Why product descriptions matters more than it looks

Teams tend to reach for this after something has already gone wrong. Product descriptions is easy to treat as a detail, and that is exactly why it is worth a few minutes of attention.

Content is the part of a project most likely to be underestimated and most likely to delay a launch. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

The reason this keeps coming up

Lead with the benefit, support with the specification. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

Manufacturer copy is duplicate content. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

The mistakes we see most

Answer the question that stops the purchase. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

In practice

Writing for the web is largely an editing job: the first draft is always longer than it needs to be. Three things worth confirming about product descriptions before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Lead with the benefit, support with the specification — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.