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Writing a Product Description

There are several factors that you must consider when writing a product description for your products.

Lets take a look...

Your target market

Firstly who are the likely groups of people purchasing your products and what are they looking for in your product?

If you are selling skateboards then you'll likely need to focus on two aspects - the quality of the board and wheels, as well as using language appropriate to the youth of today.

Benefits of the product

You need to list the benefits of the product - usually the most beneficial at the top going down.

Lifespan of the product

If the product is food then obviously it will be gone as soon as they've eaten it - although of course you can describe future benefits if they are a health food or you can explain how amazingly tasty the food is. If they are buying a washing machine you can explain the kind of after care service the person will receive if they buy this product thus making the product more appealing if the customer knows it will last x amount of years rather than 12 months.

Length of Copy

If you are using a content managed system (CMS) you may find that you can only put a certain amount of characters in the title field or the product description. So make sure you know of any limitations before wasting time on creating well crafted copy.

Keyphrases

SEO (search engine optimization) is a phrase bandied around a lot these days - if your products are going online - then it's important to include key phrases which can be picked up by the search engines. By creating unique copy for your products your product will more likely to be found in the search engines compared to a competing company trying to sell the same product. It can be worth using the google keyword tool to assist you in using the right keywords for your products - you need to keep in mind what people are searching for and the amount of competition for those keyphrases, ideally you want to find keyphrases that a lot of people are searching for with low competition. I would lean towards lower competition keyphrases rather than numbers if you are a new site. Remember it is unique copy that is so important these days. If you are buying a product which is sold by lots of companies then you need to make sure you don't just copy the text you are given and put that up - you need to modify it and add to it in the manner we've already explained.

Write the copy

Once you've established what you need to put into your copy it's simply a matter of getting it done. Write your copy incorporating the 5 ideas above and tie them all together with some compelling language. Make sure you spell check everything before you send it to print or make it live.

Test

Re-examine what you've done and make alterations or additions. If your product isn't selling, then try to figure out the reasons why - it's possible you've focused on the wrong benefits of the product you're trying to sell - change the emphasis and try again. Keep testing.