How to create engaging product descriptions in Shopify + examples

Simple but effective tips for creating amazing product descriptions

The visual aspect of the product page is the first thing a visitor of your online store sees, so it's important to pay attention to it. The goal is to create a page that looks visually attractive and most importantly, is easy to navigate and read. Let's take a look at some recommendations to create such a page as well as some examples.

1. Make reading effortless 

The reader should be able to find the information he needs just by quickly scanning the page with his eyes - because that's what most people do on the internet, especially when shopping. 

To achieve this, you should include smaller paragraphs, subheadings, bullet point lists and bold text to emphasize important information. A good idea is to include some graphical elements like icons that will accompany your text.

On the other hand, avoid long paragraphs and complicated sentences.

Example of easy to read text and use of icons (Tentree.ca)

2. Highlight benefits

The main benefits and reasons why the customer should buy your product or service should be visible at first glance. So a good strategy is to list the most important benefits in the beginning, in a few words, before going into more specific details. 

In journalism it's called the principle of inverted pyramid - you start with the most important information or the conclusion and then explain it in more detail.

Example of visibly highlighted benefits (Allbirds.eu) 

3. Include (high-quality) photos or videos

In case of physical products, especially the more expensive ones, you should try to include good quality pictures or videos to make up for the fact that your client can't see or touch the product like in a physical store.

For example, let's say you're selling a laptop. In the detailed description, you can support your text with images of the specific part you're describing at each moment. You can find some inspiration on the Apple online store which is focused on great images and minimal text.

Example of image focused descriptions on Apple online store

Or, as you can see in the example below, they explain what the phone case feels like to touch and include a video showing its level of flexibility. This helps the customer a lot to decide if the product is what he's looking for or not.

Example of supporting your textual description with visuals (Pelacase.com)

4. Make it dynamic & interactive

Adding some dynamic or interactive elements to your Shopify product description can be beneficial for various reasons. It will make the text more attractive and entertaining for the reader and enable you to include more information while keeping the page ordered.

For example, a button “read more” which shows more information after clicking it or expandable frequently asked questions and answers helps you to keep the product page compact and minimalist while at the same time providing detailed information for the customers who are interested in it. 

Example of using dynamic expandable elements (Kulaland.com) 

Example of using dynamic expandable elements (Maguireshoes.com).

5. Keep SEO in mind

In ecommerce, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very important for success. Having your product pages well-optimized for search engines will help your customers to find your store and ultimately make a purchase there.

In the product description, use relevant keywords in the text itself, image descriptions as well as meta texts (meta tag and description, alt text for images). There are some tools that will help you with that, like Yoast SEO or some page builders with SEO features, like Shogun.

Of course, you should follow these practices not only in product descriptions but in the whole website.

How to edit product page design in Shopify?

Now that we know what a good and visually attractive product page should be like, we can look at the more “technical” part - the editing itself. As a Shopify user, you have basically two options - you can use the Shopify theme editor or create your design in a page builder app for Shopify. 

Shopify editor

The traditional (and easiest) way is to choose a theme in Shopify and apply it to your product descriptions. The obvious disadvantage is that the themes are universal and not adjusted to your needs, with a limited number of options for you to customize it. 

Another possibility is to edit the code of your theme which requires either some knowledge of coding or hiring a professional, which will cost you either your time or money.

Page builders for Shopify

Page builder apps allow you to make bigger changes and customize the design of the page on your own without coding. 

How does it work? Usually, page builders are based on a drag and drop editor, which allows you to add elements (pre-coded widgets with texts, images, videos and other content) on your product page. Most of these apps also offer whole ready-made product page templates, which you can use and customize freely to your liking (if you want). These make the whole process even easier and faster. 

In most page builders, the option to edit the code remains there for those who want to use it.

TIP: You can check out our article where we compare the best page builders for Shopify! 

We hope our article has given you some ideas on how to improve your product descriptions in Shopify. Remember that you can use our free trial to test out creating amazing designs of your product pages!

Try Pobo Page Builder for FREE