12 Tips for Ecommerce Copywriting in 2024

If you want to boost engagement and establish trust with potential buyers, using the right words and phrases on your ecommerce store and marketing collateral goes a long way.

If that’s sparked your interest, you’re in the right place – here I’m revealing my top tips for improving your ecommerce copywriting! By the end of this blog post, you’ll be better equipped to write copy that engrosses prospective buyers and boosts your sales rates.

If that sounds good, grab a coffee, and let’s get started!

What is Ecommerce Copywriting?

Before diving into my top ecommerce copywriting tips, let’s ensure we’re all on the same page about what ecommerce copywriting actually is: 

In a nutshell, ‘ecommerce copywriting’ is an umbrella term for all the words published on your ecommerce brand’s online store/marketing assets/ads/web pages/social media accounts, etc. 

Among other things, writing copy requires you to:

• Highlight the benefits of your ecommerce products/services.
• Apply SEO best practices.
• Inspires readers to carry out your desired action(s) (i.e., make a purchase, subscribe to your newsletter, sign up for a free trial, etc.)

Examples of ecommerce copywriting include:

• Landing page text
• Product page text
• Sales page text
• Written blog posts
• Category page text
• FAQs
• Popup text

Ecommerce Copywriting: The Benefits for Retailers

Although I’ve hinted at some of the benefits of high-quality ecommerce copywriting, here’s a closer look at its perks:

• Great copywriting differentiates your brand from its competitors by conveying your brand’s personality, values, and mission.
• Good copy invokes feelings, answers questions, and addresses customer concerns, allowing you to better connect with potential customers. 
• Good ecommerce copywriting demonstrates how your products/services satisfy your customers’ needs, which can make the difference between them buying or not. 

Now we’ve explored the why, let’s move on to the how:

1. Know Your Audience

There’s no point in writing thousands of words if you don’t know who your audience is. 

This means having a thorough understanding of your ideal customer’s:

• Demographic(s)
• Where they hang out online
• What their values are
• What their pain points are (i.e., a problem(s) that inconveniences/annoys/upsets you target customers)
• What slang/jargon they use
• What their interests are

If you don’t know this already, it’s time to do your research:

Start by analyzing your website’s traffic to see who visits your store and what they do when they’re there. 

I recommend integrating your eCommerce store with Google Analytics to get a better sense of your visitors:

• Demographics
• How they browse your eCommerce site (desktop or mobile)
• Which web pages do they frequent

Alternatively, if you have a social following or email list, ask them directly what they like, what they need help with, etc.

Pro Tip: Retrieve feedback using a poll (most social platforms offer poll creation features, or you could use a platform like SurveyMonkey). This keeps your audience’s answers in one place, making it easier to analyze their feedback. 

To further your research, check out Reddit, Facebook groups, Quora, and Instagram accounts relevant to your niche. Note what people are saying about the products you’re selling. For example, what problems do the products solve? What do they like about the products? What feedback do they have about your competitors? Etc.

For example, imagine you sell winter coats.

Here’s a random Reddit chat about that very topic. Threads like these provide excellent insights into your audience’s needs that you can then use to tailor your copywriting to better resonate with them. 

2. Make Your Headlines Sing

Eight out of ten people only read web page headlines. So, if your headline doesn’t sing, there’s a good chance your audience won’t read the rest. 

With that in mind, ensure your headlines are:

• Clear
• Convey your brand’s personality and voice
• Strike a chord with your audience

Let’s explore each pointer in turn:

• Clarity: Get to the point and cut the fluff. Headlines aren’t the place for flowery language and lengthy wordsmithery. Instead, you need to convey your message and fast. A good example of this is SKYVIEW’s headline on their homepage: ‘Meet the world’s first human light.’ – it’s clear and intriguing:

• Convey your brand’s personality and voice: This is essential to establishing a consistent brand while offering customers a chance to get to know and, hopefully, identify with you. Brami’s home page headline is an excellent example: ‘The clean, lean Italian superbean’ – it’s punchy and fun, communicating their brand personality from the get-go. 

• Strike a chord with your audience: I.e. By knowing your customers’ pain points, needs, values, goals, etc., and touching upon them in your headlines, you’re more likely to resonate with your audience. For instance, Folia (pictured in the screenshot below) is a great example of a headline that achieves precisely that!

3. Tone of Voice

Think carefully about how you want to come across. Do you want to sound authoritative? Knowledgeable? Playful? Fun? Casual? 

Whatever you decide, once you’ve picked a tone of voice, stick with it. This is crucial for brand consistency and authenticity. 

Bro Glo is an excellent example of this. They use ‘fun guy talk’ throughout their website that’s straight to the point about the product’s benefits.

With that said, here are a few pointers for finding the right brand voice for your eCommerce business:

• Imagine your store is a person: How would your store speak? How would people talk to you? Use this to guide the way you write. 
• Know your audience: As mentioned above, once you have a better idea of who your audience is, you’ll be better able to pinpoint how your audience speaks and emulate that in your copy.
• Product and tone alignment: Your tone of voice will depend on what you’re selling. For example, selling luxury watches or luggage at premium prices will require a different tone of voice than an online grocery store.

4. Benefits vs Features

When writing product descriptions and headlines, instead of simply describing the product’s features, e.g., its size, color, what it does, and so on, zone in on its benefits. 

In other words, what difference will that product make to the customer’s life? 

By showcasing what’s in it for customers when they buy your product, you’re more likely to pique their interest.

For example, Awesome Coffee describes how its plant-based coffee powder gives you energy and helps you feel fabulous all day. 

Pro Tip: A good way to ensure the inclusion of your product’s benefits in product descriptions is to list the product’s features accompanied by at least one benefit of that feature.

5. Overcome Resistance

Not every website visitor will spend immediately, especially if they’re just browsing or don’t know your brand. First, they’ll usually explore the site, look at your products, check out your delivery options, etc. 

Interestingly, consumer trust in eCommerce isn’t always great. In fact, a recent study found that almost half of consumers abandoned carts because of a lack of confidence in an online business’s legitimacy. 

So, when writing eCommerce copy, you need to reassure visitors they’re not taking a risk. For example, below are a few things you can add to your online store to instill confidence:

• Customer reviews
• Secure payment badges
• A link to your privacy policy
• Clear product descriptions
• Transparent information about your returns policy

Selfmade’s website is an excellent example of a company doing this well. They’ve published:

• The logos of notable media brands that have publicized them (Vogue, Marie Claire, Refinery 29)
• A link to an award it’s won
• Links to its refund, returns, and privacy policy.

In addition, each product has a customer star rating to give future shoppers the social proof they need to be confident in the legitimacy of Selfmade’s products.

6. Use Calls to Action 

If you don’t have a clear call to action (CTA) on your eCommerce website/landing page/email marketing campaigns, etc. That needs to change. 

For the uninitiated, a call to action explicitly tells the user to execute a specified action – for example, ‘Sign Up’ or ‘Buy Now.’ Typically, CTAs are hyperlinked text/buttons that redirect the reader to where the desired action can take place. 

CTAs are imperative because they make it obvious to shoppers what they need to do next, making the sales journey as simple as possible. Needless to say, the more straightforward the customer journey, the more likely they are to buy. The stats bear this out: a CTA on your home page can boost conversions by 121%!

When writing CTAs, I strongly advise including ‘power words.’ I.e., persuasive words or phrases that entice an emotional reaction, encourage FOMO, and peak curiosity. Examples include:

• Exclusive
• Secret
• Latest
• Bonus
• Free
• Genuine
• Gift
• Now (Using “now” in a CTA can increase conversion rates by 90%!)
• Guaranteed
• Sneak peek

…And so on. 

For example, ‘ode to things'’ CTA on its home page is simple yet powerful ‘SHOP NOW:’

Here are a couple more tips for writing engaging CTAs:

• Include benefits: Are you offering anything unique? For example, free product samples, free shipping, a free trial, etc., If so, try including that in your CTA! 
• Get personal: Use personal pronouns – for instance: “add to my cart,” “sign me up to your newsletter,” and so on. This can increase click-throughs by up to 90%!

7. Create a Sense of Urgency

Building on the ‘power words’ mentioned above, creating a sense of urgency is a tried and tested way to increase sales. In fact, Marcus Taylor, Founder of Venture Harbour, found that generating a sense of urgency increased his sales by 332%!

Below are a few scenarios that can boost said urgency:

• Offering time-limited discounts
• Limited edition products
• Free delivery for a set period, e.g., Black Friday week. 
• Flash and mystery sales that are exclusively available to newsletter subscribers
• Displaying stock levels when products are selling out. E.g., only 5 left or 5 sold in the last 30 minutes, and so on. 
• Holiday sales (Valentine’s, Christmas, Black Friday. Cyber Monday)

When employing this tactic, be sure to use words and phrases that engender a sense of urgency, such as:

• Today only
• Last chance
• Get it before it’s gone
• Now
• Hurry
• Buy
• Clearance
• Sale
• Don’t miss out

…And so on. 

Best Buy’s ‘Deal of the Day’ is a fab example of a brand that’s creating a sense of urgency surrounding their products:

8. Use Sensory Language

Words that evoke sensation and feeling can help customers have a more three-dimensional experience with your online store. 

Circling back to Foila’s copy (as mentioned earlier), the words ‘buttery, soft, smooth, and subtle’ are excellent examples of sensory language. In this instance, they communicate the results customers can expect from their skincare products.  

The bottom line: Sensory language can strengthen your affinity with prospective customers by provoking emotions and providing a more engaging user experience.

9. Be Readable

For the uninitiated, your text’s ‘readability’ is a measure of how easy your copy is to read. Most content marketers say to aim for an 8th-grade reading level at the highest (but the lower, the better!)

Here are a few tips for improving your eCommerce copy’s readability:

• Use bullet points wherever possible.
• Use subheadings to structure larger chunks of text.
• Keep sentences short
• Use the active voice (I.e., the sentence's subject performs the action). A famous and often quoted example is Nike’s Just Do It. If rewritten in the passive voice, it would be: Make sure it gets done. Also, McDonald’s I’m Lovin’ It becomes It's Being Loved.

Pro Tip: Use free online tools like Hemingway to assess the readability of your text and get feedback on where there’s room for improvement.

10. Don’t Forget the Visuals

Yes, words are essential, but it's wise to illustrate your point with clear and attractive images. They also tell and enhance your story. For example, Ned (a natural remedy brand) tells its story with a mix of video, text, and images, which is incredibly moving and engaging:

11. Use Keywords

Keywords are the words and phrases people enter into search engines. 

You need to communicate to Google (and other search engines) that your content is relevant to the search terms your audience is searching for. The easiest way to do this is to insert these keywords into your copy. 

The better optimized your web pages are for relevant keywords (especially ones with low competition and high search volume), the higher you'll appear in search engine results (also known as search engine optimization).

To identify such keywords for your SEO copywriting, you’ll need to conduct some keyword research. Fortunately, there are plenty of platforms that can help with that – for example:

• Ahrefs
• Google Keyword Planner
• Semrush

Remember, when it comes to inserting keywords into your eCommerce copy, they have to read naturally, I.e., not like you’ve stuffed every product description, headline, and blog post with them. Google states that doing so can “harm your site’s ranking.”

12. Try AI

Last but not least, if you’re stuck for time, try experimenting with AI tools. There are a few free ones worth exploring, for example:

• Jasper has an AI headline generator tool you can try for free for seven days
• Hubspot’s free AI blog idea generator 
• The Hoth’s free AI title generator
• Copy.ai’s free forever plan – you can use this to produce product descriptions, blogs, and social content

While I don’t think AI is a substitute for real ecommerce copywriters, if your small business budget doesn’t allow for hiring one and you’re not 100% confident in your own copywriting abilities, AI can help you in the following ways:

• Putting your ideas into sentences
• Generating content at speed
• Crafting consistent messaging

However, the downsides of using such AI tools are that:

• AI can’t always address complex or subtle topics
• It risks being generic; therefore, you're less likely to connect with audiences on a deeper level.
• AI sometimes makes grammatical errors.

Are You Ready to Up Your eCommerce Copywriting Game?

So, that brings us to the end of my top eCommerce copywriting tips! I hope I’ve provided a few ideas to help you improve your own copywriting strategy.

If you take anything away from this blog post, be sure to:

• Get to know your target audience
• Establish a consistent tone of voice 
• Focus on the product’s benefits rather than its features

Do you have any other winning eCommerce copywriting tips? Let us know in the comments below!