Six tips for perfect product copywriting
Whether you’re creating brand new content for an ecommerce site or just refreshing your product pages, it’s worth spending some time to get the copy right. Too many businesses copy and paste the product description from the supplier’s site or just free write whatever comes to mind when they come to upload to their site.
But a good product description can be the difference between a customer buying with you or continuing their search elsewhere. Here are six great tips for perfecting your product content.
1 – Understand your audience
To write the perfect product copy, you need to know who you are writing for. Ask yourself: who is the product for and who is most likely to buy? It’s unlikely that you would use the same style of writing for aspirational millennials as you would for pensioners. But it’s also worth looking deeper into your buyer. Are they style conscious? Bargain orientated? Highly educated? When you have a real understanding of your audience, you can start to make decisions on style and tone of voice.
2 – Research your product
You also need to really understand your product and where it sits in the marketplace. Don’t think about getting started on the writing until you have conducted thorough research into the advantages of your product compared to the competition.
Talk to whoever you need to – take the time to call or email the manufacturer or supplier to get the most relevant details. This is the stuff that will make your product stand out from the crowd and promote sales.
3 – Write for humans
Of course it’s necessary to be aware of search engines and how to optimise your product content effectively – but don’t fall into the trap of writing for the benefit of Google. Firstly, Google’s algorithm gets smarter every day, and what it really likes to see is good quality content. But also because the true value of product copy is its ability to convert.
Yes, search terms and keywords are important but there really is no good in having people landing on your product page if they never actually, you know, buy the product. Focus on writing the best possible content for human beings to read, that is what will get you the sales.
4 – Don’t get caught up in word counts
There is a lot of talk about ‘thin content’ on the internet. It’s certainly true that pages with too little content can perform poorly in Google search results, and sites should always be aiming to improve their content. But remember too that we are talking about a product page. Ultimately, if they have landed on a product page, they are here to make a buying decision. This means that your content needs to be concise, crisp and lead them towards making the purchase.
No, your content should not be too short, but don’t ramble on making the same point over and over to reach a round 500 word count. Use as many or as few words as you need to sell the product to the audience and leave it at that.
5 – Be original
Filling your product page with cliché sales nonsense will do nothing to promote sales at best, and annoy your potential customers at worst. It’s a much better idea to take your time and create snappy content that someone will actually remember. Make them laugh or present your product in a way they haven’t thought about before. It will make a real difference.
6 – Use emotive language
Too much product content perfectly describes the individual features, but forgets to explain what it actually does for you. Consider the difference between describing an office chair as being ‘ergonomically-designed’ compared to content that explains the chair contains ‘back support to keep you in complete comfort’.
The difference here is the use of emotive language – the kind of language that allows the customer to understand how fantastic it is to own the product.