depends on the type of product, market scenario and the buyers’ perspectives.
Compare the following products, commonly purchased at online stores, to see the difference:
- Industrial Goods: B2B products
- Commodity Products: daily utility products
- Consumable/Perishable Goods: food, grocery
- Technical Products: Software, Computers, Peripherals and Gadgets
- Luxury Products: Designer items, pricy products
If you are selling a pen, you do not need to provide much information on the specifications, mechanism or other details. But if you are selling digital cameras, you need to explain everything from technical features, specifications to how they are different from conventional models. While the nature of description, length and other aspects differ, there are some basic elements to create a great product description.
Short Description
The short description is much like an introduction but one of the most eminent parts of the entire description.
Located just below the product title, this is the first thing seen by your target audience upon reaching the landing page. If this part seems informative and interesting, you can take them further and even trigger the purchase decision. To make an early impression, you can place the most important benefits and features of your product in this section in a short paragraph.
Long Description
The term ‘long’ does not mean you need to write an essay on the product. This is the place to write everything you need to explain your product, tell a story using sensory words, placing the necessary keywords. You have a large space but use it wisely to say as much that seems sufficient to persuade the customer to the cart checkout page.
Features and Benefits
Majority of the customers are not interested in reading the specifications or too many technical details. Therefore, it is very important to focus on what you write in this section. Every buyer wants to know how this product is going to solve their problem or benefit them. While writing the feature, focus on explaining how each of these features serves a purpose, solves a problem, eases life, etc. In short, this is the place to give your customers every reason to choose it over others. To make this section interesting and easy for the customers to skim over the contents, use bullets to depict each feature in short sentences followed by a benefit statement explaining how this feature helps.
Tips for Writing Worthy Product Descriptions
Always write original product descriptions. Search engines monitor the product descriptions to give SERP rankings to your website. Having duplicate copies from other website can lead to penalization and blacklisting of your WooCommerce store. Your content should be 100% unique, interesting, and different from the generic manufacturer descriptions.
All Product Pages Should Have Proper Description
The text content is as important as the catchy images. Your audiences can get all answers to their questions from the descriptions. The search engines rank your web pages based on specific search terms and phrases matching the product on your store.
Place the Most Important Information on Top
Most of the times, we want to find out the details from the opening lines of the description. If it seems too boring, hard to understand, the audiences are likely to look for other alternatives. Keep the most important information in the first paragraph. Highlight the benefits, how it changes life and eases problems and other details in this section. Start with an impactful statement that has value and appeals to your audience.
Make Your Content Brief, Easy, and Interesting to Read
Being proud of our products and services, it may be a desire to write everything in the mind.
You can add more details in the long description part but if the audiences do not find much value, they may bounce out. Spruce up your content keeping the meaningful benefit statements at the beginning. Try to put this into a short single sentence to catch the note at a glance. Do not use jargons or make it too hard to understand. Write short and easy to read sentences. This is simple to apprehend and remember for a long time.
Formatting is the Key to Success
No matter what information you provide, if the audiences don’t feel like reading it, there is no use either. As a general behavior, we all take an overall look at the page before even reading the first paragraph. With some changes and formatting, you can do the trick. In order to make it interesting and easy for the audiences, following are some aspects to consider.
- Write subheading for each point
- Write short benefit statements in bullet points
- Make short paragraphs (2-3 sentences)
- Use proper formatting to incorporate contents modules in grid pattern
Keep Testing to Improve
Writing product description is a continuous process where you can keep improving with passing time. Placing a persuasive content is not the end but only a part of the ongoing process. Take on split testing by experimenting with different content lengths, keywords, descriptions to measure the effectiveness of your product description copy. Split Testing is an integral part of the entire process that helps you to optimize your product description that converts to improve sales.
Knowing the Buyer’s Needs is the Key to Writing Great Product Descriptions
If you know your target audience, it is easy to create descriptions with the right choice of words and expressions. It helps you to present the story and explain the benefits precisely. Writing appealing product descriptions is an ongoing process where you can always improve. Track the analytics to see where and how you can modify the contents to boost conversions on your WooCommerce website.