How to Use AI to Write Product Descriptions

SEO and PPC

If you own an eCommerce store, then it stands to reason that you will have new products to sell. Over time, you might enhance your selection of products through new partnerships and interesting products you can purchase wholesale. You might even use a dropshipping company to sample some new items on the market. Whatever the reason, most eCommerce stores add new products all the time. With each product comes the need for product descriptions, right? Do you write them yourself?

Sure, you could – most people who run an eCommerce site either have some marketing experience or have a marketing partner. However, product descriptions are time-consuming to write and require you to put in a significant amount of time to learn about the product. There also comes the fact that you need to know the product well and have the writing flair to ensure the description sells the product to the intended audience. 

If you worry your writing might not appeal, it makes sense to go in a different direction. One such example is to use AI technology to write product descriptions for you. While not as impactful as you would get from a professional, AI tools are either free or more cost-effective than hiring a pro. And as AI writing tools improve, they can do a decent job of giving you a base to start with, if nothing else.

Whether you are short on funds for hiring a professional or want to get a batch of product descriptions ready quickly, AI tools make an acceptable starting place. Let’s look closer.

Why Should You Use AI To Write Product Descriptions?

Of course, there are many concerns about AI writing. For example, Google and other search engines now focus a lot on detecting AI-written content. The rapid rise of AI means that the marketing world has been caught cold to an extent. Many are unprepared for the challenges that AI writing brings to the table. As such, text that comes across as too mechanical can be highlighted as being AI-written.

Therefore, many are put off by the idea of using AI-written content. However, a growing number of marketing and writing professionals create AI content and use that as a base. They then add their voice and human touch to the writing, so it comes across as less generated and more human-sounding. However, AI-written product descriptions can be very effective. 

By using AI to write product descriptions, you save one of the most valuable commodities of all: your time. No longer do you need to commit countless hours to writing, refining, and optimising your content for SEO purposes. You also avoid the risk of your descriptions sounding too informal. While some companies prefer a more laid-back voice, others prefer to stick to a strictly professional tone.

AI product descriptions can also be easily optimised for SEO by providing the writing tool with the right keywords. These can be blended in naturally, as AI tools for SEO writing already have programmed insight into SEO practices. Therefore, they avoid things like keyword stuffing and unnatural keyword use. 

One benefit of using AI writing for product descriptions is the speed. Let’s say you are trying out fifty new products. Hiring a writer to create unique descriptions for each becomes expensive. If these products fail on the market, you have invested considerable sums of money into writing and marketing, which fails to deliver. With AI, you can populate product pages with informative descriptions cheaply. 

Concerns About AI Writing for Product Descriptions

At the same time, it is important to note that AI writing rarely beats a well-written professional copy. While they can lay the foundations for what you are looking for, most AI writing feels mechanical. It often lacks the flow and charisma of a person and often fails to communicate specifically to an audience. Generic product descriptions that fill the page with readable content work fine. 

When you need a product description that speaks to the reader, maximises interest, and focuses on pain points, not so much. AI writing comes with risks that your product descriptions speak to a general audience. While AI writing has come on leaps and bounds, it is not at the same stage when it comes to hyper-focused, specific writing. Sometimes, product descriptions need some adjustments.

Most concerns about AI writing revolve around being flagged as AI text by search engines. While that is a natural concern and something to pay attention to, with the right prompting and planning, this can be avoided. Avoid generic prompts for the product description generation, and you should find it easy to avoid the kind of AI flagging that has detrimentally impacted plenty of AI writing projects so far.

Engage our services to master your use of AI

The Best of Both Worlds Approach

For many eCommerce store owners, it pays to invest in a little bit of both. Instead of writing new descriptions from scratch, use an AI tool to generate the broad outline. Then, use an editor to go through the content, optimise it further for SEO, and include specific points and messaging. One benefit of AI writing is that it is already easy to create a consistent brand voice with some prompting.

As such, you can avoid having to rewrite sections of the content wholesale. Thanks to the presence of data analysis, AI-written product descriptions can also point towards pain points and customer data. Therefore, descriptions generated tend to already speak to a specific kind of audience member or target customer. With some adjustment and the human touch, these descriptions become even better. If you know your audience, AI-written descriptions can be focused on that kind of person.

Many eCommerce owners create the base with an AI writing software tool. Then, they have their in-house marketing team refine the message and voice and double-check the quality of the work. This streamlines the writing process and saves money on the cost of writing. Editing staff can take an AI-written description that does 90% of the work and then refine it as needed.

The result will be high-quality, well-written content that sounds human while meeting all the underlying SEO requirements. Websites will receive high-quality content quickly, and customers will receive the details they need.

Creating Quality AI Written Product Descriptions

The difference in the quality of results generated comes down to two things:

• The quality of the AI writing software you use to get the ball rolling
• The depth of the prompts provided when creating these descriptions

Just like hiring a human professional, AI writing becomes more effective the more specific you can be. So long as you can define clear objectives and provide the AI writing tool with clear prompts to follow, you stand a much better chance of long-term success here. The more information you can provide, the better. Avoid being vague; where possible, provide examples of the AI prompt of comparable products.

You need to make sure that your AI writing tool has as much information as possible. So, the preparation process remains. If you just stick the URL of the product supplier page into an AI writing tool, it will create a generic rewrite of the same content. Provide prompts about your target market, pain points to consider, and SEO practices relevant to your business, and you should find it much easier to create engaging worthwhile content.

Refining AI Written Product Descriptions

Start by preparing all the data you need about the product. Provide the AI tool with images, important titles, specifications, features, and other relevant information. Think about the details you would provide to a human writer; for the best results, your AI writing tool will need a similar level of depth provided. Think about including information about your target market and even your company so the AI writing tool can spin those insights into the content for better results.

Most AI writing tools come with a workflow system that allows you to create product descriptions quickly. While the initial workflow process feels time-consuming, it is still faster than writing these product descriptions from scratch. Feed in as much information as you can so you know that the AI generator has as much detail as needed. 

Once the output returns from the AI generator, do not just use what you get without checking it over. These should give you an excellent base point from which to work, and the benefit of AI-written text is that it is always grammatically correct. What it might lack is the human touch; the base is there, so you might now need to look over the content and make some adjustments to fit your voice 100%. 

You might even wish to refine the prompts that you give to the AI writing tool. Look at things like other keywords, specific brand information, and customer insights. You might even wish to change the language model used from one AI method to another, which many AI writing tools provide. Soon enough, though, you should have some detailed product descriptions that make you feel ready to go.

Try AI Written Product Descriptions Out Today

Many great AI writing tools like ChatGPT and Claude are perfect for product description generation. If you want to get a strong baseline for your products, we recommend you try out some AI-written product content. Most of the time, you can create something effective in the space of a few short minutes of preparation and planning.

However, do not assume that everything is perfect without review. Your editing team should still be looking at these descriptions to ensure they fit the voice and technical requirements of your eCommerce platform. With the outline created, though, it now becomes ten times easier to put together quality descriptions without having to start from scratch with every product.

You might even wish to use AI-written product descriptions to try out new products quickly. Once you see interest in that product, you can create a more human-refined description. For those eCommerce vendors trying out new product lines, though, AI-written descriptions make a cost-effective, time-friendly alternative.

Try it out for yourself – the results are impressive!