How an Ecommerce Copywriter Sells Your Product
Take a minute and think about the last time you bought something for yourself online. How did you make the choice to buy that product?
Did you read the product description? If so, what about it made you decide to take the plunge? Was it an image? Some technical specifications? Or was it well-written content that described the benefits of the product and what it could do for you? We’re willing to bet it was (mostly) the last one.
That’s the power of copywriting; it drives online sales and helps you outperform your competition. It’s all about how you talk about your products, as well as yourselves.
With anywhere up to an estimated 24 million ecommerce stores in the global market, you have to stand out — but how do you do it?
In this blog post, you’ll learn all about what ecommerce copywriting is, from the things that make it work to the methods of the ecommerce copywriter. What’s the best way to write your benefits, how long should a product description be, and what is a category page for?
Sit back, relax, and let us walk you through it.
What is an ecommerce copywriter?
Ecommerce copywriting is generally defined as any written content displayed on your ecommerce website, or designed to lead someone to it. Its entire purpose is to sell a product, and every aspect of the copy is centred around persuasion. An ecommerce copywriter is a professional content creator, specialising in the communication and psychological nuances that ecommerce writing demands. They have mastered the art of crafting words that persuade the reader to buy.
There are over two billion people globally who buy things online, and an ecommerce copywriter’s job is to catch their attention and bring your business the sales, rather than your competitors.
Why is an ecommerce copywriter important?
An ecommerce copywriter is an important commodity for your ecommerce website or app. They know exactly how to write in a way that fits in with your brand, product, and audience, helping you to maximise sales.
But why? What makes an ecommerce copywriter so important to the success of your business, and why is great ecommerce copywriting so essential?
In 1997, The Neilsen Norman group published statistics that show 79% of users only scan content, rather than reading it fully. The group then did three further eye-tracking studies, up to 2019, which confirmed that most users are still only skimming.
Why?
It might have something to do with attention spans. According to Forbes, the average millennial has an attention span of only 12 seconds, reducing to 8 seconds for Gen Z — that’s less than a goldfish.
This is what makes compelling ecommerce copy so important; you need to grab and hold the reader’s attention from the very first word they read.
Ecommerce copywriting is an art, a science, and a service, all wrapped into one neat package. To do it well, you need to know the market, the ecommerce industry, and the behaviours of the audience you’re targeting.
The psychology of selling, combined with emotion-focused benefits, is what allows an ecommerce copywriter to hold a reader’s attention and drive sales.
The best ecommerce copywriters are experts in their field, with up-to-date research and knowledge of how to write for certain sectors and audiences. So, how do they do that, and how does it help your business?
Ecommerce copywriters use a variety of methods in order to increase both traffic and conversion for your ecommerce store, including:
Proper spelling and grammar
Positive language
Research and experience
Emotion-based selling techniques
All of these techniques work together in unity to provide a flawless copywriting strategy for your ecommerce website, ensuring not only that more people find your store, but also that they’re more likely to be persuaded to buy from it.
Let’s look at these methods in more detail.
Sell more of your products
One of the best things about an ecommerce copywriter is that they know how to use their words to sell your products. Given that selling your products is the main purpose of your ecommerce website, this is a vital skill.
Done well, your content will tap into the emotions of your audience. It will make them stop, think about, and feel the potential benefits that your products will bring to their lives. Simply describing your product and stating what it does isn’t quite enough.
You need to know the right words and phrases to use, and the best way to elicit an emotional response from your audience. Ecommerce is all about emotion-based selling, and an ecommerce copywriter knows exactly how to do it.
Use the right language to persuade your audience
It’s not just about writing to tap into certain emotions; the language that you use on your ecommerce website is important.
And we don’t just mean the reading level, although that’s important too — it’s recommended to be at middle-school level. The use of positive language vs negative language can also make a big difference to your conversion rates.
Using positive language has been proven to be more effective in ecommerce copywriting. What this means on a practical level is that, when you address the audience to describe their problems or your product, you should do so by framing in a positive way, rather than focusing on the negatives.
Focusing too much on pain points, issues, or negative effects can have an undesirable impact on conversion. This is largely because people don’t tend to like dwelling on the negative, and if they are made to, they may associate that negative text — and the products or brands it represents — with the negative emotion.
Thankfully, it works the other way around as well, so by using positive language and focusing on how a product helps them (and the good feelings it can bring), the reader is more likely to associate your product with something positive, making them more likely to buy it.
Draw on previous experience to get it right first time
An ecommerce copywriter has years of experience writing for websites. They’ve spent their career staying up-to-date on SEO and the latest insights data for the ecommerce industry, and they understand current best practices.
They’ve been there, done that, and got the experience under their belt, so they know what’s more likely to work for your company and what isn’t. Taking your target audience, sector, brand image, and products into consideration, they can create a content plan that they know, from experience, has the best chance of getting you more conversions.
Use proper spelling and grammar to improve consumer confidence
A recent study showed that 59% of Britons would not use a website with obviously poor spelling or grammar, and 74% said that they tend to notice these errors when browsing the internet.
A professional ecommerce copywriter knows the language fluently, and can ensure that spelling and grammar is perfect throughout the content. Good spelling and grammar doesn’t just score you points with customers, it also helps your SEO.
Excellent spelling and grammar improves the quality of your content, makes it easier for Google to see the intent, and, ultimately, gives consumers more confidence in your brand, making it easier to make sales and increase conversion.
Types of ecommerce copywriting
Now we know what a good ecommerce copywriter can do for your business and why they’re so important, let’s drill down into the details. Ecommerce copywriting includes a wide range of different content, all with their own best practices and methods for making text ‘pop’.
Before we dive in, though, we’d just like to clear something up; content writing and copywriting. Some people see the two words as synonymous, but they’re not. The difference? Purpose.
Content writing is written to engage, entertain, or inform, and is a part of overall content strategy. Copywriting, however, is defined as written content that is designed to persuade. The misunderstanding usually stems from the fact that content writing is, in part, often a form of copywriting, due to the end-goal purpose.
A lot of online content writing, such as blogs or social media, is part of an overall content marketing strategy designed to persuade, which is why we’ve chosen to include them in this copywriting section.
With that said, let’s go into the types of content an ecommerce copywriter will most commonly work on.
Product pages
Product pages are the bread and butter of the ecommerce world. This is where your customer goes to learn about the specific product they’re interested in and why it’s the best option for them.
How you write your product descriptions is important. You need to make sure you frame the benefits of your product in the correct way. Rather than simply telling your audience what the product will do for them, such as save them time, explain how that will directly affect their lives, such as giving them more time to spend with family or focus on hobbies.
This allows the audience to better relate to the benefits, and is more likely to elicit the emotional response you need.
Whenever you talk about benefits, first outline what the product does, then how it benefits the customer, and then detail how that benefit positively affects their lives.
Product pages, like other website content, have an optimal length. You want your product descriptions to be as long as they need to be to sufficiently describe the product. This will depend on what the product is and how aware of it your customers already are. Clothing, for example, usually only requires a short description, with some bullet points outlining key features and materials. However, something more technical may require a longer description.
Category pages
Category pages are overview pages for certain specific product categories. For a clothing retailer, these could include tops, bottoms, jackets, shoes, and more.
The more category pages you have, the better; they’re an often-overlooked section of your ecommerce website, but are fantastic for SEO. Inserting focus keywords into each category page and optimising for them can help your audience find your website when they are searching for a specific type of product.
About pages
Your about page is an ode to your brand’s history, values, and message. This is where you tell your brand story and let the audience know who you are, why you exist, and what you stand for.
About pages should have a brief overview of how and why your business was created, as well as what your brand values and goals are.
Did you create the company to give high quality at low prices? Was it to give certain demographics of people a wider choice for certain things (such as plus-sized tights or make-up designed for a certain skin type)? Whatever the reason, make sure you mention it.
Do you hold integrity and environmentally-friendly practices above all else, or is your company built on effective communication and customer service? Let your audience know by outlining your core values and what they mean for your business and customers.
What do you hope to achieve within the industry? What benefits does choosing your company have for your customers? What is your unique selling point?
Home pages
Home page content for ecommerce websites should be clear, catchy, and concise. They usually have a focus on being able to easily identify and navigate to different areas of the website.
You can include short paragraphs that cover what your products are, why they’re beneficial, and who you are — all leading to individual pages.
Social media posts
Social media accounts for 16% of all website traffic, which might not sound like a lot, but it’s only beaten by organic search (17%) and direct traffic (22%). The moral of the story here is that social media is a vitally important form of content for your ecommerce website.
Social media provides a platform for you to engage with your audience and build a relationship with them. Trust is important when it comes to persuading customers to visit your website and buy from you, and social media is a great way to build that trust.
An ecommerce copywriter creates posts that are tailored to the target audience, and designed to build trust, engage, and drive new traffic to your website.
Emails and newsletters
Whilst not directly considered a form of ecommerce copywriting, emails and newsletters are usually a fantastic addition to your overall content strategy. Why? Because it allows you to reach out to your audience both before and after they’ve visited your website.
Emails and newsletters can be utilised in a number of ways, including:
Abandoned cart emails, reminding a customer that they have an item ready for purchase
Vouchers and special offers, allowing you to provide an additional incentive to buy
Giving information that your audience would find valuable
Showcasing new or existing products that could benefit your audience
Thanking them for a purchase, to increase the chance of return custom
Asking for their opinions, especially reviewing purchases they’ve made on your site
No matter how you use emails and newsletters, whether to inform or persuade, they can help you to recapture up to 30% of lost customers — as well as drive more traffic.
FAQ pages
Everyone has questions. Your job is to answer those questions so your customers feel well-informed and more likely to trust you.
FAQ pages are a great way to do this; they put all of the most common questions and answers in one place, so you can keep your other pages streamlined and concise. If a consumer has a question that isn’t immediately answered on the page they’re on, chances are they’ll look for an FAQ section.
Here you can outline your returns policies and postage options, and give detailed answers about questions they might have about your products.
The common tips for effective FAQ pages are to research long-tail keywords; ask your customer service team what their most commonly asked questions are, and see what your customer reviews are saying.
Blog content
Blogs are a type of ecommerce content that drives traffic to your website. They improve SEO, help define your brand, and increase the confidence users have in your company. Depending on how they’re written, they can create a personable and engaging face for your brand, and they can even be a source of conversation if comments are enabled.
Providing informative, well-written content that answers your users’ questions is a great first impression. We should know; we’ve provided blog content for several ecommerce clients to help them increase their reach and engagement. Our expert ecommerce blog writers know all the lingo inside and out, and craft SEO blog content focusing on key questions their audiences have.
Client case studies
Case studies are another form of ecommerce content that help in your overall copywriting strategy. Case studies are considered a form of social proof, as they outline exactly what you’ve done for a client, quantifying and qualifying how you helped them.
Showcasing your success with real-world examples that are backed up with data goes a long way towards helping your audience trust you and your products.
We’ve written plenty ourselves for one of our biggest clients — we outlined the issue the company was facing, what our client did to help, and then offered data showing the impact it had.
Why should I hire an ecommerce copywriter?
So, is it worth hiring an ecommerce copywriter for your business? If you’re hoping to sell anything online, then we say yes!
An ecommerce copywriter knows how to write for SEO, they know the best way to write your product pages to highlight the benefits, and they know how to write for your audience. They are seasoned professionals with years of experience under their belts.
The ZippyLingo team includes exceptional ecommerce copywriters — linguistic artists who can write flawless content that gets you more conversions.
Get in touch today to find out more about how an ecommerce copywriter can benefit your business.
