Last Updated 2 years by Emily Standley-Allard
It’s estimated that by 2023, ecommerce will hold a 22% share of the global retail marketplace. More and more people are feeling confident to buy things online, and this has opened the doors for loads of new businesses to start in this field. As time goes on, though, the expectations of customers are getting higher, and online stores have to work harder than ever before to show up higher in the searches. This is where ecommerce copywriting is an important aspect for your business.
Customers will expect a polished and well designed website, a wide range of photos for each product, and rich and detailed copy to go along with it. It’s easy to underestimate the power of ecommerce copywriting, and many businesses don’t put enough time into this portion of their catalogs. The right copy will indeed boost your sales, but how exactly does it work?
How Ecommerce Copywriting Will Improve Your ROI
There are a number of different benefits when it comes to ecommerce copywriting, and many of them will have the power to increase the revenue of your business.
Taking the time to craft your copy, or hire a skilled copywriter is well worth it. Most businesses don’t have the time to write themselves or don’t know how to effectively write to convert copy into sales.
Time wasted writing ineffective copy is money wasted and can actually cost you business.
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Search Presence (SEO)
Over the years, search engines like Google have gotten stricter when it comes to the way that they rank their websites.
Getting your products into high ranking searches will require titles, keywords, and a good amount of content for the customer to read.
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Along with the copy on your product pages, you will also benefit from having copy on your home page, about page, and the other pages on your site, all contributing to your SEO.
Clarity & Detail
No one likes to buy something when they don’t know very much about it.
Your product descriptions give you a chance to explain the item in detail, but it’s worth testing to make sure that you’re very clear with it. The copy on your other pages can help with this, too, telling customers what your business does and giving them an idea of what to expect from you.
Building Desire with Ecommerce Copywriting
Not everyone has a flair for creative writing, but most can string together a few sentences which make a product sound appealing.
After a few weeks of writing rich copy for your products, you will find it easier to handle this sort of work, and it’s well worth taking the opportunity to make the items sound as richly desirable as you possibly can.
This can be done using the mother of all copywriting formulas AIDA. (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action).
- Attention – Capture your reader’s attention
- Interest – Pique their interest with something they personally identify with, want or fear
- Desire – Make them want what you have
- Action – Get them to take the next step
This can help to sway your customers, informing them while steering them towards a purchase.
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A Brand With Personality
In the past, a lot of websites wrote their copy as if it was going to be read by a robot.
Lacking personality doesn’t serve online businesses very well, though, and the copy on your website should reflect a personality that builds trust and authenticity.
Whether this is relaxed and laid back or formal and professional, it’s always worth researching to create a buyer persona so you can resonate with your target audience who purchase your products.
Ecommerce Copywriting Formulas for Headlines
Headlines make or break sales. They are the first thing that your company should test. Create various strong headlines to begin that do the following:
- Highlight your product’s best benefit i.e. Have Life/Work Balance Being a Social Media Consultant
- Name the action your product prevents and your audience wants stopped i.e. are you still not saving for retirement?
- Add a short testimonial i.e. Thanks for listing these ultimate blog promotion lists
- Question your audience i.e. Are You Still Not Getting Enough Instagram Followers?
- X Lies about Your Product i.e. 10 Exaggerated Lies about CBD
- How to (name primary benefit of product) i.e. How to Get More Website Traffic Than Neil Patel
- Finally, A Product That Actually Works Method i.e. Finally, an Affiliate Marketing Program That Earns Me Passive Income Each Month
Trust & Legitimacy
While online safeguarding is improving and most people feel confident to shop online, many are still wary of the sites they visit and shop with.
When each product has very little information and the copy on a site is lazily written, people will often steer clear, just in case something is amiss.
Having quality and detailed copy can help with this, ensuring that people aren’t driven away before they decide to make a purchase.
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Ecommerce Copywriting for Social Media
- A good method is showing people how to use your products.
About 20-50% of your Facebook posts can be directly promotional. Check out pages like Stella & Dot if you sell clothes, or Nom Nom Now if you sell Pet supplies. If you offer sales and specials, make those another 10-15% of your posts.
- Customer testimonials combined with a benefit plus a call-to-action are all you need.
Just don’t use them for every post – maybe 10-15% of your posts should use this formula.
- Show what it’s like to work at your company.
20% of the posts you share can be “a day in the life” posts of your employees. Feel free to announce any job opportunities too!
- Share third-party content (like articles, gifs, calls for support, inspirational statements, and more) to round out the rest of your posts. Extra credit if you incorporate a quiz or a poll once in a while, too.
Get the Hubspot FREE Social Media Content Calendar and never run out of ideas!
Getting Started With Ecommerce Copywriting
Getting started in a field like ecommerce copywriting isn’t as hard as a lot of people expect.
It will take some time to learn how best to write about your business, and a lot of people will need to improve their vocabulary and grammar as time goes on.
There are a lot of tools which can help you with this, though, and we’ve collected some pointers for you to use below.
Seek Inspiration
Writers and other creative people have always used one another’s work to inspire themselves. You can do the same with your web copy, exploring the web for sites which have good web copy, and reading as many as you can to get an idea of the sort of information which they include.
Determine Your Style
Once you have an idea of what other companies do to write their web copy, you will be able to start thinking about the style you want to adopt. This ties into your online personality, but is also important when it comes to keeping your copy consistent. You have a lot of choices when it comes to this, and some people will simply choose what comes naturally, and others will decide to challenge themselves with something new.
Use The Right Tools
Grammar, spelling, and readability are all things which take time to get right. Most people don’t use their writing skills very much once they’ve left school, and this can leave them a little rusty.
Websites like Grammarly.com can help with this, providing you with pointers and advice which will improve your writing, while also making sure that there aren’t any errors which customers might notice.
Keep Writing
As with anything creative, practice will make perfect, but you have to make sure that you keep pushing yourself. It isn’t too hard to improve, but it is also very easy to let your skills go stagnant, with little improvement being made. Writing as much as possible and continuing your research will help with this, but it will also be worth getting feedback about the writing you’ve already done.
Not everyone enjoys spending ours over a keyboard, and this may not have been what you expected when you started your online store.
Customers expect to see excellent copy on the websites they visit, though, and this is especially important when it comes to ecommerce. You will get better as time goes on, making the whole process easier, while also speeding it all up.
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