Originally published July 16, 2021 , updated on August 31, 2024

E-commerce has seen dramatic growth in the past few years. 2020 saw a big increase in e-commerce sales with a 27.6% growth globally. Sales for 2020 were over $4 trillion. And while it is forecast that 2021 will only see a 14.3% growth in sales, there is no denying the strength of this sector.

The growth of this sector means that there are more e-commerce businesses and more people looking to purchase goods and services online. This is why product description writing is becoming more important than ever.

According to Statista.com, over two billion people used e-commerce platforms to shop in 2020. It is also believed that there are up to 24 million online stores in the world. This means there’s a lot of noise to break through if you are in the e-commerce business.

People are searching for all types of e-commerce goods and services all the time. But how do you get noticed by them? In short, use your product descriptors. Put effort into these to get noticed, drive leads and make sales.

Here are ten things to keep in mind when product content writing.

You Need to Fully Understand Your Audience

There’s no point in writing creative and original descriptions for your goods or services if you don’t completely understand your audience. To do this, you can build out detailed audience personas. These fictional profiles help you better understand your audience. Add details such as age, income brackets, career paths, gender, and how and where they spend their money. You can even give your personas names. This will help you better understand your audience and how they like to receive information. It will also help you decide the language to use for your descriptions and what elements of your product to highlight.

Use Your Own Words When Doing Product Description Writing

It’s tempting to use the common descriptions you find on the same product everywhere. It’s also tempting to use the product manufacturer descriptions if you are selling goods or services that you don’t directly manufacture or offer. But don’t do it. Product description writing should be in your own words. Use your audience personas as a guide and tie them into what you believe they would like to see.

Don’t Be Scared to Do Creative Product Descriptions

Don’t be boring in your writing. Before you publish any descriptions, read them out loud to yourself. If you find your own writing boring, your audience will, too. You can be funny in your descriptions as well. People relate to humour. A humorous line or two in your copy will elicit a laugh from a reader. This goes a long way into building loyalty and keeps people coming back for more. If you can’t come up with these creative pieces yourself, you could always hire a professional product writing company for assistance. 

Don’t Be Vague

E-commerce content writing and product descriptions need to be specific. When a potential client or customer lands on your product or service, they want to know exactly what it entails. Don’t only talk about how amazing the product is. State specific details about it too. For example, if you sell website themes for businesses, get into the details of each theme. Don’t simply say, “This website theme is beautiful and will change the way online users use your website”. Instead, say, “This beautiful neutral-colour theme has been designed to be completely user-friendly. With a clear layout and design, users will easily be able to find the information that they are looking for.” The latter gives more detail while still relaying the same message.

Don’t Over Promise

Everyone has described their goods or services as “life-changing”, “revolutionary” or “market-leading”. These words are often used across the e-commerce world, and unless your product or service really is life-changing, avoid these terms. Instead, use words and phrases that are accurate to your product or service. If your newsletter template business makes life easier for your client and your client’s audience, then say that. Be honest with yourself and your audience about what you sell and offer.

Optimise Your Product Description Writing for Mobile

A clear trend in the e-commerce world is the increased use of mobile devices. Almost 70% of e-commerce website visits come from mobile devices and smartphones. With the widespread penetration of mobile devices across the world, this number looks set to increase over the next few years. This is helped by easier and cheaper access to the internet. This means that product descriptions should be written with mobile devices in mind. Think about how you want your content to display on smartphones. Once it’s up, test it to ensure that it’s displaying correctly and if you need to make any changes.

Break Product Descriptions Up Into Chunks

This ties into the optimising for mobile point above. It’s difficult for anyone to read long paragraphs of text. This is even more true when reading content on a mobile device. Break your descriptions up using bullet points to highlight the key functions of your product or service. Also, make use of paragraphs and sections. This not only makes it easier to read on all devices, but it helps make the content easily scannable. Not everyone wants to read a full description. Many just do a quick scan for the key information.

Talk About How it Adds Value to Your Customers

Be factual about your product, but also highlight how it adds value. While you list the key features, talk about what it does and how it makes life easier for your clients. For example, if you are selling education software easily accessed on mobile devices, you wouldn’t only say “easy to access on phones”. Instead, you want to say, “This software can be used on mobile devices so it can be accessed on the go, at any time.” By adding more detail on the value, it helps your audience imagine using it in everyday situations.

Remember to Optimise for SEO

Your store and business live online. This means that optimising for SEO is key. Do in-depth research on keywords for your offering and use these in your descriptions. If you’re doing the writing yourself, make use of SEO plug-ins such as GDoc SEO Assistant. If you’re outsourcing this task, a professional content writing agency should be able to research these keywords for you.

Do Tests on Your Product Description

It’s important to test your product description writing to see what works and what doesn’t. Write two versions and test each one. This split test will show you which description works best with your audience. Use different phrases for each one to see what your audience engages with more. You won’t have to do this for every description. A few tests at the start should dictate the format and outline of your descriptions going forward.

E-commerce is not going to slow down any time soon. As such, business owners should ensure that you are on the right track with your descriptions.

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