Overview
WooCommerce offers two product description fields for use:
- Short Description
- Product Description
They both use the standard WordPress editor and can have bulleted lists, etc within the content. As a rule, the code on your site will control the appearance of the text so that all the content on the site looks and feels the same. However, if you need to draw attention to something within the content the editor tools can be used.
The description fields in WooCommerce can be edited at any time; as soon as your changes are published they will be visible on the site.
Short Description
Often this field is found under the product data fields; it can be dragged and dropped to the top of the product page if you'd like.
Modern Retail recommends that the short description field be 2 to 3 well written sentences about the product. Think about how you would describe the product to a shopper; that's your short description! This content must absolutely be unique to your site; do not "borrow" this content from another site or even the brand.
The Short Description is the first description field that appears on the product page and is also used as the Meta Description for search engines and will appear in the search engine results listings.
Product Page View
Search Engine Results
Always follow these guidelines when writing your Short Descriptions:
- Always write complete sentences!
- Try to write 2 to 3 sentences for every product!
- Use words that really describe the product, just as if you were describing the product to a shopper in person.
- Short Descriptions should be at least 150 characters or more.
Product Description Field
This field is a great place to list the information found on a products tag or other relevant information like the fit of the product or where it's made. Any information that you did not include in the Short Description but would be helpful to the shopper should be included in this field. Modern Retail recommends you use the bulleted list tool to create a list of these features. The list format makes it easy on the shopper's eye and keeps the text neat on the page!
This field generally appears in the tabbed information on the lower part of the product page.
A few things to avoid in BOTH fields:
- Never copy and paste directly from another source, especially MicroSoft Word! If you have content from your existing site or in MS Word, we recommend you copy/paste it first into a text editor like Notepad and the copy/paste it into your product descriptions. This step will remove any and all formatting and paste "clean" text into the field.
- We do not recommend that you change the font type or size because this over-ride the formatting that has been defined for your site. The font and size will “automatically” change to match the text on the rest of your site’s product page – you do not need to format it.