Online shopping is more popular than ever, with sales consistently growing each year by 20 percent or more, and looks set to continue its meteoric rise. As the market matures, though, the competition gets more fierce, which means Web shop owners must go the extra mile to persuade customers to shop at their sites.
Your e-commerce store needs to stand out from every other store selling the same products. There are many facets of creating a powerful online business, including a clean design, simple-to-use catalog and shopping cart and competitive pricing, but one major aspect that is sometimes overlooked, however, is the content.
Fortunately, with a bit of effort, you can be sure your product descriptions and ad copy are top-notch, without having to spend any money or hire any outside help. Taking the time to write original and engaging content is a prudent way to amp up your overall site optimization.
Conveying Your Own Voice
Manufacturers and suppliers generally provide product descriptions and even full-featured reviews of their products. While the instant availability of this content is tempting, using it could do more damage than good when compared to using your own unique, freshly-written copy.
Your store needs an appealing voice; one that your visitors haven't seen before. This can't be achieved if you use recycled product descriptions and other content. You only have a few seconds to make the right first impression. If you make a bad first impression by using tired content, you will lose potential sales, so it pays to write your own compelling product descriptions.
Improved Search Engine Results
It's not just your customers who want to see fresh content — search engines do too. Duplicate content penalties are applied to pages that take copy and republish it verbatim. If you include product descriptions that are duplicated then you are potentially missing out on the opportunity to target hundreds or even thousands of keywords. Every page you write naturally contains keywords pertaining to the product you are promoting. By making this content original, your site performs better in search engine results and you undoubtedly generate unique long-tail key searches.
The long-tail search theory is that collective demand for less-popular items can add up and surpass the total searches for your most popular items. Long-tail searches are typically made using three or more word phrases, so are also highly targeted when compared to the more generic one or two word phrases.
Market Demographics
When writing your product description, consider your target market. Think about the specific demographics of the people you attract to your site and then base your writing around this information. Remember that different regions and different countries use different languages. Some colloquialisms are virtually unheard of outside a very small locale.
Product Description Style
Every product description needs to be concise but informative. It should always guide your visitors in the sense that it indicates the advantage to them of purchasing that product. Product descriptions should not be too lengthy. They should include all of the major benefits to your customer of using the product without being a full-featured review.
Personal experience with the product always provides a better description for obvious reasons but when this isn't possible, try to gather as much information as possible. Look around the Web to find extra snippets of information. Use shopping sites to read people's actual experiences with the product. These can be a superb source of information.
A good description obviously needs to be descriptive. However, it should also combine certain other elements. One of the most important marketing questions that you must answer is "What's in it for me?" If you answer this question for your customers without them having to ask it, you will improve your conversion rate.
Blue and white sneakers by Nike
A dull and lifeless description fails to provoke your visitors into action. The above example is unlikely to yield impressive results. Not only is it too short, it doesn't give your visitors a reason to buy the shoes.
Nike sneakers: cutting-edge design proven to raise performance, reduce injury, and look good. Now available at our lowest prices yet.
This description still falls a little short in terms of length but it provides four excellent reasons to buy them that are relevant to your target market.
The Product Review
Reviews can be a powerful persuader when it comes to selling products online. They can certainly be much longer than a product description and they should be more personal. When writing a review, one popular and effective method is to describe your own use of the product. Give the reasons why you chose a particular product, the advantages of that product over other similar ones and detail your experience. Also provide any useful tips or hints that provide a more "insider" viewpoint.
As time goes by, continue adding to these reviews in order to build up the amount of information you can provide. This provides you with the chance to target many more keywords, generating much more search engine traffic. It also ensures that you market your product to your visitors.
Improved PPC Results
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is also a popular form of marketing an e-store. A PPC ad is usually only a few words long and requires genuine effort in order to gain the best results. One of the areas where this effort is truly rewarded is in the writing or original advertisements. A PPC ad is not usually placed in a solitary position on a Web page and is normally surrounded by other advertisements as well as other components of page content. Making your ad stand out it is absolutely critical.
A PPC ad that stands out needs character and it needs to be short and snappy. Simply copying and pasting another ad from your industry will not generate the best results. Ensure you include the main benefit of using your site or purchasing a particular product and provide relevant and accurate information. The more relevant your ads are to your target audience, the better your results will be. Similarly, targeting keywords that closely match your market will again increase your PPC results.
As with any form of content writing, use good grammar, correct spellings and language appropriate to your market. Always check the content of your ad and, if possible, get somebody to proofread it. Then, check it again. Nothing will damage your PPC conversions like a glaring spelling mistake.
One final point to include is your unique selling proposition or the incentive to buy. What is it that makes your product or your site unique and appealing? What's in it for your customers? These are the most powerful questions you can ask yourself when composing a PPC ad so ask them, and ensure that your copy answers them before potential visitors even reach the pages of your e-commerce site.
Here is an example of a poorly written ad:
Mens Sneakers
Cheap mens womens childrens sneakers
IN STOCK NOW
www.wesellnikesneakers.com
Not only is it uninspiring, but it contains poor grammar and redundant content. There are certain "power" words that can be used in an ad like this to improve the number of clicks you receive. Words like "cheap" may improve your click-through ratio, but not necessarily your profit. Always be wary when using these types of sales pitches. Some PPC advertising companies may also reject the term "IN STOCK NOW" because it appears in block capitals.
A more effective version is:
Nike Sneakers
Get Fit And Look Good Doing It
Free Next Day Shipping
www.wesellnikesneakers.com
This example uses capitalization on all words, which is a legitimate formatting style allowed by AdWords and other PPC companies. It also includes the word "Free" in a prominent position to catch the eye. This ad would produce much better results than the first one in regard to keywords related to "Nike Sneakers."
Bottom Line:
Original Web content will perform better than recycled information that is published in multiple sites all over the Internet. Write your own product descriptions, and consider adding more detailed reviews for some of your main products. Every site tends to attract a different set of visitors, and you should ensure that the content you use is specifically geared toward yours to ensure higher conversion rates.
Matt Jackson is a regular contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. Matt offers original Web site copy to e-tailers looking for user- friendly and search-engine friendly content.
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Be Fresh: Original Content Converts
