Amazon has an enormous share of the American eCommerce market. In 2018, the retail giant was controlling just under half the industry, capturing 49% of eCommerce and 5% of all retail spending for the nation.
Those numbers include third-party sellers on Amazon, as well as direct sales from the giant itself. As of 2019, more than 5 million sellers hawked their wares on the Amazon marketplace, with more than a million Amazon sellers joining the ranks in the last year alone. Those sellers are divided across 12 markets globally, but wherever you’re working as a freelance product description writer, Amazon provides an opportunity for branching out into a specialty: writing Amazon product descriptions.
An Amazon product description writer helps clients who sell in the Amazon marketplace ensure their items appear in search results and listing pages and increase conversion rates via well-written marketing copy. Here are seven tips for becoming the best Amazon product description writer you can to keep clients coming back for more.
1. Write to Capture Conversions During Micro Moments
Roughly 90% of people check prices on Amazon even when they’re shopping elsewhere. They also turn to Amazon as a retail search engine, bypassing Google to get quick facts about goods on the retail site. Keep this in mind when writing Amazon listing copy. During a micro moment, the person is thinking about the product and may even consider making a purchase, but you only have a few seconds to capture their interest.
- Keep PDs short whenever possible
- Follow journalistic best practices and lead with the “meat;” in product copy, that means putting the best selling points first
- Organize information in a way that’s logical for browsers; if the item isn’t the right size, they won’t want to waste their time reading more
2. Optimize Descriptions with the Right Keywords
Amazon’s algorithm takes both sales page content and CTS into account when positioning products in its search results. CTS is a reflection of the number of people who click on products and then actually purchase them.
Only 30% of people even click to the second page of Amazon product results, so it’s critical to land as high in the results as possible for your targeted search terms.
As an Amazon product description copywriter, you can help your clients achieve this important goal by incorporating the right keyword phrases into your descriptions. If clients don’t provide keywords, do some quick research to find out how people are searching on Amazon for these types of products. Then, include those phrases in the product title and the first and last sentences of your description whenever possible.
ALSO: Watch This Webinar to Learn the Secret to Creating Product Descriptions
3. Don’t Forget to Write with Google in Mind
Google does index Amazon product listings, so keep search engine optimization in mind when you’re writing. You might include top Google keywords alongside Amazon keywords — these aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Just remember — focus on delivering a good customer experience and don’t sacrifice it trying to include too many keywords.
You should also keep snippets in mind; Google will automatically pull a helpful snippet straight from product descriptions and use it in the meta description position in the search results. Keep that 160-ish character limit in mind when you’re crafting the first sentence or two of your Amazon PD; would it make a good hook when appearing in the search engine results?
ALSO: 3 Ways to Improve Your Product Page SEO
4. Write in Feature/Benefit Format
Use strong marketing copy practices, including writing about features and benefits. Since most Amazon product descriptions appear alongside images of the goods and specification listings, you can concentrate more on the benefits instead of describing exactly what the item looks like.
5. Use Bullets and White Space to Make Content Easy to Scan
When someone is perusing products online, they may be comparing numerous items or taking a quick gander into the eCommerce options while they’re standing in a physical store. The point here is this: no one has time to sift through bulky product descriptions or face down huge paragraphs of text.
Write Amazon PDs that are easy to scan so individuals can look for the specific information they require. Some tips include:
- Using bullet points to list key features with related benefits
- Including line breaks between short paragraphs to increase white space
- Organize your PD with key features and benefits up front and sample use cases or less important considerations toward the bottom
- Format all PDs for a brand the same way for easy scannability and brand recognition
6. Study Amazon’s Rules for Product Description Content
Did you know Amazon has its own style guide? That’s definitely something professional Amazon copywriters need to be aware of.
The Amazon Services Quick Start Style Guide offers concise information on best practices and rules for formatting Amazon product descriptions. For example, product titles can’t be more than 200 characters and Amazon has some preferences for capitalization.
Amazon also publishes rules for descriptions related to specific types of products. It doesn’t allow descriptions that include spoilers related to media products such as movies and books, for example.
Knowing the rules for various listing types helps Amazon product description writers provide viable content for clients. And when clients can upload your content without worrying about a negative impact on their listing status, they’ll remember you for future jobs.
7. Check Out the Product Descriptions of High-Performing Products
Finally, check out what other brands — especially the top performers — are doing when it comes to Amazon product descriptions. By considering the descriptions that already help products rank high, you can understand what types of keywords are working for various types of goods. You can also get ideas about how to format, phrase and build Amazon product descriptions that best serve your target audience and perform well for clients.
ALSO: 3 Examples of Great Product Descriptions that Convert and Rank
Become an Amazon Product Description Writer
Does it take some time and work to become an effective Amazon product description writer? Yes. You have to keep up with Amazon’s style guide and requirements as well as general best practices for SEO and marketing copy. But with the eCommerce giant taking an ever bigger piece of the pie, honing your Amazon PD writing skills can mean a big payoff down the line.
