If you want to sell more Etsy products, increase your conversion rate, and inspire more loyalty to your brand, it all starts with writing the best Etsy product descriptions for your listings. That’s because your Etsy marketing strategy is only as good as your copywriting. Here’s how to use your copywriting to close the sale.
What’s the most important part of marketing your Etsy listings?
Great product photography is critical for getting the attention of your shoppers, sure. It’s what sparks interest from your shoppers in the first place; getting them to click and engage with your product.
But once shoppers are browsing your listing, how do you close the sale? Through your Etsy product descriptions.
Follow these 5 tips to write copy that will engage and inform your Etsy customers.
01. Write your Etsy product descriptions for your target audience
As an Etsy seller, you have the opportunity to communicate your shop’s personality through the writing in your Etsy product descriptions.
This is your chance to engage your target audience and really make them desire whatever your listing might be. And one of the best ways to engage with your target audience is to write your product descriptions as if you’re talking directly to your target demographic.
When developing your voice and writing your Etsy product descriptions, think about who your target audience is. If you’re primarily selling to young adults but your Etsy product descriptions sound Shakespearian, you’re probably missing the mark.
Engage your target audience
Through great copywriting, you can engage any demographic to sell them virtually anything. It’s all about how you frame your products and the way you describe what it is you’re selling.
But if you don’t know who your audience is, you aren’t going to be able to speak to them. That’s why it’s important to consider who your audience is before sitting down to write.
If you’re not sure how to figure out your target audience, start by asking yourself these questions:
- Who is my Etsy product intended for?
- Which generation would be interested in my Etsy product?
- Which gender will primarily be interested in my Etsy product?
- Is my Etsy product typically given as a gift or purchased by the end-user?
- If my Etsy product is a gift, who would buy it to give to someone else?
- How do my customers use my product?
- What else do customers that buy my product like to do?
With these questions in mind, you can start to get a better idea of your target audience.
Develop your voice
Often, Etsy shop owners will adopt a voice that is a reflection of their own personality. This is a technique that can work really well, especially if your personality is reflective of your target demographic. If this is the case for your Etsy products, then you’re in luck because you’re basically selling to yourself!
If your personality is reflective of your target audience, then you’re basically selling to yourself. So how do you like to be talked to?
It’s also important to remember that Etsy is a marketplace designed around unique and handmade products. Shoppers come to Etsy to purchase something with character. Something that is a direct product of the artist that created it.
So while it’s important to keep your target audience in mind when writing your Etsy product descriptions, make sure you stay true to yourself. After all, this is your Etsy shop and you’re selling products that you’re passionate about.
Keep it authentic
If a shopper doesn’t think you’re being authentic in the way you write your product description, it’s not likely that they’ll believe in your product. That’s because buyers are most likely to connect with authenticity. This means staying true to who you are as an artist first, and writing your copy to be reflective of that.
Authenticity is underrated. Bring it back into style and just be you!
02. Make your listings tangible through your Etsy product descriptions
Once you’ve drawn your target audience in with that wonderful voice of yours, get detailed about your actual product. This is your opportunity to close the gap between shopping in a physical store and purchasing something online.
Humans are funny. When it comes to purchasing something, we like to hold it. See it in person, view every odd angle of it, visualize it in our own space, and even sit on it.
Obviously, with online products on Etsy, you can’t always sit on them before you buy them. But we can make it easier for consumers to understand exactly what it feels like through our product descriptions.
This is your opportunity to state very clearly what your product is without boring your dear customer to death. If you’re selling a sweater, write your Etsy product description in a way that makes buyers feel like they’re literally holding it in their hands.
Describe the feeling of the fabric against your skin, the vibrancy of the colors, and how your sweater feels like a gentle hug when you put it on…you get the idea 😉
This is your chance to sell. We mean really sell your product! Be specific, yet persuasive. Be honest, but elaborate.
You want your customers to read your Etsy product description and feel like they could never go one more brisk morning without cuddling up on the couch in your cozy sweater, with a hot cup of coffee and their favorite book.
Share your dimensions
How often do you buy something online, only for it to arrive and it’s not nearly as big as the photo made it out to be? Product photos can be deceiving. But the proof is almost always in the description.
Shoppers won’t often be able to picture your product’s exact dimensions in their heads, especially if the dimensions aren’t included anywhere on the listing.
The bare minimum here is to include your product’s exact dimensions within your Etsy product description. This includes length, width, height, and any other important metrics your customers need to know.
Sure, you can go above and beyond by including these dimensions in your listing photos as well. After all, your copywriting doesn’t have to end with your product descriptions.
03. Let your customers know what else they should buy through your Etsy product descriptions
Over the years, Etsy’s algorithm has improved to the point where it’s now learning what individual shoppers are interested in. So if a shopper is browsing through Etsy, the algorithm will start to understand the types of products they like to engage with.
This is so the algorithm can help encourage shoppers to actually purchase something before choosing to shop on another marketplace.
Etsy algorithm be like: “Hey, quit window shopping! Buy something already!”
It’s a feature new to Etsy that improves the user experience when shopping on their online marketplace. But it can sometimes encourage shoppers to purchase from a competitor. And that’s no Bueno.
Get shoppers to buy more from you
A neat trick to encourage shoppers to stick with your Etsy shop instead of glancing over at the competition is to tell them what else they might be interested in buying from you.
For instance, if you sell journaling supplies then there’s a good chance that in your Etsy shop you offer everything someone needs to start journaling. Everything from the leatherbound notebook, to dividers, to stickers and stamps, to stencils and envelopes. Even handmade fountain pens.
Well, you need to let your customers know this when writing your Etsy product descriptions.
“The ivory pages of this leatherbound journal are complemented best with the smooth writing styles of our hickory grain fountain pen, which you can only find here in my shop. Each of our products is carefully designed to work in harmony with our entire inventory.”
Shoppers will often buy more products if you suggest related items available in your shop. It’s easy to put hyperlinks to your other products in your Etsy product descriptions. So make sure you take advantage of this by suggesting items that compliment each other.
04. Make sure your Etsy product descriptions are mobile-friendly
According to Etsy, more than fifty percent of traffic to Etsy comes from mobile devices. Say what?!
Statistically, half of your audience is now experiencing your shop on that itty bitty screen we all spend hours looking at. And they’re probably doing this while texting, checking their email, and looking at Facebook and Instagram all at the same time.
So what does this mean for your Etsy product descriptions? Keep them concise and to the point. And whatever you do, please stop with the walls of text.
Keep your Etsy product descriptions concise and to the point. No more walls of text!
Sometimes, less is more. Structure your Etsy product descriptions so every sentence, word, and punctuation matters. If it’s not important or doesn’t help with your end goal (selling your product), then get rid of it.
Removing unnecessary information like this is like writing with your eraser.
How do your product descriptions read after you’ve removed all the unnecessary fluff? If it still makes sense then the fluff didn’t really need to be there in the first place. By including the most important product info first, and streamlining the rest, your descriptions will be friendlier for mobile shoppers. And that’s a win.
05. Your Etsy product description is now important for Etsy SEO
It used to be that Etsy’s algorithm didn’t care about your product descriptions when it comes to Etsy SEO. But as of May 2022, Etsy search now considers keywords and phrases within your listing descriptions when ranking your listings. In other words, the keywords you use across your listing titles, tags, categories, and attributes are all essential when it comes to matching your listings to the right buyers. And now, the keywords you use in your descriptions are just as important.
As of May 2022, Etsy search now considers keywords and phrases within your listing descriptions when ranking your listings.
Even though your descriptions haven’t always been a part of Etsy SEO, we’ve always recommended you apply SEO best practices when writing them. That’s because search engines (like Google) have always used your descriptions to help rank your listing pages in search results.
Now that descriptions are a part of Etsy SEO, incorporating your best-performing keywords is more important than ever.
In terms of your Etsy SEO, Etsy recommends that you aim to incorporate relevant keywords in the first few sentences of your listing descriptions. By using relevant keywords and phrasing matches in your Etsy listing descriptions, you’re proving to the Etsy algorithm that your listing is relevant to similar shopper searches.
Etsy also recommends that you avoid copying your title verbatim or simply listing your top keywords. Instead, you want to craft a sentence or two that casually incorporates a few of your top keywords in a way that sounds human and written in your brand’s voice.
Optimize your Etsy descriptions for Google
It’s also important to remember that the first 160 characters of your item description are used to create the meta description for your listing page in search engines like Google.
The meta description is the text shown under your page title on a search engine results page. And you guessed it, Google is taking notes. By using focus keywords in your listings title, tags, and description, you’ll improve your odds of ranking for a Google search with the same keyword criteria.
To increase shopper traffic, your Etsy listing should be optimized for Google and Etsy SEO.
Remember, keywords and search terms are constantly changing which means you’ll need to stay on your toes. Keep an eye on your Etsy shop stats so you always know what’s working.
Over to you
Your Etsy product description is where you get to describe exactly what you sell while elaborating and providing more details about your product. Use these copywriting tips to focus your writing on what matters most, selling your products.
What are some of your top tips when writing your Etsy product descriptions? Know anything that we missed?
Be sure and let us know in the comments!
Improve your Etsy SEO by using the best keywords for your listings. Find the best keywords with Marmalead.
7 replies on “Writing the Best Etsy Product Descriptions for Your Listings”
I recently opened my new Etsy shop and have very little traffic even after using Marmalead. I realize there’s a lot of competition out there for what I am selling but I simply am not getting any clicks. When I do a search I can’t even find my items and I am aware of my tags! Do you have any staff that call customers directly to see if they can help figure out what’s missing?
Hi Cindy! We don’t offer personal client calls, but if you have questions please feel free to write into success@marmalead.com 🙂 We’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have!
Did you try promoted listings?
they drive traffic and sales.
I paid $1 per day for Etsy to advertise. I plan to do this for 30 days & reevaluate my stats. So far the traffic has increased a lot and my sales have doubled. I too am néw.
That’s awesome, Teresa! We’re so happy to hear that and look forward to hearing how you grow! Thank you for commenting and reading🍊
Thanks for the tips! I agree with all of the above. I find that thinking like my customer really helps! I like to keep “features and benefits” in mind when writing descriptions so that customers can see why they should buy your product. I also think using bullet points when possible helps keep listings concise and visually helps the customer quickly see product features.
About that necklace: 16″ on a small, petite woman and 16″ on a large woman are.two very different things. Although I’m going to start using a mannequin, it still won’t be an accurate depiction for many people. How do you propose dealing with that?