Applying search engine optimization (SEO) best practices in writing your product descriptions is very important if you want more internet users to encounter your products online. Having said that, your descriptions should not only focus on informing your potential customers about your products/services, but they must also be able to push your website to the top of search engine results.
Wondering how? Billboard Online prepared this “Best Practices for SEO-Friendly Product Descriptions in 2024” blog to give you an idea for writing effective product descriptions.
1. Understand Your Target Audience
Why It Matters: Keep in your mind that knowing who you’re communicating with is a must if you want to come up with compelling and relevant descriptions for your product listings.
How to Do It:
- You can start with developing your buyer personas. Doing so can help you better understand their needs, preferences, and primary struggles (or concerns).
- You may also leverage relevant reviews and feedback from your existing customers to gain useful insights into what potential new customers value most.
Pro Tip: You may want to consider getting a professional content marketing service to help you implement in-depth audience research. Our team can guarantee that your product descriptions will resonate with your target market and push casual visitors to actually purchase.
2. Focus on Benefits, Not Just Features
Why It Matters: You must focus on discussing your products’ benefits while writing your descriptions instead of simply outlining their features. As HubSpot asserted, most customers tend to learn more about how your products/services can address their problems or improve their lives.
How to Do It:
- Start by emphasizing your products’ unique benefits and how they can meet customer needs.
- You may also leverage the art of storytelling if you want to build a strong emotional connection with your target audience.
Pro Tip: We recommend you hire copywriting experts because they have the necessary knowledge and skills to deliver your product features as compelling benefits to drive sales.
3. Conduct Thorough Keyword Research
Why It Matters: Another important step you must take to develop SEO-friendly product descriptions is to implement comprehensive keyword research. Doing so will help your product listings appear in search engine results and increase organic traffic to your website.
How to Do It:
- You may freely use currently available tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to pinpoint high-volume, low-competition keywords to help your listing achieve a high ranking in search results.
- You should also strategically incorporate relevant keywords into your product title, description, and meta tags to increase your listings’ online visibility and attract more customers.
Pro Tip: You should partner with a digital marketing agency because it can help you develop a tailored keyword strategy. With professional help, you can guarantee that you’re maximizing your product’s visibility on Google searches.
4. Write Unique Descriptions for Every Product
Why It Matters: It is important to note that publishing duplicate content can negatively affect your rankings in search results. Even worse, it can reduce your website’s credibility in the eyes of your potential customers. That said, you must write unique descriptions for each of your products.
How to Do It:
- You must avoid copying the descriptions already provided by your manufacturers. But you can use them as a basis for your own product descriptions that you’ll publish on your website.
- You should also create original and engaging content for each of your products regardless of their similarities to ensure that Google sees the value of your content.
Pro Tip: You should hire professional copywriters if you have no idea how to write unique descriptions that maintain consistency while still outlining your products’ distinctive value.
5. Use Clear and Concise Language
Why It Matters: Your product descriptions must contain clear and concise language to ensure that your potential customers get what you’re trying to tell them about your offerings. Nielsen Norman Group explained that internet users rarely read web pages word by word. In fact, they only scan the page quickly to pick out individual words and sentences.
How to Do It:
- You should prioritize using only short sentences and bullet points to make it easier for your audience to digest your message.
- Also, remember to avoid jargon because not all of your audience can understand technical terms. You must only incorporate straightforward and persuasive language when writing your product descriptions.
Pro Tip: We suggest you seek content marketing services if you want to ensure that your product descriptions are concise without compromising their impact. A professional’s help can make your product listings more accessible to all potential readers.
6. Optimize for Mobile Users
Why It Matters: You must ensure the mobile-friendliness of your product descriptions because most internet users today use mobile devices. According to Exploding Topics, mobile device users made up 63.38% of all website traffic as of September 2024.
How to Do It:
- You should focus on implementing responsive design for your product listings and descriptions to ensure their readability on smaller screens like phones and tablets.
- You must also keep your product descriptions short and scannable to make it easier for mobile shoppers to navigate your listing.
Pro Tip: You may want to partner with digital marketing agencies and trust them to test/optimize your product listing for various devices. Doing so can help you significantly enhance your user experience.
7. Include High-Quality Images and Videos
Why It Matters: As we’ve been saying through our previous blogs, visual elements can significantly improve your product descriptions. In effect, your customers are highly likely to make informed buying decisions.
How to Do It:
- You must only use high-resolution images that truly showcase your product from multiple angles to ensure that your customers understand how it can help them.
- You may also include relevant videos or GIFs to demonstrate how to properly use your products and access their features.
Pro Tip: We urge you to work with a content marketing agency because they can help you develop professional visual assets that can convey your written product descriptions, potentially encouraging your casual visitors to buy your offerings.
8. Leverage Social Proof
Why It Matters: You must learn how to strategically leverage social proof to gain your potential customer’s trust and build your brand credibility. You may include your existing customers’ positive reviews and testimonials to boost new buyers’ confidence in your offerings and encourage high conversion rates.
How to Do It:
- You can start by accentuating positive reviews from your previous customers directly in your product descriptions to influence your potential buyers to actually take the next step.
- You may also incorporate relevant quotes or positive ratings to show them how your products have previously satisfied customers.
Pro Tip: You may want to seek marketing professionals’ help to properly curate and add social proof to your product descriptions. Their strategies can be effective in influencing potential customers’ buying decisions.
9. Incorporate Strong Calls-to-Action (CTAs)
Why It Matters: Your product descriptions must have strong and clear CTAs if you want to guide your customers to take the next step. Your CTAs can push them to take your desired action, like adding your products to their virtual shopping cart or contacting your support.
How to Do It:
- You should practice using action-driven phrases like “Shop Now,” “Order Today,” or “Learn More” in writing your CTAs to appeal to your customers’ emotions better.
- You must learn how to position your CTAs to ensure that your customers can easily spot them.
Pro Tip: You should hire copywriting experts if you need help in writing effective CTAs that truly align with your brand voice to ensure high conversion rates.
10. Monitor and Refine Your Strategy
Why It Matters: As usual, the last step we recommend you go through is monitoring and refining your marketing strategy. Keep in mind that conducting continuous optimization will help you ensure that your product descriptions remain effective and up-to-date after some time.
How to Do It:
- You may freely use currently available analytics tools like Google Analytics to track key metrics like click-through rates, bounce rates, and conversions.
- You should also test different strategies to see which one resonates best with your target audience and increase your chances of achieving high sales.
Pro Tip: You should partner with a digital marketing agency because they can offer you actionable insights and recommendations that can help you ensure that your strategy remains on track.
Final Thoughts
After reading all that, you may have realized now that maintaining a balance between creativity and technical optimization is a must to be able to write product descriptions optimized for search engines. You can significantly boost your products’ online visibility and increase your sales if you follow the best practices we outlined in this blog. But it will take time and patience to master these strategies. Don’t worry, as our professional content marketing and copywriting services can guarantee that you save time and achieve the results you desire.
Billboard Online’s experts can help you write effective product descriptions that both rank and convert casual visitors into loyal customers. Contact us today to learn more about how we can elevate your e-commerce strategy.