3 Tips for Creating POWERFUL Ecom Product Descriptions

Brad Owens | Nov 10, 2021

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Hey, it is Brad with BGS here, and today I’m going to be talking about creating powerful product pages, creating awesome product page descriptions, with these three tips that I’m going to share with you. I’m one of the Revenue Optimization™ experts with BGS and I help our clients grow and scale their businesses. I’m also a coach and instructor with our Ecommerce Business Blueprint.

So, I’m gonna go over creating some awesome product page descriptions.

Tip #1

The first tip I want to talk about is that you need to make sure you answer any questions your customer may have about your product in the description.

The more technical the product is, the longer the description needs to be. And it really kind of depends on your store too. If you have a POD store where the image is kind of the star, where the image is the most persuasive element, then the description is not as important. But if it’s a more complex product, the description really is key. And regardless of what you’re selling, there are at least two questions that you need to answer in your description that the customers are going to want to know. 

Questions You MUST Answer

One of those is going to be the shipping time. “How long before you ship, and how long is it before I receive my product?” And the other question is going to be, “What do I need to do if I need to return the product?” So, you need to answer the shipping questions and the returns questions in your description, at a minimum.

A good way to do that is with tabs, and there’s an app called Easy Tabs that can set up tabs for you. Vertical tabs are the best if you can do that. For this example, I’ve got Tonal, and they’re kind of like a Peloton. So, they’ve got an expensive product that’s pretty complex because there’s a hardware component to it. There’s also a membership component to it. And it’s pretty much a one-product store, so if you go on the Tonal website, pretty much everything about the site is just explaining what the product is, what are the benefits to it, how do you use it, etc. When you get to the actual product page, it doesn’t go into all the other details, but they’re still pretty concise with their description and it’s laid out really well.

You’ll notice they have tabs, and by default, this is usually open, and they use bullets. You want to use bullets when you can—that really breaks it apart and makes it easier to read, because you want things to be easy to read, and so they use bullet points explaining the different features and benefits of the products. And then when you go down below, they have a video. So again, if you have a more expensive and complicated product, that’s when you want to add videos, infographics are great, charts, additional images … Anything like that would be a good thing to have. They’ve got a great video, it’s very professional, they’ll open up a full screen and play the video. If you want to go in and check it out, you can do that. But they’ve got a video, and then they have their other tabs. “Smart Accessories” … OK, these are actually optional. They have it as like what we call an “order bump” to their product. And the way they have their accessories, they break it down with little icons. So they make it super simple. They have an image for each one, and it also explains what each one does. And then they answer the questions about memberships. They have your technical specs … Anytime you have technical specs, I would put those in a separate tab because usually most people do not want to read a list of specs. But if you have it in its own tab, where it lives there, then if they want to look at the technical specs, they can go there. Just make it as easy as possible for your customer.

And then they have “FAQs.” Ideally, you want to have your description where a customer will not have to go off the page and go to a back page. Ideally, you don’t even need a FAQ page because you’ll answer all the questions within the product description. And they have a ton, but they have it laid out really nicely, so I can actually go down to exactly where I need to be, and they use what’s called “progressive disclosure,” so I can see the headline, “Can I purchase Tonal if I live in Hawaii or Alaska?” And then I click that, and it tells me. And then they have other links if you need even more information in addition to that.

So that’s tip number one: Try to answer as many questions as you can within the product description.

Tip #2

Tip number two is all about the layout. You want to avoid what we call a “wall of text.”

You want to make it readable, and with that, you need to have a standard size font. We recommend at least a 16-size font. You also want to organize your different sections within tabs. You don’t want to mix up different font types, you want to have a font that is readable, and not anything that’s really crazy and hard to read. And you want to keep your paragraphs to probably two to three sentences per paragraph. OK? If you have more than three sentences in a paragraph, that’s where people will zone out and they may not even read it.

Let’s go to another one. Another example is Hot Topic … Everyone loves Hot Topic, right? So, we go down here, we go down to their descriptions, and notice that they use vertical tabs. Pretty much no site is completely perfect, except for our partners’ … I’m just kidding. But no site’s perfect. They have the product ID, which you don’t want to have there. No one cares what your product ID or your SKU number is. However, in their description, they talk to their customer: “Get that 90s grunge schoolgirl look with this plaid pleated skirt. The red and black color combo will match with anything, and this grommet belt gives it that extra edgy oomph.” And then it has some stuff that the customer may or may not care about. Like usually, they’ll want to know what it’s made of: “65 polyester; 35 rayon,” “Wash cold.” So, you have washing instructions, “Imported,” (probably don’t really need that), “Listed in junior sizes,” “Model wears size Small,” “Length.” That’s all good information to have. But if you notice, they have individual descriptions. So that’s Tip #2.5, we’ll say: Individualize your descriptions too. If you notice, they have a ton of similar items. You can see that with their “People Also Purchased.” But if you go in their menu, they have a ton of very similar items, and they’ll each have a unique product description for each product, even though they’re similar. So that’s really important, it’s going to help with their SEO too, and it makes it better for the user. 

And they also answered their questions about shipping returns, available shipping methods … It tells you the methods, the cost for their standard, and the shipping time. And then they have “Returns & Exchanges.” I would probably go into a little bit more detail than this because they have a link that says, “View Returns & Exchange Details.” You don’t want to take them off the product page if you can help it. So, you can do a tooltip where a little box pops up, or at least say, you know, “We will accept returns within 30 days/60 days.” Probably a little bit more information, but at least they’re answering those two questions, which are probably the main questions for a company like Hot Topic. Like, “How long does it take to get it, and how do I return it?”

So that’s tip number two: Keep it organized, avoid walls of text, make it readable. And also, avoid typos. No one likes to see typos. Let’s have someone proofread it or something, but just try to avoid typos if you can because that can seem unprofessional and can turn customers away.

Tip #3

Tip number three—this is my favorite tip—is use humor. People like to laugh; they like to smile. So, as long as it’s appropriate, use humor in your copy, in your product description copy when you can. Now, it doesn’t have to be like slapstick, The Three Stooges-style humor. You don’t have to be like, “That’s what she said” in the description. But you can just use a little bit of humor, kind of lighten the tone when you can, because people buy from people that they like, or companies that they like. OK? So, it makes it more personal when you use humor. If you’re making someone smile when they’re at their laptop or on their phone, that’s a good thing. If you look at the Super Bowl commercials, the ones that you usually remember are the funny ones. The top ones are going to be the really funny ones, and those are the ones that you remember. So, use humor in your copy when you can. Now, as long as it’s appropriate. If you have something that’s really serious, really sad or dramatic, then it may not be appropriate, so just use it when you can. Again, it doesn’t have to be like slapstick-type humor, but just have some personality and really talk to your customer. That’s the main thing … Talk to your customer avatar in their own language. 

So as an example, here I’ve got Wicked Clothes. I love this site. They have some pretty funny shirts, they’re kind of like metal and punk, stuff that I love too. But they’ve got a “Demon Dog” shirt. I can relate to this because I have a little yippie demon dog. He’s a Maltichon. And he just goes psycho when he sees people. But if you look at the description here, “I love my dog. Sure, he’s tore up more things that I can count, cost hundreds of dollars in damage, barks at every passing pedestrian on the sidewalk, but he’s doing the best he can, and I accept him exactly how he is.” So, use humor, that builds your brand. Another thing that I like about the site is they have their unique branding all over the site, even with their icons and their images, free shipping, and free returns, you’ve got a little paper airplane, a little rocket ship.

So, using humor can help build your brand, it can really tie in and create an emotional connection with your audience. And again, when you have these unique descriptions— not just copying and pasting something from a manufacturer’s website, or even worse, an AliExpress description—it’s going to make it more personal, and again, it helps with SEO, which is more of a long-term thing, but it’s good. Whenever you get SEO, that’s a good thing. 

So that’s it:

1. Tip number one: Answer any questions that your customers may have about your product in the description.
2. Tip number two: Make it very readable and avoid walls of text.
3. Tip number three: Use humor. 

Those are my three tips for creating powerful product page descriptions. Hope you liked it. And if you did, we are actually recording this for our YouTube channel, so make sure you like, share, comment (we would love to hear your comments), and subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you would like to work with us, if you’d like assistance in growing and scaling your business, make sure you go to www.workwithbgs.com and we can help you build, grow, and scale.

I’ll see you guys next time.