Competition. We hate them, right? They’re trying to sell the same products as we, on the same market, to the same target customers. Regardless of your e-commerce niche or the size of your business, you have competitors that you need to try and outgrow. This is why your e-commerce marketing strategy needs to be well-thought-out and carried out. SEO-friendly product descriptions are one significant piece of your online presence puzzle that you simply need to have.
But, what makes SEO friendly-product descriptions so significant and powerful? Do you really need to invest the energy into writing them or could you just use a ready-to-go template? You’ll find the answer to these questions below. You’ll also find a comprehensive guide with 10 steps to write SEO-friendly e-commerce product descriptions.
Let’s get going!
What is an SEO-friendly product description?
Your product descriptions are the core content elements of your e-commerce website. It’s the most important piece of information that your target customers care about and thus needs to be written professionally.
Making your product descriptions SEO-friendly means making them:
- recognized as relevant for a search by the search engines
- informative and relevant for the person searching for products online
- rank higher than the same products sold by a different e-commerce website
In other words, SEO-friendly product descriptions are those that suit everyone- your customers, yourself, and the search engines.
That brings us to the next question.
Could you use a product description template?
You could, but you don’t want to do that. Unique content is what makes a product description SEO-friendly, not a template.
If you write your product description on a “fill in the gap” principle, you won’t be able to use the most valuable SEO principles that we’ll cover below. You’ll be missing out on a number of significant opportunities for boosting your product description content and making it stand out.
With that in mind, you should invest the extra energy into writing original, SEO-friendly product descriptions, rather than following a template or formula.
Why are SEO-friendly product descriptions so powerful?
To help you understand the importance of this task, we’ll cover some of the most important benefits that come with writing SEO-friendly content. Here’s what makes them so powerful and important:
- they help you raise brand awareness
- they increase your customers base
- they boost your sales
- they reflect and empower your brand
- they help you stand out from your competitors
- they help with customer retention
Their importance is undisputed, but are they that hard to write? Or can anyone do it with the right tools and guidance?
With the help of our 10-tips guide and your determination, you’ll be able to write high-performing SEO-friendly product descriptions for your e-commerce website.
Writing SEO Friendly e-Commerce Product Description: 10 Tips
It’s time for us to break down the process of writing SEO-friendly product descriptions and focus on making every piece of content written for this purpose powerful and effective. Here are our 10 powerful tips.
Explain Product Value
The first thing you need to do when starting to write a product description is to find its core value and focus on covering it in the description. You are writing primarily for your customers, so your product description needs to answer the questions they might be having.
Product value is seen in:
- the benefits it brings to the customers
- the problems it can help them solve
- the ways it improves their life-quality
You need to make this the focus of your product description. Here’s an example of a product value description for an external hard drive:
- Safely store all your memories, data, and valuable digital content.
- Clean up the space you need on your computer.
- Enjoy long-term peace of mind with the included one-year limited warranty.
The value of the product is your starting point for writing an SEO-friendly product description.
Include the Pain Point
People online will search for a solution to a pain point they’re experiencing. If you fail to mention that pain point, you’re losing SEO points.
For each product, find one or more pain points it covers:
- get rid of house mold
- remove teeth stains
- never lose your car keys again
- navigate roadmaps like a pro
If you know what problems your product solves, you know how to get more traffic to your product description. Include the pain point in a product description and make it more SEO-friendly.
Find Keywords
If we look at the technical aspect of writing SEO-friendly product descriptions, keywords are the main element we have to talk about.
Keywords are there to do two things:
- help search engines rank your content
- help you match more searches from your target customers
When you’re doing keyword research through Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, and other tools, you need to focus your search on:
- high search frequency keywords
- keywords with low competition
- long-tail keywords
So, if you’re trying to sell ice-cream molds, choosing “ice-cream mold” as a keyword won’t get you anywhere. You’ll have way too much competition and there’s no way you’ll rank high enough. But, other keywords may work wonderfully:
- homemade ice-cream silicone molds
- heart-shaped ice-cream molds
- DIY ice-cream mold maker
These have less competition and will get you the attention you need.
Smart Keyword Placement
Once you choose the right keyword, make sure you place it in your product description properly. That means you need to make it a part of the content, without damaging its quality.
Here’s what to avoid:
- stuffing the content with too many keywords
- repeating the keyword too frequently
- randomly placing the keyword mid-content
Instead, make the keyword a logical part of the content:
- Quickly and easily prepare homemade ice cream with these heart-shaped ice-cream molds…
This will ensure your customers are happy reading the content while the search engines still register the right keywords.
Also, always include the keywords in:
- product title
- subheadings
- page URL
- alt image tag
- body of the content
That way, you’ve got it all covered, and it won’t seem like too much since a part of it is for the search engines while the other part is for the customers to read.
Create a Structure
One huge piece of written content is the worst thing you can do to a product description. Instead, you need to create a structure that breaks the description down and makes it:
- easy to scan for specific information
- easy to read
- easy to understand
It’s always a great idea to start with the subheadings, such as:
- Product Description
- Features
- Materials
- Packaging
- Customer Reviews
For each of the sections, use bullet points to further break down the content and information you’re offering, like for an office chair:
- easy-to-use mechanism
- pressure-sensitive brake
- automatically releases upon sitting
Structuring the information properly will increase content readability and make sure your customers quickly find the information they care about.
- Use Conversational Language
Think about your target audience for a second. Imagine you’re explaining a product to them in a real-life conversation, like a friend to a friend.
What kind of language would you be using?
Overly formal and technical language can make the customers feel like all you’re trying to do is sell. But, you also need to be:
- informing
- advising
- entertaining
- motivating
- helping
Conversational language is the best way to find common grounds and write more convincing and friendly product descriptions. Your content will instantly become more SEO-friendly since it’ll match the searches of your customers more closely.
Shorten It
There are cases when product descriptions need to be lengthy because the product is super-complex and you have to include all the right information. But, in most other cases, you can write short but informative product descriptions.
Here’s what you need to do:
- write short sentences
- avoid repetition and redundancy
- go straight o the point
- omit sentence elements by using bullet points
Here’s what we have in mind:
- This TV bench will create the perfect storage space for your living room and allow you to customize the shelves according to your needs.
vs.
- Massive living-room storage space
- Customizable shelves for personal adjustment
The other one says the same as the first one but saves valuable screen space and makes the product description shorter and more information-packed.
Avoid Empty Words
When a customer sees you’re just writing words to make the description more lengthy or seem like it contains more important information, they’re not going to like it.
They don’t want you to waste their time. Instead, they want to find information and get your help in deciding whether to buy a product or not.
That means you should avoid empty words such as:
- extremely
- super
- very
- really
- especially
- high quality
- excellent price
- brilliant model
- best-selling
Your only task is to provide information about the characteristics, benefits, and features. Leave the praises and personal remarks to the customers.
So, don’t oversell or overpraise but focus on valuable and informative content for your product descriptions.
Add a CTA
Adding a CTA to your product description is another significant detail you shouldn’t skip. Your customers need that final reminder and summary of everything you’ve written previously.
In other words, it all leads to what is said in the CTA.
Your CTA should:
- be short and to the point
- tell the customers what to do
- urge and motivate them
- remind them why they should do it
So, try making a one-sentence line that summarizes the whole description:
- You deserve a dishwasher that does all the dirty work- order yours today!
- Buy yourself a heat-free summer- order the air circulation fan ASAP!
- Treat your house to a new set of curtains!
Be as inviting and motivating as possible, making it harder for your customers to resist the urge of doing what you’re suggesting.
Write Accurately
Finally, you want to take care of the fine touches and edit to make your product descriptions completely accurate. That means you’ll:
- do a spell and grammar check
- proofread for typos
- edit for better structure, vocabulary choices, and tone of voice
You can get professional writing help at WritersPerHour or use an online proofreading tool. Just make sure everything you write and publish in your product descriptions is accurate and double-checked.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, after reading our guide, you’ve realized just how simple it is to write an SEO-friendly product description that helps you reach all your goals. From raising brand awareness to outranking your competition, you can make it all happen.
Use our 10 valuable tips and start writing outstanding SEO-friendly product descriptions for your e-commerce.