When it comes to eCommerce copywriting, there is a lot of contradicting material accessible. Some experts may advise that you increase sales by making your landing pages fast and creating a sensation of “FOMO.” Others may tell you that the devil is in the details and that you should make your pages as thorough as possible to give readers a clear picture of why they want your product.
The issue is that most of this advice is based on personal experience or decades of behavioral psychology study. There’s no certainty that one approach is better than the another, and there’s very little evidence to back it up.
So, how should a data-driven marketer proceed? You may test various eCommerce landing pages or online stores to determine which ones work best for your target audience, but this might take a long time (plus, the test results can be hard to interpret).
What is eCommerce copywriting?
Any text or written content developed for an online business is eCommerce copywriting. Your writing talents may assist enhance sales in a variety of locations, including headlines, category pages, product descriptions, promotional offers, and landing pages.
Ecommerce copywriting’s purpose is to effectively express the benefits of your items while also assisting your online business in improving its search engine rankings. To be successful, you must be an excellent communicator who can persuade with words, promote your brand’s voice, and comprehend the psychology of what drives a buyer to purchase.
Which kind of pages need copywriting?
Let’s look at some of the different pages of your eCommerce site that require the expertise of a talented copywriter, keeping these realities in mind. Because you can’t just make a single landing page and call it a day – these best practices may be used in several situations.
-
Product Pages
Your product pages are crucial to the success of your online business. Customers may learn more about a product they’re interested in during these events, and you may be able to persuade them that they need it. Customers typically view this page last before proceeding to the checkout, so you want to offer them every incentive to complete their transaction.
This implies that there should be much more than a two-sentence product description and a feature list. Begin by describing the unique selling proposition your clients are most interested in, and then go on to the features and advantages of your product. Find creative methods to communicate your product’s story and emphasize some real reasons people suggest it. After you’ve mastered this, you’ll be able to write a product copy that sells itself.
-
Category Pages
Category pages, which are sometimes disregarded, are a great place to hone your copywriting talents.
Because there is generally room for one or two lines of text at the top or bottom of these pages, depending on the design of your eCommerce website. This is beneficial for SEO, but you can also demonstrate to visitors why they’ve arrived at the perfect site to purchase these things.
-
About Pages
It’s not about marketing a single product on your about page; it’s about selling your brand’s way of life. What distinguishes you from the other Amazon-based online stores? Why should people want to do business with your online store?
Customers that can emotionally connect with your brand’s goal and values are considerably more likely to produce and buy from you in the future.
Well-Done Ecommerce Copywriting Has Its Benefits
What happens when your copywriting is flawless? Expect an increase in conversions, sales, customer service, a higher search engine ranking and a stronger brand for your online business.
-
More sales
The words you choose to promote your internet company and items significantly influence your profits. This is why conversion optimization is so essential for small businesses. Rather than spending money to increase the number of visitors to your website, you can encourage them to become paying clients.
-
Informs customers
eCommerce copywriting, in its most basic form, is all about informing clients about the essential qualities of your items. You may choose which details to highlight for consumers, when to give them, and how much information they require.
-
Improves site’s SEO
Your eCommerce site needs to rank better in search engines to compete with other online businesses (such as those on Amazon and Shopify). Combine specific keywords and SEO copywriting to outperform your competition and be first in your consumers’ eyes.
-
Defines your brand
Every consumer’s interaction with your online business helps shape their perception of the brand, and your writing is a crucial part of that. You may create memorable experiences that visitors will remember long after leaving using high-quality content and a consistent tone.
Common Mistakes Seen in Ecommerce Copywriting
While eCommerce copywriting may appear to be simple at first look, there are several pitfalls you may fall into if you’re not careful. Keep an eye out for these frequent faults and errors that first-time authors are prone to making.
-
Overuse of adjectives
Adjectives are like tequila shots: a few go a long way, but too many are nearly always a poor idea. If you overuse flowery language in your copywriting, you’ll clutter your sentences, slow down your readers’ speed, and lose some of the words’ force.
Instead, utilize fewer forceful and sensory words to construct a more precise image in the minds of your customers. (For example, “Use this extra magic cleaning powder to remove slimy, ugly grease stains and foul-smelling, gritty places.”)
-
Lack of personality and flavor
Nobody likes dry, academic copywriting that simply states facts and sounds like a robot generated. You should spice up your copy to make it more appealing to shoppers—a personal touch.
This is when having a solid brand personality comes in handy. If you don’t currently have one, start by asking yourself, “If your brand were a person, what would they sound like?” Charming, witty, wholesome, fashionable, sardonic… your personality should represent your distinctive brand and position in the business.
It might assist in picturing a real-life superstar who could represent your company and then examine how they communicate. Look at their words and incorporate some of their styles into your copywriting.
-
Created in less than 10 minutes
One of the biggest mistakes with your eCommerce copywriting is believing you can complete it quickly. This should not be thrown together as an afterthought on the edge of your desk. Make a plan and set aside some quiet time to focus on the copy for each new page of your online business. (Alternatively, employ a professional eCommerce copywriter to collaborate with your company and develop content on your behalf.)
Keep track of how your text is doing, and experiment with different headlines and descriptions to find what works best. Great copywriting does not happen immediately; it takes months, if not years, to perfect.
-
Word soup and fluff words
Have you ever struggled to meet a word count requirement for a school essay? When I was a student and faced this challenge, I searched for paragraphs that I could “bulk out” by unduly elaborating on arguments I had already made or adding unneeded context. (Shhh. Please do not inform my high school instructors.)
While this may be acceptable in academia, it should be avoided at all costs in eCommerce. Copywriters refer to this as “fluff” or “word soup” because it doesn’t offer anything of value. And it’s an issue since internet readers already have short attention spans, so if you try to fill the page with meaningless stuff, they’ll probably click away.
-
Focused too much on the product
You may be able to work on eCommerce copywriting with other team members as your online business expands. Also, ensure the language you use is consistent and aligned with your brand identity, regardless of who created it or where it appears.
I propose creating brand voice guidelines as your company grows to train new team members how to talk in a professional tone. This keeps things consistent while avoiding confusing or offending your consumers.
How to excel with your eCommerce copy?
Ecommerce copywriting, at its best, has a direct and positive impact on sales. Here are a few more considerations to consider while writing for your internet company.
-
Know your audience
It might be difficult to nail your content unless you have a strong knowledge of your audience and what they want. Customer research is essential to the writing process since it allows you to become more particular and targeted. (This is also why client testimonials are valuable to eCommerce copywriters.)
Create buyer personas to reflect your ideal clients if you haven’t previously. You may utilize these profiles to talk directly to certain portions of your consumer base’s ideas, attitudes, interests, and motivations.
-
Tell an exciting story.
A story’s structure may capture buyers deeper, causing them to buy from your company more than once. That’s because people enjoy a good narrative. It’s just human nature.
But, with your eCommerce copywriting, what kinds of stories can you tell? This simple formula may be used for practically any product or service:
- The shopper is the story’s hero. (The main character.)
- They have an issue that they must solve. (The dispute.)
- They have struggled to find a solution. (The escalation of the action.)
- There is now a solution. (This is the climax.)
- And they’ll be able to live happily ever after. (This is the decision.)
Other narrative techniques and formulae can also be applied to your eCommerce copywriting. Find the correct one for your audience, and you’ll be able to build a far stronger emotional relationship with them.
-
Avoid wordy sentences
The more difficult your material is to read, the less likely it will convert. Wordy statements, particularly those containing business jargon, are better left on the cutting room floor.
Are you unsure whether your copy is too complicated? Try reading it aloud to a coworker or spouse. We become so used to reading things rapidly in our brains that we don’t understand how difficult they might be for those reading the content for the first time.
-
Focus on benefits
Product features are notoriously dull. Most people aren’t interested in whether your electric toothbrush has a lithium-ion battery, three sorts of thistles, or unique pulse technology. (Whatever it entails.) They want to know how such qualities will help them in their daily lives.
-
Use action words
It seems to me why you want customers to take action; you should include action words in your copy. What exactly are action words? This is any phrase used in copywriting to ask readers to accomplish anything on the website. (For example, “Buy Now.”)
-
Integrate keywords in the copy
While your primary audience for copywriting should always be actual customers, you’re also creating content for a whole new audience: search engines. With each page, you may target specific keywords that will propel you to the top of Google search results pages and bring in more organic visitors.
You may utilize Google Ads Keyword Planner and other tools such as Ahrefs, Answer the Public, and Keyword Surfer for fundamental research. To attract more search engine traffic, you may also want to match your eCommerce website with a strong content marketing plan (such as a blog).
-
Use bullet points for product pages
For customers wanting to buy a pair of shoes, a long paragraph with a lot of information might be overwhelming. Instead, break up your content into bullet points to make it easy to read and skim. This is quite convenient when you have a long list of product information to emphasize.
Other advantages of bullet points include…
- They may help you organize your themes and eliminate superfluous language.
- They provide your page with an additional aesthetic appeal by adding room and breathing areas.
- On mobile devices, they are simpler to read and provide a better user experience than a large block of text that occupies the whole screen.
Machine learning has advanced significantly, yet a robot can’t write a landing page half as well as you can. Combine your marketing expertise with the facts shown above to give your eCommerce copywriting a conversion intelligence boost.
Keep in mind your specific target demographic and the things that your online business sells. This data may be used as inspiration to test different landing page versions and evaluate how they affect your eCommerce KPIs and consumer statistics.
