How to Write SEO-friendly Product Descriptions on Your Online Store

Search Engine Optimization involves many things, from conducting keyword research, creating content, link building to performance check, and everything in between; there are so many key eCommerce metrics you need to keep track of. However, each step of SEO is there for a purpose and plays a significant role in your overall SEO score and ranking. One of these steps that often gets neglected is writing product descriptions that are optimized and SEO-friendly.

Still, it’s important to remember that besides doing your best to get a high score from Google bots, you also need to communicate with your customers in a way that will increase your sales rates. This means that you have to think both technically and socially at all times. For example, you can have technically perfect and optimized product pages, but if no customers are clicking through them and purchasing products, they’re pretty much worthless. If you’d like to learn how to write product descriptions that are both SEO and human-friendly, make sure to follow these few steps:

1. Conduct a Full Audit of Your Product Pages

For instance, you’ll need to make sure you’ve done the actual technical work for your product page SEO. This means you’ve already reviewed your on-page optimization for each one of your product pages. Although conducting such an audit feels like a daunting task, it’s crucial. You may want to start with a full store audit, which can be done quickly using several online tools.

2. Always Keep Your Target Audience in Mind

Before you learn how to write SEO-friendly product descriptions, you first need to go back to the very core of your target audience. As we mentioned earlier, you can’t optimize your product descriptions for bots only, and you have to keep your customer in mind at all times. If you have a broad audience and a wide range of categories, you’ll need to segment them into two or more categories, depending on your business. That way, you’ll be able to write suitable product descriptions that speak directly to your shoppers. You may start by segmenting your audience by geography, demographics, behavior, etc.

3. Do a Full Product Description Audit

Provided you ticked the previous steps, you can start a complete product description audit, meaning - checking your overall description copy and the product title. The following few questions can be beneficial when tweaking and reviewing your existing product descriptions:

1. Are your product descriptions optimized for bots and written for humans? Although you’re optimizing your product descriptions for search engines, you’re also writing them for your customers. That’s why the way you lay them out is vital for increasing your sales. They don’t need to be all fancy - they simply need to answer your customers’ questions and be easy to read.
2. Are you loyal to your brand voice? The tone of your descriptions is equally important because if you stay true to your brand while writing them, your descriptions will be unique and will stand out from your competitors.
3. Are you highlighting the key product features? No matter the format of product descriptions you’re using, you must highlight the critical elements of each of your products. Simply put, some of your customers will have a high awareness of your brand and products, so they won’t like having to read lengthy descriptions and never getting to their key features.
4. Do your product descriptions tell stories? Telling a story through your product descriptions can go a long way in getting your potential customers interested and keeping them on the product page. For example, you may find an excellent way to briefly present to them different ways they can use your product.
5. Are you honest about your products? Being creative with your product descriptions is one thing, but lying about them is another. If you choose to write product descriptions that are not trustworthy, you can’t expect to gain loyal customers and positive customer reviews. While we’re at it, customer reviews can be a powerful tool in building a solid relationship with your customers, so it’s not advisable to leave them out. Lastly, being dishonest about your products is one of the worst eCommerce marketing mistakes.

4. Break Up Your Product Descriptions to Ensure Easy Reading

Next up is your ability to break down your product descriptions so that they’re easy to read. That being said, you should include all the relevant information and prevent boring your customers until they eventually bounce off your product page. Safex Market advise sellers to write straightforward and simple descriptions and ensure the audience gets all the essential information they need. In addition to that, you may choose between the two main writing formats, the long-form, and the bullet form, keeping in mind what your audience prefers. If you’re still unsure or feel like it would be best to implement both these forms, feel free to combine them.

5. Reevaluate Your Product Description Length

No general principle can be applied to all product descriptions when it comes to their length. It really depends on your business and the products you sell. It all comes down to weighing your buyers’ preferences and needs against your products’ specifics. For some products, the list of essential features will be short, and for others, it will be significantly longer. For example, you can’t expect to have the same product description length for socks and computers, as the latter description needs to provide all the technical specifications.

6. Insert the Right Keywords at the Appropriate Places

You probably know how important keywords are when it comes to SEO. However, when writing product descriptions, you also need to create the right keywords for your customers. You want them to ensure more conversions by adding them to your meta titles and descriptions, product titles, and product descriptions. In most cases, the correct keyword would be the exact product name and a long-tail keyword. On the other hand, an SEO-friendly product description should not be stuffed with keywords, and you’ll need to pay attention not to overdo it. Let’s see where you should focus your keywords:

1. Meta description and title,
2. Page URL,
3. Description title,
4. Product description (if it’s a longer one, you can insert two), and
5. Alt image tag.

Final thoughts

We must mention the last, although not the least, step that you should make to have an SEO-friendly product description on your online store: check for duplicates. We know it’s sometimes challenging to write a completely new product description if you already have a similar product, and it’s tempting to copy-paste and change a few words. However, search engines will make sure to penalize you if they find you duplicating content. Lastly, make sure to A/B test everything you choose to change in your product descriptions, and see how your customers react. Taking feedback from your customers is one of the eCommerce trends in 2022.

Learning how to write an accurate product description does require dedication and some knowledge, but once you’ve got these few steps covered, you’ll be writing SEO-friendly product descriptions in no time! This knowledge you can later use for writing all other blog posts that are related to your target niche, no matter if you’re selling on classic eCommerce platforms or on blockchain based eCommerce platforms like Safex Market.