Types of Product Descriptions: Here's All You Need to Know

A product description is to your business what a pawn is to the game of chess. A pawn, by itself, is not that powerful and can only take one step at a time. But, when you carefully fit it into the overall strategy of your game, it could turn into a queen, knight, rook, or bishop, and help you win the game.

Similar to that, a product description, by itself, only provides the product details and product features to the potential buyer. But, a compelling product description--like these ones--based on the brand, its culture, strategy, and target audience will increase traffic, reduce bounce rates, and close more sales. In fact, 20% of failed purchases are due to incomplete or lack of product information.

However, it is not just about having a product description. It is about having a product description that actually sells. And the only way to come up with one is to first understand the different types of product descriptions.

Here are the various types of product descriptions and what you should know about them.

1. Comprehensive Catalog Product Descriptions

Whether you're selling on Amazon, shopify or any other ecommerce store, a comprehensive catalog product description is used to inform the potential customers of the features of the product, and how it will solve their problems. 

As it is very detailed to cover all the important points, you should break it down into different subtopics and bullet points to make it readable and scannable. You can even include a couple of images and videos to fully convey the message.

2. Overviews Ready to Share

When digitally advertising your products and services, you cannot go into full details of how readers will benefit after purchasing. Most people just glance at an advertisement, ignore it, and scroll on in less than a second. In fact, as long as your ad is displayed for less than 14 seconds, it's looked at for less than a second.

So, what is the solution to that? Try to be displayed for more than 14 seconds? No, there is only so much you can do to increase viewable seconds. What you do instead is make full use of the less-than-a-second of gaze time you have.

This is where ready to share product descriptions come in. They are brief descriptions that pass the most important information in a simple manner to customers. These shareable product reviews entice your audience to click a CTA to learn more about the product.

The information and CTA should be highlighted in bold, italics, and underlines to successfully pass the message.

3. Shopping-Feed Details

Shopping feeds are files containing product information. They are used by marketing channels such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon to take in data about products for listing. It typically consists of the product image, product title, identifier, marketing copy, and product features.

The goal of a shopping feed is to deliver high-quality information to influence the buying decision of shoppers.

Well-written and updated shopping-feed details that fully describe your product are important as they determine how your product will be displayed. On top of being fully descriptive of the product, the details should be written with your target customers in mind. It is the only way your product listing will be unique and pass the necessary information to close a sale.

4. Meta Description

A meta description is a small blurb that appears beneath the page title of search engine results. It provides a brief summary of the content of the page for the users to know whether that is what they are looking for.

When users search for a product on Google, most of them can't click on all the results and open all the web pages to check the product listings to see if it is what they are looking for.

They just read the short summary of features or whatever details are included in the meta description and only open the promising ones. That is why your product page meta description should be treated as a product description. This ensures that those who click your pages actually want what you are offering.

Here's an in-depth look at product description SEO. 

Most importantly, your meta description should be well infused with keywords to improve your rankings, and a meaningful CTA to get your prospects to take action.

5. Quick Details for Category Pages

A category page sits above your products page in your website hierarchy. In short, it is a topic page for a certain group of products. For instance, a shoe company might have category pages for “Men’s shoes”, “Women’s shoes”, and “Running shoes” which display the pictures of the shoes.

Your customers shouldn't have to click on each of the pictures on the page to learn more about them. To simplify their navigation of your website, hovering with a mouse, right-clicking, or tapping each of the products should display details of the product. These quick details that are displayed are a type of product description.

The description is written to pass quick information so it should present any special features or deals and any other vital piece of information in a few words. That way, your visitors will know exactly which products to click on.

6. Affiliate and Referral Descriptions

You need to be consistent in your message if you want to grow your brand and gain the trust of your target customer.

That said, you should not let bloggers, affiliates, and influencers post their own messages when marketing your business. Instead, you should be in charge of what they say about your business or at the very least, how they say it.

To achieve this, when partnering with them, you should provide them with a product description that they should copy and paste. Even if not fixed in stone, as long as it doesn't mess with your consistency, they can tweak it however they want as long as they maintain the core message.

7. Video Product Descriptions

Videos are much better than text at creating a lasting impression and explaining the product benefit and uses. They are also quite effective at closing sales. 

According to Tubular Insights, video product descriptions convince 64% of customers to purchase products. That said, landing and product pages, as well as shareable content are more effective when they are in video format.

Also, uploading video product descriptions on video platforms such as YouTube increases their reach. More so, including a product link in the video will increase traffic to the product page.

Here are a few tips to help you write a product description that sells:

• To naturally appeal to your ideal customer, you should write it in their language. You can study their language by engaging with them on social media and checking review sites.
• Describe each little feature and how it benefits the customers because you are competing against similar products. No detail is too insignificant.
• Use humor and sarcasm to be more rememberable. Remember the famous Dollar Shave Club 2012 commercial?
• Your product description should focus on the audiences’ pain points and how your product solves them better than your competitors.
• Use stories to lower your audience’s guard.
• Make your descriptions scannable.

Effective product descriptions sprinkled all-around your product are vital to pushing your prospective customers through the sales pipeline. But they are of different types. So, the first step to designing them perfectly is to be aware of all of them and where they fit in your overall strategy.

The seven types above are a great place to start. But, it might be a bit overwhelming. One minute you’re learning about the existence of product descriptions and the next minute seven types are being shoved down your throat.

But don’t let that bother you – professional product description writers can handle it all for you. 

Hire a Professional Product Description Writer Today!

Does your website need the touch of a professional product description copywriter? If so, look no further! The incredible team of content creators at Zoey Writers are just one click away.

If you're not yet sure, here are more reasons to hire a product description writer for your business.

We are a content writing agency that prides itself for having some of the most gifted writers this industry has to offer. Once you hire us, we’ll properly optimize each and every one of your product pages and help take your conversion rate to the next level. 

Whether you want a few product descriptions or hundreds of detailed product descriptions written, don’t hesitate to hire us. Our pool of talented product description writers are never short of unique ideas and can produce high volumes of quality content in a short timeframe.

Check out our product description writing services or give us a call and let us create product descriptions that will positively influence potential buyers’ purchase decisions. 

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