Creating essential content that is both informative and concise is not only crucial for how customers will interact with your products, but also for how Amazon will index them in their search engine.
The product description is your chance to succinctly sum up what your product is about in one paragraph, letting customers know exactly what they’re buying. A cohesive, well-written description remains an essential part of the online shopping experience. Though product descriptions play a lesser role than product titles in Amazon’s internal search algorithm, Amazon is a highly competitive retail channel. Brands need to optimize all content that relates to Amazon’s search algorithm in order to be discovered in a sea of similar products, including essential content.
What Makes a Good Product Description
An ideal product description is no longer than one paragraph and is written with clear, easy to understand sentences.
Don’t attempt to make a product description something it’s not. Just as the product title field should only describe what a product is and not what it does, you shouldn’t attempt to turn essential content into enhanced content with HTML, Java, scripts, or special characters.
Not only do Amazon style guides prohibit over-the-top product descriptions, but shoppers dislike it as well. Amazon search expert Dan Meyers told us that product descriptions on the most successful pages were, “not replete with high ASCII characters, malformed HTML, or phrases where clearly the seller thought the product description was feeding the search algorithm and pumped it full of keywords or something awkward.”
Though product descriptions should be keyword-optimized for search relevance, those keywords should sound naturally and describe what the product does.
Examples of Good and Bad Product Descriptions
TaoTronics LED Desk Lamp, Gooseneck Table Lamp 7W
Though the product description for this desk lamp includes plenty of valuable information, there are a number ways it undermines its own usefulness. First, it’s easy to see that the text was copied and pasted from another source, one that had headers, and no one bothered to edit the information into a single, cohesive paragraph with proper punctuation. As a result, the description is hard to read and seems unprofessional, which runs the risk of customers moving on before they finish reading it.
This company completely squanders the opportunity to describe their product. Anyone who comes to this page hoping to learn more about Blue Juice Valve Oil and how it’s used, what it does, why it’s effective, which instruments it should be used on, or any other pertinent info about the product is going to be disappointed. If you struck up a conversation with someone at a party and asked about what they do for business and they only responded, “BLUE JUICE valve oil 2 OZ,” you would probably slink away slowly and find someone else to talk to.
SanDisk 128GB Ultra UHS-I Class 10 SDXC Memory Card
This product description is just right. It’s not too long, not too short, and written in clear, cohesive sentences. SanDisk outlines the how the memory card is used, what electronics it is used with, and its unique features and benefits in four informative sentences. They also integrate their brand name, product name, and a number of applicable keywords seamlessly into their text.
The Takeaway:
Don’t try to get around Amazon’s rules and make outrageous product descriptions. For the best results from Amazon’s search algorithm and from your customers, focus on succinct and informative descriptions.
