Running an online storefront will require you to make sure that your website is visible to the right audiences. The best way to do that organically is via Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is all about following the trends set by your industry and Google’s own SEO algorithm rules.
By catering both to customers and SEO algorithms, you can gain more exposure, leads, and revenue via global search engines. So how does SEO work? What do you need to do to write better product descriptions for your eCommerce storefront to benefit from SEO as much as possible? Let’s discuss that in this post briefly.
The Role of SEO in eCommerce Product Description Writing
The eCommerce industry is oversaturated, with thousands of storefronts offering seemingly similar or identical products to global audiences. So how do you differentiate enough to gain a loyal following and sell your products? With SEO, you can raise your site’s organic ranking in search results whenever someone looks for terms or phrases related to your storefront.
For example, if someone looks for “handmade jewelry” on Google, Bing, or Yahoo, you want your handmade jewelry products to rank high in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). SEO isn’t difficult if you do it systematically and keep up with ever-shifting trends in optimizing your product descriptions. According to published reports, here’s how you can benefit from SEO:
- SEO drives conversion up by up to 14.6%
- Search engines make up ten times more traffic for eCommerce than social media
- 75% of people never scroll past the first page of their search results
- Google dominates the SEO market with an 86% search engine market share
- Over 60% of Google searches happen through mobile devices
In short, the role of SEO in eCommerce is to signal to potential customers that your content, products, and ads are more relevant than the competitors’ ones. The simplest and most effective way to achieve that without relying on PPC advertisement is via good SEO practices. Let’s see what constitutes as such in product description writing.
How Can You Write A SEO Friendly eCommerce Product Description?
It’s worth noting that some of the tips we’ll talk about aren’t strictly related to product descriptions themselves. However, they are just as relevant to your eCommerce site’s SEO, meaning that you should think bigger when optimizing your writing.
Related: How to Choose the Best Hosting Plan for Your eCommerce Business?
Every page on your site will add to your positive or negative SEO, so try to consider your home page, blog posts, and other pages. You’ll maximize your presence on the open market and convert leads into recurring customers more easily. But for that you need URL hosting offering top-notch support, speed and security.
Structure your Website with Product Categories
Web crawlers are algorithms search engines use to index pages on the internet. Since eCommerce websites have hundreds or thousands of pages available literally, you should categorize them as soon as possible. Depending on the products you sell, your categories will differ from other storefronts.
For example, your categories will be based on different industries or professions if you’re running a job listings platform. Similarly, a handmade jewelry storefront will have categories based on the materials used to create said jewelry. Placing corresponding products into their respective categories will make browsing and indexing your web pages faster and more convenient. This will add to your SEO and User Experience (UX) appeal, positively contributing to your conversion rates.
Discover Trending Keywords Before Writing Content
The best way to get started on your product descriptions is by seeking out trending words and phrases to base your writing on. These keywords represent the most popular search queries searched for by people interested in those topics, products, services, etc. Here are a few great tools to check out for your keyword research:
- Google Keyword Planner
- Ahrefs
- SEM Rush
- SpyFu
- KW Finder
Remember to use at least two different keyword tools to compare their findings before creating content around them. It’s best to write the content first and foremost and then integrates the keywords you found into it. Creating content with keywords-first will handicap you how original and creative you can get with your writing.
Always Write Product Descriptions for Humans First
Speaking of original content, people will always spot when you’ve created content only to appease the SEO algorithm. Such product descriptions are unappealing and not genuine, and they’ll likely drive traffic away from your website. Start writing descriptions without any keywords integrated into them to hit that organic text feeling.
Once you’re satisfied with the text you wrote, go over it with certain keywords and phrases. Aim for a 1.0 keyword density in your content. If there are 500 words in your description, each keyword should appear 5 times throughout the text, and so on. This may be a slower option compared to writing content with keywords in mind from the start, but it will undoubtedly help your conversions far more in the long run.
Emphasize Practical Benefits over Technical Features
When someone wants to buy a piece of jewelry, a phone case, or a microwave, they’ll think about the practical applications of such items. How can they benefit from buying products like these and how can you nudge them toward the purchase decision? The easiest way to do this is by formatting your product descriptions adequately and emphasizing benefits over features.
While it’s true that technical features matter in an item description, especially if you’re selling electronics, they are not the primary selling point. The main appeal of any item is in its practical use. This is why you’ll lose many more sales by listing benefits first features second than you would the other way around. Make reading these points easier by listing them with bullet points or by creating graphics for various benefits of using your coffee machine, refrigerator, or bookshelf.
Highlight Certain Words and Phrases in Each Description
You’ll want to streamline the process of reading your product descriptions as much as possible for customers to buy your products. One of the ways to do that is by using bolds and italics in your product descriptions. Here’s a great example of how you can use this to your advantage:
“Our mattress will let you sleep more peacefully and get more rest every night thanks to its innovative design.”
These two elements are best used in your “benefits” section to highlight the most important words and phrases. This is useful for people with short attention spans, mobile users, as well as web crawlers who will take note of your bolded words. However, bolds and italics should be used sparingly so that you don’t create a visual disparity on your pages. You want your pages to look as organic as possible – not as spam or a shady sales offer. Be reserved and professional in how you highlight words and phrases, and they’ll do their job well.
Keep your Descriptions Short and Cohesive
More and more people use mobile devices to purchase products from eCommerce platforms. Your product descriptions must be formatted to allow these users to access your content without issues. Firstly, you should use a website theme suitable for mobile-friendly responsive design.
Next, you should write your product descriptions in short form without creating entire essays about each product on your site. Reserve long-form content for your blog section (more on that later) and stay as concise and cohesive as possible in your actual descriptions. Explain what the product does, how it does it, and how people can benefit from it and move on to the next one.
Create Original Visuals for Each Product
Visuals are just as important in eCommerce product descriptions as the text itself. Images, videos, and other multimedia can make or break your storefront if you mishandle them. For starters, you should avoid using stock photos copyrighted images, and videos about your items if you’re reselling them. Create original media more times than not and add alternative text to each piece.
This will help people with slow bandwidth and mobile users who opt-out of multimedia to still experience your web pages as intended. Not only that, but Google’s SEO algorithm will look to your pages favorably because alt-text is considered an accessibility feature. Optimize each piece of media to lower its size without sacrificing its quality as much as you can to speed up your load times.
Create Blog Posts and Content Related to Various Products
Creating ancillary content for your eCommerce products is a great way to augment their value in the customers’ eyes. This is why you should create a separate blog section on your website and start writing various articles in your spare time. Blog posts can significantly add to your SEO game and ensure that people stick around on your storefront for longer. Here are a few great content formats you should try writing:
- How-to guides and tutorials for certain products
- Benefits of using certain products
- Create numbered or top N number of articles about your products
- Write articles based on user-generated content from social media
- Invite influencers and guest contributors to write about your products
There are plenty of creative ways in which you can create blog content for your eCommerce website. The best thing about blogging is the internal link network you’ll create when publishing new posts. You can integrate product links into blog posts, blog links into product descriptions, etc. This will help guide your visitors through the store organically and help them find the best products for their needs.
Bottlenecks to Avoid When Writing Product Descriptions
We’ve taken a deep look at how you can improve your product description writing for SEO. However, there are also potential mistakes and pitfalls to address when it comes to SEO writing which you should be aware of.
These bottlenecks will, if not fixed, hurt your eCommerce store’s performance both with customers and search engines. One great way to fix that is by working with reliable thesis writers who can edit, proofread, and format your product description quickly. Outsourcing some of your content writing to professionals will let you focus on managing your storefront, researching keywords, and creating multimedia for each product instead.
Without further ado, here’s what you should NOT do when writing content for eCommerce product descriptions:
- Missing alt-text data for your multimedia will make the content less accessible
- Stuffing your descriptions with keywords isn’t a good idea – aim for a 1/100 words keyword density
- Lacking any form of social proof (testimonials, reviews, star ratings, user-generated content, etc.)
- Focusing too much on sales talk and calls to action without any organic description of said products
- Lacking any URL naming convention or structure, causes your URLs to look like gibberish to users
- Duplicating too much content between different product descriptions – try to stay unique ● Slow page loading caused by large multimedia which isn’t optimized for web viewing
As you can see, these mistakes make sense when viewed in the context of eCommerce storefronts. Try to fix them as soon as they appear on your website to keep your store’s SEO as healthy as possible. Combined with the positive tips we’ve outlined in the previous segments; your eCommerce product descriptions will breathe new life into your brand moving forward.
Making your eCommerce Storefront More SEO Friendly
Keeping your storefront SEO-friendly is a long-term project. You’ll never really be finished with SEO, especially if you constantly rotate your product offerings and sales campaigns. Stay on top of your SEO game by following industry trends via Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner, review your pages for broken links, and engage your visitors.
It’s the best you can do for your site – the rest is up to Google’s SEO algorithms and customers’ search query trends. It will scale your eCommerce store and boost the visitor’s retention on your website. These writing measures will make your eCommerce brands of higher value and you can enhance sales from it.
