Product Description Writing Guide

10 min readJul 4, 2020

In this article, I’m going to show you how to write a killer product description, doesn’t matter which forum you need this for.

I’m going to shed some light on the bare essentials that MUST be in every product description — at least you need them badly for the “product description” part of “product copy”.

Product copy — which is a broad topic — is not going to be discussed in this article.

However, if you have the time and guts to read my 11,000+ Product Description & Product Copy Guide,

Our focus will be mainly on Amazon descriptions.

Why?

Well, it is because ‘Amazon’ is the word that pops up in the mind when someone says “retail”.

By the beginning of 2020, more than 197 million unique visitors would be visiting Amazon at least on a monthly basis.

And because Amazon made more than USD 232 billion only in the year of 2018.

And because there are more than 2.5 million sellers on Amazon by far and more than 25,000 of them make more than $1 million in annual sales.

In simple words, on God’s green Earth, there is no other retailer like Amazon.

The Headline

In case you need product description for Amazon, eBay or other such stores — you need a particular type of headline.

So what kind of headline is best for product description?

Remember, headlines on retail stores like Amazon mostly feature the main keywords and the most important features.

Let us examine the headlines of different products on Amazon and see which of the two formulas work better …

“Main features + keywords” or “main features + keywords + copy magic”:

So:

Green is the name of the company and sorta kinda the keyword people use to find this product …

Red is an emotional trigger, not at the same level but mauve also underlines a powerful phrase.

And words underlined with yellow color actually refer to the color of the lipstick (a feature) and the same words also work as keywords e.g. best mauve lipstick.

So, this was an example of a headline that is more leaning towards a “features + keywords + copy magic” method.

Let us take a look at one with more copy magic, and fewer keywords and features:

As you can see, Revlon guys opted for a small and catchy headline.

You can see the company’s name (which could be avoided because you can see the hyperlinked store name right underneath it) …

You can see how they tried to make it all sensational — no other makeup product is as sensational as a lipstick, so yes, they addressed the right emotion.

I’m thinking of Mad Men right now …

Anyhoo, you can see the feature (color of this lipstick), which is also a keyword.

So, which of these two examples is the best when you need a headline for an Amazon or eBay product listing?

The second one, right?

Wrong!!!

Remember, in case of a product description your product has a tough competition against hundreds — even thousands of the same products listed by other vendors.

This is not the “sweat block” scenario where a prospect lands on your website via Google search or your funnel. In that case, you get a private audience with the visitor.

Do details matter in case of headlines?

The simple answer is yes!!!

In an Amazon/eBay scenario, you have to sum up all relevant and important details in the headlines.

This is why some headlines are ridiculously long:

Wow!!!

Another thing that we can learn from this example is that if technical specs dictate the purchasing decisions, you must add those specs to the headline.

If I am selling a hamster cage, it’d be a good idea to mention the sizing in the headline.

Can a headline be exclusive?

It may or it may not …

In case you want your product to be seen by a “to whom it may concern” crowd, do not exclude people.

However:

In case you want to narrow down on the exact person that is the ideal customer of your product, you should exclude others.

Here’s an irrelevant example that talks volumes about exclusion …

Ben Settle is known for excluding the wrong type of audience via his emails; only the right kind of them would refrain from clicking the “unsubscribe” button and those are the only ones Ben wants.

So what is the ultimate formula for writing a compelling headline for product description?

brand name + product name + nature of product + emotional trigger/main benefit + features/specs + keywords

As you can see, the way how you arrange different ingredients of this formula varies from case to case.

Also, this formula is near perfect, but this does not mean that you HAVE to add all ingredients to your headline — you can always drop one or two items.

I’m pissed off right now; did you really have to give this much space to headline?

Yup — because it does most of the heavy lifting and selling …

Also:

Here are our major takeaways that you can follow to write a headline for a product description (not applicable to the headlines of product home page and sales page):

Product description (Amazon etc.) would have a different headline from product copy (on the home page or product page).
For ranking purposes (on Google, and Amazon itself) it is a good practice to start a headline with the brand name — especially in cases where store name and brand name are not the same.
The biggest benefit of your product should come before features and other details.
Your features and benefits could both be summed up into most frequently searched keywords e.g. best pink truffle lipstick.
You can use your or your competitors’ reviews to write a headline that will touch your prospects’ hearts. This detail has not been discussed in this part, it can be found in the last part of the article where I have discussed Amazon reviews mining and Voice of Customer research.
The headline might have technical information and specs if they’re too important e.g. monitor 144 Hz, hamster cage iron.
Best formula for product description’s headline brand name + product name + nature of product + emotional trigger/main benefit + features/specs + keywords = a perfect headline

USP or UVP

USP stands for Unique Selling Points …

UVP stands for Unique Value Proposition …

Keeping in mind the subtle differences, I’d say that mostly it is the same thing.

A USP/UVP is a competitive edge that your brand enjoys over others …

How to find USP(s)?

Well, there are many different ways to find your product’s unique selling proposition(s).

First and foremost of them is to take a look at the product’s packaging.

There are a lot of things that one can learn from the packaging of a product and one of them is why that product is the best among all such products.

Take a look:

But remember, this method is useful only if you’re a store and not the manufacturer.

If you do not manufacture products, you can use packaging, the product itself, manual and the website/social media of the manufacturer to get plenty of information about the product.

Another very easy way of finding USP(s) is to ask yourself a few questions about a product. Let us suppose the product is a gaming monitor:

What problem is this product is a solution to? And how does it solve that problem?
What are the biggest benefits of a big, curved monitor? Best for human eyes’ peripheral vision, immersive experience, fast processing of views, best for multitasking, 4K play, etc.
What are the most important features? 60 fps, 60 Hz, 21:9 aspect ratio, 4096 x 2160 resolution, etc.

Remember, your product’s top benefit is its UVP — because it is what attracts them the most.

Features/specs are the USP(s). Use feature/specs as a UVP only if it is too famous that average Joe would understand it e.g. 1080p display.

The last resort is to check your best performing competitor’s pages and descriptions to see the kind of USP/UVP they use.

These points can be mentioned anywhere in the product description.

As a matter of fact, from your bullet points to the body copy on the product description to the small product description at the bottom of all this detail, you should use USP(s) on all important occasions.

Let us take a look at the venues where you can use the USP(s):

In most of the cases, the first bullet point is the UVP; the rest of them are only USPs and technical details, etc.

Where Should We Discuss USP(s)?

In the body of the description:

And the short description in the end:

Here are our major takeaways:

Vendors that do not sell manufactured products can find out the USP/UVP on the packaging of the product, the product itself, the user manual of the product and the web/social media of the manufacturer, etc.
A very easy method is to follow the UVP/USP(s) on your top-performing competitor’s description.
Another easy hack is to ask yourself the problem that your product is a solution to and how it solves that problem.
When we categorize them, they are divided into two types and we can find them by answering two questions. A) What are the biggest benefits of the product? And B), What are the main specs/features.
UVP is the biggest value or benefit and USP’s are secondary benefits or features.
A features-based USP can be used as a UVP in the case where such feature or specification is very famous among common users.

Body

So, how should one write the body of a product description?

Depending on the website or platform for which you are about to write the product description …

Depending on how technical or complex is the product …

And depending on whether you have enough money to have a sales copywriter sprinkle some sales copy magic on that part or not …

The body of a web description can be written in a few different ways.

Check out the body of this product description:

As you can see the product is a battery-operated, tennis ball thrower for practice. This description is not from a big retail store like Amazon or eBay etc.

I took it from the company’s website …

Shocking, isn’t it?

And again, instead of using a product description in product copy (2x the punch), they decided to only put a product description there …

And the body is nothing but a lame and boring table about specs and features …

Again …

There is nothing wrong with it; actually, it is highly emphasized that you must add a product description to your product copy, but the description alone cannot do the job.

So, this kind of body is simply a grave injustice to your cause …

And you know what your cause is: selling a comb to a tough crowd even if that is a crowd of men bald AF.

Let us see what Remington did to their Amazon description:

Did you see the underlined parts?

Everything is either a specification that works behind the machine — digits, facts, technology, etc. or it is a feature — it shows what these specs achieve.

Notice how they discussed everything important without sounding too much like a user manual …

And here I would stop this, because most of this has been covered in the first part — How Important is Product Copy?