How to Create an Effective Product Page

Selling online can look easy, but it isn't. Behind every sale lies a carefully built engine of marketing techniques that kicks in and goes to work long before a shopper clicks "Buy".

You don't have to look very far back to remember when the internet was a kind of digital Wild West, a breeding ground for less-than-ethical marketing practices. That has largely changed now, and for the better. Online architecture has evolved to the point where advertising and marketing now work together to hit their sales goals by delivering a better user experience. The more comfortable users feel, the more open they are to being persuaded.

And this is where product descriptions come into play. Yes, the ones we often write in a rush, or out of laziness, just to get them done as quickly as possible — or, in the worst case, copy and paste straight from the brand's or distributor's instructions. If you just recognized yourself in those lines, keep reading.

Product descriptions can be a key pillar of an effective digital marketing campaign. They have the potential to engage with customers in a way that other digital marketing tools simply can't match. Writing good product descriptions isn't easy, though. A poorly written product description can end up steering customers away from the product altogether.

Below we'll go through a series of tips that will help you build an effective product page :)

1. Know your audience
Whether you're writing descriptions for products you distribute or for products of your own creation, it's important to know your audience and understand what their concerns are. When you write a product listing, you're not just describing its qualities and benefits — you have to keep in mind, at every step, who the product is aimed at.

2. Know the product
This may sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people write descriptions with barely any experience of the product. If you don't understand the ins and outs of the product, your description will be limited to generic statements and won't answer the questions potential customers have.
As a rule of thumb, you shouldn't even attempt to write a description for a product you haven't used or tested first-hand. For example, if you know nothing about hair dye products, don't try to write a review recommending the best one. If you do, you could ultimately damage your reputation in the long run, because not knowing the product means you may have overlooked an important tip, an adverse effect, and so on.

3. Make it sound natural
Broadly speaking, marketing falls into one of two categories: organic and non-organic. Organic marketing refers to actions and parts of marketing that obviously aren't marketing tools in themselves — product descriptions fall into this category.

Organic marketing tends to be more effective because it doesn't raise the usual defense mechanisms consumers have against marketing. For example, when someone sees an ad on TV telling them a product is "the best out there", they understand those words come from someone who wants them to buy that product. In other words, zero objectivity and zero impartiality. Now compare that to the same product described by a friend telling you it's "the best they've ever tried". That's the difference between the two types.

Keep this in mind when writing your descriptions. It's not about making them super casual, but if they sound too formal, customers will end up reading them more like a press release.

4. Find your style
When product descriptions are too generic or too technical, they don't have the same impact on the reader. A reader is far more likely to buy a product if the description they read is emotive and shows a distinct, personal voice. The only way to find your voice is to keep writing and keep practising. As you develop your skills, you'll get a better sense of what works and what doesn't for you, and what connects with your potential customers.

5. Back it up with other voices
If, on top of a well-crafted product listing, you include ratings and customer reviews from people who have already tried that product, you'll be adding extra value to your product page. With modules like Revi, your readers can expand on the information you offer about your product and gain an extra layer of trust. And you gain an extra layer of conversions :) It also helps to anticipate doubts directly on the page — see our guide to handling product page questions and answers for more on this.

So now you know: product descriptions can be a hugely valuable marketing tool — but only if they're done right.