Rewrite the descriptions of your best-selling products first, adding what you know from selling them: fit, use, common questions and what is in the box. Keep the checked specifications, and leave slow sellers until later.

The same paragraph everywhere

A small store adds a new range of hiking boots. The supplier sends a spreadsheet of photographs, specifications and descriptions, and the descriptions go onto the product pages as they arrive.

So do the same descriptions on every other store carrying those boots: the chains, the discount sites, the marketplace sellers and the manufacturer's own site.

Search for one sentence of it in quotation marks, and the results fill with stores saying exactly the same thing.

Nothing on the page is wrong. Nothing on it is yours, either.

What the copied text costs

Search engines do not punish a store for using a manufacturer's description. They do something quieter: when many pages carry the same text, they tend to show one or two and leave the rest out.

The pages they show are usually the manufacturer's own or a large retailer's, with more reviews and more links. A small store's identical copy has nothing that makes it the better result.

For shoppers, the cost is different. Somebody comparing two stores reads the same paragraph twice and learns nothing about why to buy from either.

Price becomes the only difference left, and a small store seldom wins on price.

What manufacturer copy gets wrong

The fourth is the one a small store can fix best. The manufacturer has never stood in a shop answering questions about this boot. You have, and those answers are a description nobody else has.

What you know that the manufacturer does not

Every store that sells a product for a while learns things about it. Most of that lives in staff members' heads and never reaches the product page.

How it fits against the brand's other models. What people ask before buying. Why some send it back. What it is usually bought with. Whether it suits the local weather, which on the coast means rain.

A few sentences of that, in plain words, do more than a paragraph of features the shopper can read anywhere.

Ask whoever answers the phone and the email. The questions that come up every week are the outline of the description.

A structure that suits most products

Open with one sentence saying what the product is and who it suits: a waterproof boot for day hikes on wet trails, for people who want support without a heavy backpacking boot.

Then what you know from selling it, in a few short paragraphs or a list: fit, use, care and the question everyone asks.

Then the specifications. Those are facts and can come from the manufacturer, once checked against the current model: materials, weight, sizes and what is included.

Close with anything particular to buying from you, such as exchanges for a different size or trying it on in the shop.

A worked example

A family-owned outdoor footwear store in an Interior city sells hiking boots, trail runners and winter boots from its shop and through an online store listing about four hundred products.

Every description came from the suppliers' spreadsheets. Customers who found the store online often phoned before ordering, asking what the pages should have answered: does it run small, is it really waterproof, will it suit a wide foot.

Those pages matched larger sites with more reviews word for word, so the store's own page gave a shopper no reason to buy there and still left the questions open.

The owner listed the twenty products with the most sales over the past year, and the staff member who fitted most customers wrote down what she tells people about each one.

Those notes became the descriptions: how each boot fits against the brand's others, how long breaking it in usually takes, what socks people wear with it, and whether it suits wet coastal trails or dry Interior ones.

The other three hundred and eighty pages kept their supplier text for now, with a line added about exchanging sizes. The next twenty are planned for the slow weeks after New Year.

Which products to rewrite first

Rewriting four hundred descriptions at once is the reason most stores never start. It is also unnecessary.

Begin with the products that sell most over a year, since they are seen most and earn most. Add those that bring the most questions or returns, where a better description saves staff time.

Write new arrivals properly from the start, which costs less than rewriting later. Slow sellers and products leaving the range can keep the supplier's text.

Twenty products is a reasonable first batch. At one a day, that is a month of working days.

Rewording is not rewriting

There is a shortcut that looks like a rewrite: taking the manufacturer's paragraph and swapping its words for others, by hand or with a tool.

It is still the same paragraph underneath, saying nothing new, and the reworded sentences usually read worse than the original.

A real rewrite starts from what you know, not from the supplier's text. If there is nothing to add yet for a product, leave its description alone until there is.

The counter-case

Some products gain little from a rewrite.

Replacement parts, refills and consumables are bought by people who already know exactly what they need. A part number, compatibility notes and specifications serve them better than any paragraph.

A store with thousands of products and two staff cannot write them all, and should not try. The top sellers are enough to start.

For the products that bring in most of your sales, though, a description in your own words, from your own experience, is the part of the page nobody else has.

This month

  1. Search one sentence of a description in quotation marks.
  2. List your top twenty products by sales.
  3. Collect staff answers to the usual questions.
  4. Write one description a day from those answers.
  5. Check the specifications against the current model.
  6. Write new arrivals properly from the start.
  7. Leave slow sellers until the top ones are done.

Step three is where the description comes from. Without the staff's answers, a rewrite turns into rewording, and rewording produces the same paragraph in worse sentences.

The photographs beside those descriptions are covered in product photos taken on a phone.

Frequently asked questions

Will Google penalise copied manufacturer descriptions?

Not as a penalty. When many pages carry the same text, search engines tend to show one or two and leave out the rest, which is rarely a small store's copy.

Why do identical descriptions hurt a small store?

A shopper comparing stores reads the same paragraph on each and learns nothing about why to buy from yours. Price becomes the only difference, and small stores rarely win on price.

Which descriptions should be rewritten first?

The products that sell most over a year, then those that bring the most questions or returns. Write new arrivals properly from the start, and let slow sellers wait.

What should my own description include?

What the product is and who it suits, what you know from selling it, the checked specifications, and anything particular to buying from you, such as exchanges.

Can I just reword the manufacturer's text?

It is still the same paragraph underneath, saying nothing new, and reworded sentences usually read worse. A real rewrite starts from what staff tell customers.

Can the manufacturer's specifications stay on the page?

Yes. Specifications are facts, and shoppers need them. Check them against the current model and place them beneath your own description, not instead of it.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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