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Product descriptions are one of the most important factors in establishing your brand’s online prominence, searchability, and trustworthiness. They don’t just help buyers make better-informed decisions about your products—they influence your brand’s ranking on the Faire marketplace and your website’s ranking in online search results.
Writing product descriptions can be daunting if you’re tackling this task without much prior experience. That’s why we’ve assembled some of the best tips and tricks to help you write descriptions for your Faire shop and website. First, let’s start with the basics.
Why product descriptions matter
Above all, product descriptions are designed to provide information to potential buyers. The better informed your buyers are before making a purchase, the less likely they are to request a refund. This is especially true if you have similar but slightly different products that might cause confusion.
Where to begin with product descriptions
When you sit down to write a product description, think about potential questions that your B2B customers might have so you can provide answers up front. Ask yourself the following questions:
- How does your product solve a customer’s problem or benefit them in their daily lives?
- What makes your product stand out from competitors’ offerings?
- What kind of social proof could help a customer better understand the benefits of your products?
Also consider who your ideal buyers are and what tone will appeal to them. If you’re looking to attract wholesale customers, the descriptions you write should be tailored to a specific B2B audience rather than a general audience.
How to format your description
Product descriptions are typically formatted as a very short paragraph of 150 to 300 characters followed by a list of bullet points (10 max) highlighting and describing important features. Clear formatting including bullet points also makes it easier for customers to quickly scan through your product descriptions and find the information that is most relevant to them.
Choosing the perfect words
The best product descriptions are simple, specific, and to the point. They should also include words that grab readers’ attention, address pain points buyers might be facing, and highlight the main features of the product. Adjectives that touch on the five senses such as bright, buttery soft, creamy, crunchy, or silky smooth often stand out in readers’ minds. You might also consider mentioning which of your products are highest rated, best reviewed, or bestsellers. And if you still aren’t sure where to begin, you can always look around to see what other brands are doing to get some inspiration.
Need to describe your product using more technical terms? Consider adding a searchable glossary to your website. Several tools are available to help you get started. If you have a WordPress site, for example, you can use plug-ins such as CM Tooltip Glossary to create a searchable glossary of terms and phrases. This enables definition boxes to pop up when visitors hover over key terms. Glossaries are also an opportunity to include additional terms and phrases that are relevant to your industry (and that retailers might be searching for) in one place on your site.
Don’t forget keywords
Don’t forget to use relevant keywords and phrases that are likely to be included in searches for products like yours. Start with topics relevant to your industry and brand, then branch out to terms and phrases that relate to those topics. There are many different tools available, such as Google Keyword Planner, to assist in your research. Keywords should be peppered throughout your product descriptions—you can even include keywords in the description of videos on your Faire shop page.
How to write product descriptions for Faire
Many of the same principles apply whether you’re writing product descriptions for your website or your Faire shop page. However, there are a few specifics to keep in mind with Faire. When a retailer searches for a product on Faire, the words they use are matched up against products’ titles, types, categories, and descriptions. You can learn more about search and ranking on Faire in this Help Center article and about creating product listings for your Faire shop in this article.
You have to put a small business owner in the position to answer questions about scale, specs, usability, how things are packaged, and so on.
Max Wunderle, Chief Commercial Officer, Toysmith
Basically, when there is an exact match between a buyer’s search terms and the words or phrases found in the title or description of a product, that product is automatically prioritized over others in the search results. Products with synonyms and similar phrases in their titles and/or descriptions are prioritized next. Since product descriptions are longer than titles, there is more room to include terms and phrases that buyers are likely searching for in the description.
It’s particularly important to write for an audience of wholesale business buyers as opposed to a direct-to-consumer audience when writing descriptions for your products on Faire. The team at Toysmith makes a point to keep the needs of independent retailers in mind when crafting informative product descriptions, and they attribute at least part of their success on the platform to this approach.
“You have to put a small business owner in the position to answer questions about scale, specs, usability, how things are packaged, and so on,” says Toysmith chief commercial officer Max Wunderle. So be sure to include information about dimensions, ingredients, materials, weight, care instructions, where the product was manufactured, and any other essential information retailers might want or need to know.
What to avoid when writing product descriptions
There are a few missteps that you should try to avoid when writing product descriptions for your website or Faire shop. For starters, avoid being vague, using too many filler words, or relying on clichés that customers have seen a million times, such as describing your products as “excellent” or “top-notch.” Most importantly, never exaggerate or speak inaccurately about any aspects of your products. For example, you might mean well by describing a product as “never before seen,” but if it’s been done before by someone else then it simply isn’t true regardless of how much better your product is. Accuracy will build much more trust in your brand.
It’s important to avoid formatting and proofreading errors as well. Take the time to carefully read over your descriptions and check the spacing, font, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and grammar to avoid any typos or inconsistencies that might make your brand look unprofessional.
With these tips and tricks in mind, we hope you’ll find it easier to write product descriptions that sell and help establish online prominence for your brand. Lastly, don’t forget, high-quality product images are just as important as a crisp description. Try these pointers for improving your product photography too.
