Easy or sleazy – the problem with buy, Buy BUY!

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Stylaquin1

There's a fine line between making it easy to shop and sounding sleazy

I recently started noticing a new feature on Shopify that adds a Buy button to the thumbnail images. Think about that for a minute. It obscures the center portion of the first image shoppers see of the product and tells them to buy it. That feature is seriously putting the cart before the horse. Unless the shopper knows exactly what they want to buy, and can fully understand what is being offered without any additional information like what it’s made of, what features it has, and how much it costs, there is zero chance they will click a buy now button. If they want to learn more they have to click on the portion of the image not covered by the buy button. That means the button is actually in the way of the sale. It becomes a barrier. There aren’t a lot of use cases where this would be the ideal customer journey. I could see it working for groceries, menu items like adding pepperoni to pizza, or some hardware categories, but not for much else.

Think about who your customer is.

If you’re selling deeply discounted items to a cheap customer, you want to sell, Sell, SELL! However, if you’re selling to a luxury, high-end customer, or anyone who’s shopping for value, selling too hard can sound sleazy. Everyone loves a deal now and then, but selling too hard can actually hurt sales.

If you have been in online marketing for a while, you’ve probably heard of Amy Africa. In the early days, when online marketing was figuring things out, Amy tested everything, EVERYTHING. One of her golden rules was to always add a big red Buy Now! button. Design standards change with time but making buying easy is always a good idea.

How do you find the line between easy and sleazy?

Start with your target audience. For a lot of founders and entrepreneurs, the company brand is just an extension of their taste. However, if you are not a member of your target demographic, you can and should ask your customers. A/B testing should teach you a lot about what your customers actually want, not what they say they want. Here’s a video showing how to A/B test on Shopify.

The line between easy and sleazy is probably closer to the sell side than you think it is. I see so many sites that don’t have any meaningful salesmanship at all. So the first question to ask yourself is are you selling at all? I don’t mean are you offering your products to customers, I mean are you selling products to customers? I can show you a picture of a scented candle and tell you it’s made of soy, burns for 12 hours, and smells like pine. Or I can show you a picture of a candle and another of a deer running through a misty pine forest and tell you that you can bring the scents of an enchanted forest into any room in your house. Or I can show you a picture of a candle and a Christmas tree and tell you that you can fill your room with the smell of Christmas. The first example is offering the candle, the last two are selling the candle to different audiences. Selling that helps customers find things that will spark joy is never sleazy.

Making the buy button bigger, or red, or so the first thing they see isn’t going to sell more products. You can’t demand customers buy something. You have to show them why they can’t live without it.

Shopping designed for women Demo clothing - Woman Long (Video) by Sarah Fletcher

Product copy is your secret weapon—here’s how to slay!

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Nobody reads copy. (Psssst: Except when they buy.)

We are a society of scanners and clickers. We spend as little time as possible to get through as much as possible. The truth is that shoppers are busy people. Many mobile shoppers are killing time while commuting, or in a waiting room, or picking up kids or, or, or. You have just a few precious seconds to get their attention.

So how much copy is ideal?

If your store is on a platform like Shopify, you have to think of how much copy you need to effectively sell, and where that copy goes. You have two places to add copy, the product name and the product copy block. The product name is where you need the quick read most. “Women’s wide leg denim stretch crossover pant with hidden size zipper” is not going to get anyone’s attention fast. “Mardi Gras Pant” isn’t going to help with SEO. So you have to find a balance.

Does Your Site Do This?

It can with Stylaquin! Stylaquin is the easy to add Shopify app that transforms your website. Stylaquin makes shopping faster, more engaging, and more fun. Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view over 85% more products, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

Start with the customer’s journey

What are your customers looking for? If they are looking for a staple they always buy, like me buying Allegro Italian Roast Whole Bean Coffee, they aren’t shopping, they’re buying. They just need to find the item and check out fast. If they aren’t sure what they want, then they need to be able to compare. If the item has a design component, the first sort is going to be visual. Most products have at least some design component. Can you answer any of your customers’ questions with pictures? Can you add callouts to make the pictures more of a quick read?

If they still have interest, they read the copy

Take a moment to think about the last time you bought something without reading the copy. Didn’t happen right? We all read the copy before we buy and customers can be lost if they have concerns or questions that the copy doesn’t answer. How crazy is it to cut out product copy that will be read when the customer is weighing whether to buy or not? It’s pretty darn crazy my friends. Pretty darn crazy.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

The Stylaquin Idea Board keeps customers engaged in two ways: it’s an interactive styling board where shoppers can collect and curate all the things that interest them; and it also acts as a wishlist that shoppers can return to. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

What purpose does copy serve?

Product copy serves three masters. The internet gods, the customer, and the FTC. The internet gods require that product copy contains keywords, lots and lots of keywords. The consumer requires that product copy contains the dream of ownership, the benefits of ownership, the features of the product, and the price. The final master is the Federal Trade Commission or whatever that body is called in whatever country your store lives in. The FTC requires the specifics, which are different for different types of products but typically include the content and country of origin for the product.

The internet gods must be appeased

Think about what someone would type into Google if they were searching for your product online. Use those words in the product copy. AI is actually helpful for this and worth the chatGMP subscription.

How to write good product copy with AI

in order to get good product copy you’ll need to tell the AI who your target customer is. Age, sex, education level, hobbies, and anything else you know about them. If you don’t know, give it your best guess. Then tell the AI that you would like it to act as the head of marketing for a company that sells what you sell. Feed it your customer information, and then ask it to write copy for the product that has at least 5 keywords. You can also have the AI make a list of keywords first and then have it write the copy using the ones you like the best. The more information you can give the AI about the product the better the result.

Is AI copy as good as professionally crafted copy?

No. A professional copywriter will think about the hierarchy of information, the aspirational opportunities, the cultural tie-ins, and more. AI is a great starting point and most professional copywriters are using it to do some of the heavy lifting. AI is a time saver, but there’s an art and craft to copy that AI may never master.

11 ways to get more free organic traffic

Posted on January 17, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How to get free organic traffic to your Shopify store

One of the questions I get asked most at Stylaquin demos is “Does Stylaquin bring traffic to a website?” The answer to that is yes and no. Stylaquin engages and delights the traffic you have, so new visitors are more likely to become repeat traffic, it also brings in referral traffic from shoppers who enjoy shopping with Stylaquin, but it isn’t a good source of traffic for brand new stores. If you are a new store, just starting out, with little or no traffic, I want to help you get past 500 visitors a month so that Stylaquin will be able to help you grow. Here are 11 ways you can get free organic traffic to your website.

Just for kicks I asked ChatGPT how to get more traffic, and it spit out a decent framework, which didn’t include enough specifics to be useful. Then I asked Google Bard to see if there was anything that Google, lord of internet search, could add. Not really. Which made me realize that the question new and struggling business owners should be asking isn’t, “How do I get more free organic traffic?” The question should be “How do I get more free organic traffic in a way I can fit into my incredibly busy life, so that I can comfortably grow my business without losing my sanity.” There’s a time, and results interconnection that needs to be addressed, and you need to factor in what skills you have, and what skills you may need to develop or buy.

Where should you start?

I’m giving you a list of 11 really good options for getting more traffic. You’re probably getting excited, and then the spin starts. Which should I do first? How do I know which is the best for my website? Which will get the best results? Which will get the fastest results. Okay, hit pause, stop and breath. The worst thing you can do is bounce around from one to the other looking for a magic fix that will give you the power of a Kardashian. There is no magic fix. But the path to building your business can be fun and rewarding. You can also do it at a pace that won’t make you crazy and won’t keep you from doing the things that matter. I’m going to break down the list in the order you should work through. Some things are just basic marketing and some are more nuanced.

This easy to understand seven page guide will teach you how to create useful personas so that you can market more effectively and truly engage your customers.

Download your copy today!

1) Find the right customer for what you sell

The pros call this Market Research. Every successful business has a target customer who will be excited about what the company sells. It’s much easier to target a specific segment of customers than it is to do what we call “Spray and pray”, that is throwing everything you can think of, at as many people as possible, and hoping something catches on. If you want to get free organic traffic, it’s easier and more effective to define a narrow niche audience, say people who love lighthouses, people who wear bow ties, people who collect baseball cards or people who own scooters. The narrower your audience is, the easier it is to target them with content, keywords and ads. Here’s a link to the Smart Shopify Persona Builder which will get your started.

2) Create a product selection that appeals to your target customer

Once you know who you’re targeting, and you have a persona or personas, you’re ready to collect the products that will interest your target customers. The advent of drop shipping has made putting together a good product assortment easier. You don’t have to go to shows, visit vendors, an spend a lot of money on stock merchandise. You just have to pick out products from an online catalog, or add your designs to existing products. There are a ton of youtube videos where folks tell you how they made $25K per month selling teeshirts or gadgets. The one thing they all have in common is they started with a narrowly focused target audience and designed products for that audience.

3) Create a professional online presence and website

In order to sell your products to your target audience you’ll need to create a professional website that is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and optimized for search engines (SEO). Shopify makes this easy and comes with 12 free themes. Any of them will probably work for what you’re selling. All Shopify themes are based on the free Dawn theme with some alterations. If you’re on a tight budget, consider starting with a free theme, and once you have money coming in, switch to a paid theme. You can use the money you save for advertising when you get to that phase. To start, your site needs to look professional and be easy to shop. You need to have high quality photographs of your products and they must be a high enough resolution that they don’t look blurry.

If you’re not a professional artist, or a gifted amateur, don’t try to reinvent your theme’s design. I’m saying this as an art director with over 30 years experience, who has worked for billion dollar companies. The design is the least important part of your website. WHAT?!?! Yup, unless you have the skills to create a memorable brand at the start, just build your site with the design elements provided by the theme and be consistent. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to redesign something that a highly trained professional has already created and Shopify probably spent real money developing. Here’s a tip from art school: Art is theft. Every great artist stands on the work of the artist that came before. Look for inspiration in other stores that you admire and copy what they’re doing. You don’t need to start new trends, just keep things clean and tidy. When in doubt ask yourself “What would appeal to my target audience?” It’s always about your target audience, it’s never about you. Write that one down and tape it to your computer.

Don’t get mad at Google, outsmart it! Having trouble getting your site to rank well? Wondering how to get to the top positions without paying for placement? Google is just an algorithm, once you understand how it works, you can learn how to outsmart it. Download your copy today!

P.S. It’s free and we will never share your name. You can unsubscribe at any time.

4) Build free organic traffic with good SEO

If you’ve already gotten your Shopify website built, and chosen products, you may have to back track a bit. SEO, like everything else, starts with the target audience. I’ve added a link to our free e-book How to Outsmart Google that will go into more detail on how Google sees your site and how to use that to your advantage. In order to be successful, you’ll need to start with a narrow target audience, and choose products that customers in that niche are interested in. At the start, because you don’t have a list yet, you’ll be out in the web in a crowd with millions of others. That’s the equivalent of starting a store in Wyoming, on a dirt road, far from town and hoping that putting a sign on the building will bring in traffic. Your friends are gonna show up, but that’s about it.

The purpose of SEO is to make it easy for your target audience to find you. You do this by determining why each product will appeal to your target audience, and then writing copy that will include the words they will type into Google or Bing when they’re looking for that product. I’m going to say that again again, it’s crazy important. Determine why each product you sell will appeal to your target audience, then write copy that will include the words your customer will type into Google or Bing when they’re looking for that product in the copy. You can download our free e-book titled Smart Shopify Copy Builder to get detailed help on how to write good product copy that will work for search engines. If you don’t get the words your customers will type into Google in your product copy, Google will not send searchers to your product. It’s that simple.

5) Get free ad placement

In the Shopify App Store there’s a Google app. The app makes it easy to create a Google ads account and get the proper tracking set up on your site. You should do this even if you never run a Google ad.

Setting up a Google Ads account manually is not all that easy. The interface was designed by people who understand how tracking and analytics work and there is a huge amount of assumed knowledge that mere mortals may not possess. Installing the app makes the setup less painful.

The big win is you can be certain that your site is properly tagged for Google AND, once you get your products added, they will appear in the band of images at the top of the Google Search screen for free as long as Google deems them relevant to the search query. You don’t have to pay for placement, but you do need to make sure Google knows what the products are, and why someone would be interested in them. Google does what’s easy for them and not what works best for you. There are lots of Youtube videos that will walk you through how to set up the Google app. It will take longer than you think, so wear comfy clothes and bring a tasty beverage.

6) Keywords are the key

Sorry, I know that’s obvious, but if you want free organic traffic for your Shopify site, keywords are how you get it. They aren’t sexy, they aren’t always obvious, but they aren’t rocket science either. Hopefully you’ve downloaded and read How to Outsmart Google and now you understand how keywords work and how Google “thinks” about them.

There has been a lot of talk about AI and how that will improve search. The truth is Google has been using AI for years. Without going down the AI rabbit hole, just know that keywords, relevant copy and content are the pillars of your SEO strategy and they will be for a long, long, time.

Here’s another important reason to put real time and energy into Keywords, content and copy—It will save you money when you do start placing ads. Paid ads that don’t lead to a site with good SEO actually cost more than ads that go to a store with good SEO. Yah, Google does that. Because Google’s customer is the searcher (read How to Outsmart Google, it will change how you see the web.) Google promotes sites that have a targeted audience and keywords that will appeal to that audience. You don’t just get a good discount, it also improves your ad placement. Seriously, good SEO will save you real money once you get to placing ads. Don’t even think about starting ads till you get the SEO basics nailed down.

7) Use AI to help with keywords and content

It is a battle of the bots. Google’s AI reading copy written by Bard and ChatGPT, how very sci-fi! For many bits of online copy it’s faster, and with some practice it works quite well. You have to build a base of content in order to rank with Google and get free traffic. That’s a good bit of content. As of this post you can still get free versions of ChatGPT and Bard. If you decide to pay you’ll get more options and more detailed output for about $20/month. You can pay for companies who have developed scripts for ChatGPT that dial in the copy, but you can do that yourself. Here’s how.

Tell ChatGPT to act as the head of marketing and copywriter for [your site].
Tell ChatGPT who your target customer is.
Give it information on the product you want to get copy for. [product name, what it does, why that matters to your target customer, as well as any relevant specifications]
Ask it what the best keywords for that product would be to rank well with Google.
Ask it to write a copy block that will appeal to your target audience using the keywords provided.
Be sure to tell it not to make up anything.

Important Safety Tip: Be sure to pay attention to the output. AI hallucinates, AKA makes stuff up. It can make up quotes and cite references that don’t exist. Telling it not to make things up usually works, but check anyway. It’s a machine designed to tell you what you want to hear.

You can ask AI to use the same style as copy you have already written and like. You can ask it to write copy that’s sassy, or calm, or funny. Try different prompts till you find ones that get you copy that fits your brand and appeals to your target audience. Write down the prompts you used so you can continue to use them later. This will help create a consistent voice for your brand.

8) Create Content that resonates with Google

One of the time honored ways to get free organic traffic is to set up a blog and create relevant, engaging content that showcases your expertise and provides value to your target audience. But really, who has time? You can outsource blog posts and social media, or take it on yourself. If you decide to outsource, there are folks on Fiver and Upwork as well as online services that can get the job done for $50-$100/post.

If you decide to take it on yourself, you must be consistent. It’s better to write one good post a week and share it on social media than to write a whole bunch and have gaps of weeks in between. Why? Because Google crawls websites at a rate that is dependent on how often it finds new content. Big sites write three posts a week. But since posts take (me at least) a couple of hours to write without AI and slightly less with AI, (I only use it for outlines and research) then I have to come up with images and get them posted; that would be a full day of my time just to write three blog posts. I don’t have that kind of time, so I post once a week.

I’ve trained Google that their bots need to crawl my site every week in order to keep their search results accurate. In order to be the most successful search engine, Google needs to be accurate. Google is also tasked with crawling the web, which is massive, so they have to be strategic. Google only crawls the things that change often. If I post three times a week and then skip a couple of weeks Google may not even notice until it crawls my site and, seeing changes, it may crawl the next week, but once I stop posting, Google stops crawling. Consistency is the secret to success and, even posting twice a month will work better than posting in fits and starts.

To change the frequency that Google crawls your site, you need to add new relevant content every week. Why does that matter? Because Google considers “freshness” very important and gives precedence to sites that have fresh content. Here’s a link to a video about the importance of keeping your copy fresh.

9) Make sure that your Shopify site is mobile friendly.

In order for Google to send you free organic traffic, it requires, yes requires, that your site is mobile friendly. All of the Shopify themes start out mobile friendly. Since the paid themes are all built on Dawn, they are also probably mobile friendly. So if you’re on Shopify, you’ll start out mobile friendly, but you can still mess it up. Your mobile score will be impacted by five main things.

Slow, or out of date theme.
Photos that are too large to download quickly.
Photos that don’t have alt text.
Too many photos on a page, which makes the pages take a long time to load.
Poor contrast between type and background.

You can check your site’s Lighthouse score (Google controls Lighthouse) to see if there is anything you need to fix. It will give you a score for mobile and desktop and tell you what needs to be fixed. Here’s the link to a free Lighthouse test from PageSpeed Insights.

Why does having a good mobile score matter? Well Google has prioritized mobile and, if your site isn’t mobile optimized, it won’t serve your site up in the organic search as high as similar sites with better mobile scores. Since over 50% of all online traffic is now mobile—it matters.

10) Social Media

Social media can get you free traffic, and it has been very successful for oodles of new stores. Social media is a bit like waving your arms in the air and shouting “Hey look at me!” online. The idea is to get attention and be interesting enough that people want to spend time with you. There are plenty of social media experts online who can guide you through the best practices, take a few minutes to google who the top players are for your niche and follow them for inspiration. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to get traction. As with content creation, you do need to be consistent. Social media is a lot of work, especially if you don’t enjoy being on social media. Do a little every day and don’t let it pull you away from all the other things that matter.

11) Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t

Make a point to check your site’s analytics weekly so that you know what’s working and what isn’t. Google provides detailed information about where traffic is coming from. Once you added the Google App to your Shopify site you started the data flowing. You can get most of the info you need in the app, or you can deep dive by going to your Google Analytics page. Nothing happens overnight, it will take a few months to see progress. Once you have been consistent for a couple of months you should start to see movement. If you don’t see improvements from week to week and month to month, it’s a good bet that what you’re doing isn’t resonating with your audience, or isn’t being understood by Google.

Checking your stats weekly lets you see where to focus your time and effort. You only need to find one good channel to get the ball rolling.

Then what?

Once you’ve created a steady stream of traffic to your site, then it’s time to delight and engage them with Stylaquin! Shoppers who use Stylaquin will stay longer, view more items, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Stylaquin is the easy and inexpensive way to add an engaging online shopping experience that makes your store stand out in the crowded world of e-commerce.

Does Your Site Do This?

How to Increase Sales with Magic Words

Posted on June 23, 2023 by Stylaquin1

Want to increase sales? Try using these magic words!

Hi, Sarah Fletcher, Stylaquin founder here. For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been a catalog design expert for the last umpteen years. I’ve worked with a lot of catalogs you know and love like Harrington’s of Vermont, Mrs. Beasley’s, The Vermont Country Store, L.L. Bean, Jamestown Distributors, and Glendale to name a few.

One of the most interesting things I learned from catalogs is that there are magic words. They always work, they never don’t work, and you can’t overuse them. They are: New, Free, Save, Sale and Sex. So how do you use magic words? First, Don’t over think it, they’re magic, not tricky.

New

New has big magic. Call out new items with a bold red NEW. You can do this in the product body copy. You can add NEW at the end of the Product name, though Shopify and some platforms don’t allow formatting for headlines. An easy win is to create a NEW collection and set it to show new items automatically. If you don’t have many new items, go with what you have and keep the five or ten most recent in the new collection manually. Some stores have a high turnover of new products, so new may mean they are new within the last month. There aren’t any official rules about what constitutes new, though calling items new for more than a year could make it look like the site is never updated.

Does Your Site Do This?

Free

Free is another magic word. It is why free shipping works so very well. Free gift with purchase, and buy one get one free, are other great uses of free. Anything you can give away free is going to resonate with customers. Free upgrade, free class, free case or accessory, free extended warranty, free refill, anytime you can give the customer something free they will love it.

Save

Everyone loves a bargain. Very high end customers won’t respond if save is plastered all over everything, but they love to save as much as the next person. You can tell customers they will save on lots of things that aren’t money, like time, or effort. Save yourself headaches, save more when you buy more, and so on. Saving a dollar amount is usually better than saving a percentage. Customers don’t like to do math. So save $20 will usually do better than save 20% even if the actual dollars saved are a little more with 20%.

Sale

This one’s a classic and most companies use it pretty well. Seasonal sales are a tried and true way to reduce old inventory. Regular sales can move customers off the fence for a small discount. Shoppers who love your brand, but not your prices, may be enticed to buy. You can do the occasional store-wide sale and also have a sale category. Adding a popup to the sale category that specifically targets bargain shoppers can be effective. There is a subset of shoppers that simply won’t pay full price, it’s a badge of honor and a lifestyle choice. Don’t try to change them, meet them on their own terms and they can become loyal, though frugal, customers.

Sex

You’re on your own with this last one. Though I will mention that when I worked with International Justice Mission on their catalog, “Save children from being victims of sex traffickers” was their most effective headline. Though typically you only need to use one magic word at a time. All kidding aside, if you’re looking for a good charity to donate to, International Justice Mission is doing amazing work in dangerous places.

That’s it for magic words, If you enjoyed this blog and got some good info please join our email list. If you’d like to see a Shopify app that increases the number of items viewed by 180%, increases time on site by 70% and just makes online shopping more fun and engaging, here’s a quick demo of Stylaquin. If you’d like to see the Magic Words video or get more marketing, copy, and design tips check out Hump Day Bar Hopping with Stylaquin.

P.S. It’s free and we will never share your name. You can unsubscribe at any time.

How to come up with ideas for good copy

Posted on July 1, 2021 by Stylaquin1

How to come up with ideas for good copy

It’s easy to write good copy once you have a great idea to work with. (Well, most of the time anyway.) But how do you come up with new ideas? Do you wait for inspiration to strike? Is there a process?

YES! Having spent over 30 years as a professional creative I can say with great certainty, while inspiration does strike randomly from time to time, there are ways to get the creative juices flowing. Here are a few of my favorites.

Start with the problem

What problem does the product solve? Who uses it? Why is it better than other solutions? Answering these questions will give you the basic materials to build a copy block or headline.

Give yourself time

Great ideas rarely come from out of the blue. Great ideas come from working through the questions above. This isn’t something you can do in 4 minutes. A good brainstorming session should be at least 30 minutes and can go over an hour if you are on a roll. Remember to come up with lots of ideas, let them percolate, then winnow them down to one or two, before you start to flesh them out.

Take a walk

Moving is a great way to get creative juices flowing. Steve Jobs was famous for walking when he was struggling with a new project or problem. While you walk, think about the problem. Let your mind wander and then come back to the problem. Don’t hold it too tightly, but keep coming back to it.

Be curious

I usually start with a big sheet of paper and make a mind map of what I know about the product. Who invented it? Why? Who was the first person to use it? What is it made of? I once did a project for International paper to help them sell more office paper. We asked what the difference was between inkjet, laser, and multipurpose office papers. No one had much information. But why would there be so many choices if there was no real difference? So we asked to speak to the paper engineers. They talked for over an hour and gave us all we needed to know about why there were different papers, what the advantages and disadvantages were for each, and why it would matter to the customer. If we hadn’t been curious enough to speak to the engineers, we would never have gotten the right information.

Follow the customer

This is a great exercise even if you aren’t writing copy. Go to where your customers are using your product and watch them. If you sell travel gear, spend time in some airports, train stations, and bus depots. Think about who is buying what you are selling and go watch them in their native habitat.

Google it

It can lead you down the garden path but the Google machine does come up with some great stuff. Ask questions like “Why is (your product) better?” “Who uses (your product).” Be curious and see where it take you.

Go to a bookstore or library

Sometimes getting away from your desk is the best use of your time. I think of libraries and bookstores as high-target environments for ideas. Look at books about your product space. Flip through magazines. Just let your curiosity guide you.

If you would like to learn more about how to write great product copy for Shopify, download the Smart Shopify Copy Builder.

This guide will help you understand the different facets of good copy, understand how they affect your customer’s perception of your products and your brand, and why that matters. We have also included a handy planner to make the process easier.

What are legal requirements for product copy?

Posted on June 11, 2021 by Stylaquin1

There are legal requirements for product copy, and here they are.

Material content

Content refers to what the product is made of. If you are selling clothing you need to include what the fabric’s fiber content is and the percentage of each material. (100% Polyester, 80% Cotton 20% Linen, that kind of thing.) It isn’t tricky, it just needs to be there. There is an SEO opportunity in content because you can create a page for most content, say a page on how great linen is, or why Polyester is better for active sports. For more information about using content for creating internal pages download the Smart Shopify SEO Builder as well.

Country of origin

This is another important and easy thing to add to your copy. If you are not the manufacturer, and you aren’t sure what the country of origin is, check the product’s tag. Manufacturers are required to list the country of origin on every product. Your distributor will also be able to tell you. Creating meaningful product pages about country of origin to link to is often a stretch, however if the country of origin is unique or has meaning to the buyer it can be very relevant. Made in the USA is often worth promoting if you are selling to the USA. It is a bit of a buzzkill when your Irish Knit Sweater is made in Sri Lanka, but you are still required to list it.

Truthfulness

It should go without saying that making false claims about a product is illegal. Finding the hard edge of truth can be challenging when products are very new or untested claims. Be especially careful about making specific health claims and always check with your lawyer before making any claims. In general, if you find yourself saying “Well it could…”, don’t talk yourself into anything. Focusing on solving customers’ problems will do you more good than trying to fake a benefit.

But no one else does it…

It’s pretty easy to find examples of non-compliance. You can almost certainly get away with not listing content and country of origin. Here’s why you should bother: It’s easy to do and the end result helps your customer. Many people will make an effort to buy goods from countries they feel connected to. Many people won’t buy items made of certain materials. Linen wrinkles, cotton is a bad choice for on the water gear, polyester is bad for the environment. You can’t know your customers’ thinking on what an item is made from, but you can give them the choice. Google rewards complete information and more importantly, customers trust sites that provide complete information. Leaving them out may not get you served with a cease and desist letter, but putting them in will get you trust, and trust is priceless.

Introducing the Smart Shopify Copy Builder!

Posted on May 5, 2021 by Stylaquin1

Introducing the Smart Shopify Copy Builder

Writing great product copy is a big job, and it probably isn’t the only thing on your to-do list. This guide will help you understand the different facets of good copy, understand how they affect customer’s perception of your products and your brand, and why that matters. It shows you where the opportunities for crafting great SEO are and even includes a handy planner to make the process easier. Once you understand what to do, and why it matters, it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes per product to create a plan of attack.

Whether you are writing copy yourself, or with a team, this resource will keep you focused on the important things. It also makes getting your information organized and in one place.