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February 2023 NewsBeat 11 or possibly someone who enjoys hosting parties. I would create more than one buyer persona in this case. It helps them host wonderful gatherings around a smokeless, beautiful fire. Endangered Species Chocolate: Likely someone a bit older (30+) with more money to spend on indulgences and who cares about the planet as well as great chocolate. It helps them enjoy a delicious treat and take a moment for themselves. Notice that I didn't say, "Gives them a good shoe to wear" or "Gives them a pit to make a fire." There's more to it than that— it's about the ultimate desired outcome: Having the perfect fire to make the perfect party or the perfect boot to look good and feel good without breaking the bank. If you can figure out exactly what your audience wants and needs, then you can paint a picture with your words that can sell your product for you. If you don't know the answers to these questions, it's time to do some market research. Read forums, ask questions, and always try to get authentic customer feedback. Even consider sending an email asking for people's feedback and try to get them to let you hop on a phone or video call. This insight is invaluable and can be worth giving free products or discounts to get. 2. Tell a story Good copywriting gets the reader invest- ed. You want them to feel like they're a part of your story or mission. In the words of world-renowned copy- writer David Ogilvy, "The worst fault a salesman can commit is to be a bore." Peo- ple want to be entertained and fascinated, and your descriptions are no exception. Obviously, this is easier done with some products than others. It's pretty difficult to tell an interesting story about something as simple as a standard phone charging cable or a roll of paper towels. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. One of my favorite ways a brand has done this is Squatty Potty and its slogan "Unkink Your Colon": It combines humor with storytelling to make an extremely compelling product de- scription. And it keeps it going all the way through its product page. The "story" is, as a species, we have evolved to poop while squatting, not sit- ting. The squatty potty helps you to do what humans were designed to do in the unnatural environment we call a bathroom. Not all products lend themselves so well to this type of humorous storytelling. But if you can find an interesting angle for your products, it can help you create a selling point. 3. Write with SEO in mind If you care about getting free, recurring customers, you should care about search engine optimization (SEO). That means optimizing your product pages so they can rank for keywords people search on Google and other search engines. Optimizing your product descriptions starts with knowing what keyword you want your page to rank for—which means you need to do some keyword research. The easiest way to do that is to search for your product on Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer, look at the Related terms report, and leave it at the default view. It shows you keywords that pages ranking at the top 10 positions for the keyword on the input also rank for. For example, let's say I want to sell a purple bikini. It brings back 38 related keywords: The keyword "purple bikini" is searched for ~3,000 times per month. But there are other keywords like "purple bathing suits," "purple bikini set," etc., that are also searched for. These related terms can help you further optimize your product page for the main target keyword. You can use these keywords in your page headers, the description itself, image alt text, and more. Just add them wherever it feels natural and makes sense without try- ing to force them in too many times. Think of it as a way of varying your word choices (which is one of my tips to become a better writer, by the way). This is part of the deeper process of on- page SEO—something every e-commerce business owner should learn. 4. Use ads to test copy Enough about SEO. Let's talk about pay- per-click (PPC) ads and how to use them to improve your product copy. If you're already running search ads, then use excerpts from the winning ad copies in your product descriptions. You've already got the data that they work. If you're not running ads, you can still spy on competitors' ads to see what kind of copy is working for them. Just Google your product… 5. Make it look good Your product page doesn't need to just sound good—it needs to look good too. This encompasses a lot of things: • Using better words to describe your products • Formatting your description in a way that's easy to scan • Breaking up large paragraphs and cutting fluff • Using high-quality photos and videos • Breaking up the page visually The brand examples I gave at the begin- ning of this article do this really well. They don't just have some product photos with a description and a "buy" button—their whole product page is a landing page creat- ed to convert the visitor. They break up the page into sections us- ing a mix of beautiful product photos with brief descriptions, video overviews, and close-ups that explain the minute details. If you don't know how to structure your website like this yourself and can't find a template you like, it may be worth hiring a web designer to build it for you. Beyond the structure of the page, you should also focus on improving the words you use to describe your products. Instead of just saying it's "durable" or "high qual- ity," take a more poetic and enticing ap- proach. 6. Cut the fluff Hopefully at this point, you've meticu- lously brooded over every word of your descriptions. You've formatted them with thoughtful use of bulleted lists, sections, and media. But there's one more thing you need to do to polish your description: Ruthlessly cut the fluff. When you're done writing, sleep on it first, then read your product descriptions out loud the next day. By reading them out loud, it will be painfully obvious where you've added unnecessary, extra wording or which sentences sound strange. Some big culprits include the overuse of the word "that," writing in passive voice in- stead of active voice, and using weak verbs instead of stronger, more expressive ones. This article was first published at https:// ahrefs.com/

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