Arguably, the most important enhanced content you create for your product page is the first 150 or so words. If your enhanced product description does nothing else, within the first few sentences it should provide an accurate overview of what your product is, what it does, and what primary user benefit it will bring your customer. If your written introduction fails to do this, you will lose potential sales. Research shows that visitors make up their minds about a website in about seven seconds.
You may not have control over the design and load time of the e-commerce site on which your product description resides, but you do have complete control over the product description itself. That’s right—just seven seconds to convince a reader your enhanced product description is worth reading.
The 7-Second Rule: Always Include the Big Three
We discuss the use of headers, bullet points, images, layouts, and other best practices for keeping your reader’s attention elsewhere on the blog. For now, focus on making certain your introduction pulls its weight.
The first 150 or so words should include the following essential information:
- The name of your product
- What it does
- How it will benefit the consumer
Without this information, your visitors won’t easily understand your product and they will leave the page.
What a Good Product Introduction Looks Like
Ideal for slow-cooking large meals, the Calphalon Contemporary Nonstick 8.5-Quart Covered Dutch Oven offers generous capacity with exceptional durability. Made with heavy-gauge, hard-anodized aluminum to ensure even heating, this classic Dutch oven goes from stovetop to oven with ease while cooking roasts, chickens, chili, soups, and more. And unlike most hard-anodized cookware, this Dutch oven is dishwasher-safe. Calphalon Contemporary Nonstick 8.5-Quart Covered Dutch Oven is oven safe to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and backed by a lifetime warranty*.
In 77 words, this Amazon A+ intro relays important details: product name, function, and key uses and benefits. It provides what most shoppers want to know most about cookware, such as capacity, material, and cleaning info.
The intro draws in readers with concrete details, like the types of meals one could cook with this Dutch oven. Mentioning the warranty is a smart move because it does double duty—it’s an important benefit and also implies high quality.
What a Bad Product Introduction Looks Like
Bluedio T3, the 3rd generation of turbine headphones, is engineered to sound better, to last for a very long time. The 57mm drivers and titanizing diaphragms provide powerful bass, dynamic sound reproduction. Besides, the alloy frame ensures it`s sturdy enough to be durable. All those make it a high-quality, cost-effective headphone.
What kind of headphones are these? What is “titanizing,” anyway? It may be a legitimate audio technology but, in this poorly written description, it reads as jargon, or worse, as nonsense. The few concrete details (e.g. turbine headphones, 57 mm drivers, alloy frame) are easily overshadowed by bad grammar.
This 51-word intro from an Amazon A+ page reads like mad-science gibberish poorly translated from another language. The full product name is Bluedio T3 Extra Bass Wireless Bluetooth 4.1 Stereo Headphones. It’s contains important details and keywords that the intro fails to use or explain.
Good Intros Impact SEO for Essential Content
The above examples are from enhanced product pages, but essential content also needs accurate, concise, and informative introductions. Good intros on essential product pages can pay dividends when it comes to SEO results.
Firstly, when no metadata exists for an essential content product page, Google will pull the first 150-160 characters of the intro to use in organic search results. Though product titles and keywords play a greater factor in SEO, well-written intros in organic search results have higher CTRs (Click Through Rates).
Secondly, product intros travel, thanks to the butterfly effect of content merchandising. With the butterfly effect, your product description on Amazon is “borrowed” by other retail or affiliate sites across the web, resulting in dozens to thousands of occurrences in search results. Because of the butterfly effect, poorly written intros become lost opportunities.
For more examples of good and bad essential product descriptions, check out How to Write Essential Product Descriptions for Amazon.
