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Product descriptions for your eCommerce store are one of those things that seem so simple, so obvious, that people underestimate their importance to a business. The product page is the end goal, as all your marketing and design leads towards it. BigCommerce product reviews and descriptions are key factors to in search marketing.
The time between reading the description and the purchase going through is absolutely critical so a good impression can go a long way. People back out of online purchases every day and these abandoned shopping carts cost billions in lost revenue.
Given their potential impact on sales, putting some extra time and effort into your product descriptions will always be worth it. Read on to find out the ways a good product description can impact your business and result in more sales.
1. It Tells Visitors About The Product
Yes, it’s obvious: a product description describes the product. But this factor is often taken for granted, resulting in a lackluster experience for customers and if they don’t like it, then Google’s crawlers definitely won’t. If it isn’t immediately obvious what your product is, customers will be turned off and you won’t show up in search results.
Furthermore, a thorough product description goes a long way to alleviating purchasing anxiety. This is a very real problem in the world of e-commerce where a survey found that 81% of first-time buyers reported being nervous about their purchase.
What makes them nervous? Well, they’re worried about getting ripped off. It happens all the time. Easing these fears is a major factor in closing a sale.
E-commerce lacks the reassuring physical aspect of in-person shopping so it’s important to provide as much information as you can. Specify all the dimensions and if the product comes in multiple colors and be sure to include pictures for each one. Any ambiguity on a product page will only make visitors nervous and more likely to leave.
2. It Matters How You Write It
So, you’ve got all the facts down. It could not be any clearer what your product is and what it isn’t. But why leave it there?
There’s room in a product description for a little story-telling.
In fact, it’s a great opportunity to tell your customer why this product is the thing they need in their life right now. You’ve got all the features there, now you can easily weave them into a paragraph or two of persuasive prose. Narratives are important in marketing and a tale that covers pain points and how your product solves them can be much more powerful than a simple bullet-point list of features.
The language you use makes a difference too. Show them you believe in the product, hype it up a little! Don’t be shy about boasting either. If you’ve won awards or employed a team of high-level industry experts, let the people know!
Does your product have a quirky backstory? Include it to add some character to your product. History is a powerful branding tool.
3. It Speaks To Your Target Audience
Source: Blue Lizard
Of course, how you write your product description is going to depend on who you’re selling to. Product descriptions are a great opportunity to speak to your target audience and tailor it to their preferences.
This is also good for your overall brand voice as it’s a way to maintain a consistent tone across your website.
You can do a lot with product descriptions to “speak the language” of your target audience. For example, if you’re selling high-end GPUs, it’s a safe bet that your buyers are going to be prioritizing specifications and benchmarks, so there won’t be as much of a need to hype it up with descriptions.
On the other hand, with fashion, you can afford to be quite subjective. Sure, the sizes still matter, but that’s not what’s selling an outfit. It’s all about how the person feels when they wear it. You want to paint a picture for them, help them fantasize about how good they’ll feel in your clothes.
There are endless variations and ways to play around with this, you can even include photos, graphics, and videos.
4. It’s A Chance To Inspire Trust
As we mentioned earlier, trust is a massive issue among e-commerce customers. You should be doing everything in your power to showcase the legitimacy of your business. Including customer reviews, return policies, and money-back guarantees on your product description page signals to visitors that you are trustworthy.
Think With Google found that just over half of shoppers will research products online before every purchase. Showing what other people think of the product makes it easier for them to make an informed decision.
Avoid the temptation to censor any bad reviews you get. People aren’t expecting you to be perfect and a site with only gleaming reviews is a massive red flag.
5. It Helps Your SEO
A good product description will naturally improve your BigCommerce SEO. The cardinal rule of SEO is to write for humans, not for bots. The whole point of a search engine is to give people useful results, so an informative, well-written product description will work in your favor when it comes to search marketing.
Once you’ve written an organic description, you can optimize it for search results. Product descriptions are especially useful when it comes to optimizing your site for long-tail keywords. For more BigCommerce SEO tips, check out this resource on how to boost ranking and eliminate errors with BigCommerce SEO.
What Is a Longtail Keyword?
Source: Google Trends
Simply put, a long-tail keyword is a phrase that incorporates your main keyword. While they get less traffic, long-tail keywords are easier to rank for as there is less competition for them.
For example, a lot of sites will be trying to appear on page 1 of the search results for “water bottle,” whereas “fair trade water bottle with next day delivery” may be easier to rank for.
What’s more, because they are longer and more specific, long-tail keywords make it easier to track user intent. A lot of people might see your website when they search for “water bottle” but that won’t necessarily mean more conversions. “Fairtrade water bottle with next day delivery” isn’t going to be popping up as often but the people who search for it are already on a buying journey.
A good way to incorporate long-tail keywords into your product description page is to include an FAQ section. As a lot of long-tail keywords are phrased in the form of questions, your page will be ranked high for relevance if you are answering them directly.
Spice Up The Buying Experience
While on the surface, a product description might seem to be in the same bland vein as a shirt tag or operating manual, it offers plenty of opportunities to enhance your e-commerce store. There’s a lot of customizability under the surface and, with a little extra work, you can have a product page that perfectly matches your brand and turns visits into conversions.
BigCommerce is a powerful tool for your website. You can create full and powerful online stores with unlimited potential. To get the most out of it, you must find the right plan for your business.
