Put down the feather pen, Shakespeare, because writing product descriptions doesn’t need to be so complicated. It involves simple rhetoric that is comprised of six elements to meet the needs of one, the consumer, and two, the search engines.
Yes, SEO is important for product descriptions. So is schema. But the consumer will always come first – at least if you’re talking to me. It’s imperative to engage your target audience and conveniently lay out all the benefits of a particular product so your reader will know how it can help or impact their lives. The six elements of a strong product description are:
- Identifying the product
- Defining the benefits
- Including a photo or video
- Comparing
- Offering reviews
- Analyzing and updating
Identify the product
First things first. It’s essential to immediately identify what the product is within the title. The title should include the keyword you choose for the specific product. For example, if you’re selling a leather jacket, your keyword might be “Men’s Premium Leather Jacket Black.” Including the keyword in the title is not only friendly to the reader’s eye, but it also allows search engine spiders to quickly identify what the page is about and where it should be indexed.
SEO Tip: In addition to using the keyword in the title and description, make sure to put the keyword in the meta description. This reinforces the page’s relevancy to the consumer and search engine.
Define the Benefits
Directly below the title, be sure to write a paragraph defining the benefits and features. This is where you detail when and where to use the product and how it helps the potential customer save money, time, effort, enjoy peace of mind and more. After you’ve painted a picture of how the product is best used and why it’s beneficial to the consumer, list the key features by bullet – dimensions, color, weight, materials, durability, compatible products, etc.
Photo/Video
“Seeing isn’t believing, believing is seeing” – or whatever that elf in Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause said. Either way, providing consumers with an image of the product reinforces that it’s actually what you claim it is in the description. Product photos elicit trust in the eye of the consumer, so provide multiple angles when possible. Video offers another great way to highlight product features while physically showing consumers product in action. For example, saying a Sawzall blade can cut through heavy-duty metal is one thing, but actually showing the blade slice through heavy-duty metal creates a completely different story.
SEO Tip: Optimize photos! Here’s how. Incude your keywords in the ALT Tag, also known as “alternative text,” while uploading the image on the page. You can also optimize video by including the keyword in the video’s title and the description on YouTube or Vimeo.
Comparison
Former NBA star Rasheed Wallace rightly proclaimed, “Ball don’t lie!” The same premise holds true for numbers. Numbers don’t lie. Although comparing products doesn’t work in every industry or for every product, it’s best to prove that your product delivers a higher resolution, that it’s made with a higher-grade material, or that it produces less harmful emissions and other comparable stats – if you can. Make sure to highlight these facts in your description, and use this opportunity to include an easy-to-read table below your description and bulleted list.
Reviews
Although reviews aren’t created by the business, it’s smart to give buyers an opportunity to share their thoughts if you truly believe in your product In the eyes of potential customers. Consumer reviews are often more favorable than a sales pitch Displaying consumer reviews increases trust among potential customers, because a past buyer is thought to be more honest and open about any dislikes or problems.
Analyze and Update
Like all pages on your website, it’s important to analyze what’s working and what’s not in order to make changes, from creating more engaging content to making your pages more search-friendly. Product descriptions should be “living” documents that evolve and improve with time as you develop a better understanding of key benefits, as well as the pain points that the product is solves for customers.
