Product Descriptions
How to Write a Product Title That Works in Search and on the Page
The title is the one piece of product copy that appears everywhere, and it is usually whatever the supplier called it.
A product title appears in the search result, the category grid, the shopping feed, the basket, the confirmation email and the tab. It is the most reused piece of copy on a product page and it is usually inherited unchanged from a supplier spreadsheet.
What a Good Title Contains
A title has to identify the product to someone who has never seen it, in a line that may be truncated. The reliable order is brand, product, defining attribute, then size or quantity.
"Osprey Talon 22 Hiking Backpack, 22L, Grey" survives truncation and tells a shopper everything. "Talon 22" does not.
Put the distinguishing detail early. Everything after roughly sixty characters may never be seen.
Where Keyword Stuffing Shows Most
Titles attract keyword stuffing because they are weighted heavily in search. The result is the familiar unreadable string of every term a seller could think of, separated by commas.
It performs badly on both counts. Shoppers skip listings that look automated, and platforms that rank partly on conversion push those listings down again.
If you would be embarrassed to read the title aloud, it is too long. That test catches the problem more reliably than a character count.
Different Rules in Different Places
- Your own store: You control the length and the format. Prioritise clarity in the grid view, where most browsing happens.
- Google Shopping: The title carries most of the matching weight. Attributes like size and colour belong in it.
- Amazon: Character limits vary by category and the conventions are stricter — see our Amazon listing service for how that differs.
- eBay and Etsy: Shorter limits and more emphasis on how buyers actually phrase searches on those platforms.
A Worked Example
Take a supplier line arriving as "TL-4471 BLK 45CM ASSY". It identifies the product internally and means nothing to a shopper or a search engine.
- Start with the brand, because it is what people search and what builds recognition in a grid.
- Name the product in the words a buyer would use, not the internal one — "tool roll", not "ASSY".
- Add the attribute that distinguishes it from its siblings, which here is the length.
- Add colour or finish last, since it matters least for matching and truncates harmlessly.
- Read the result aloud. "Bahco Tool Roll, 45cm, 12 Pocket, Black" passes; the original does not.
The same rule applied across a catalogue is worth more than a perfect title on one product.
Mistakes That Show Up Across a Catalogue
- Internal codes: SKUs and assembly references in the customer-facing title, inherited from the feed.
- Inconsistent order: Brand first on some products, size first on others, which makes a grid look untended.
- Missing the distinguishing attribute: Twelve variants with titles a shopper cannot tell apart.
- Marketing words: "Premium", "professional" and "high quality" fill characters and match nothing.
- Duplicated words: The brand repeated twice because the feed already included it.
A Rule Worth Setting Once
The biggest gain in most catalogues is not a better title for one product but a consistent format across all of them. Inconsistent titles make a category page look untended and make feeds harder to match.
Decide the order of elements, write it down, and apply it to everything — including whatever gets added next month. Setting that rule is part of every product description project we take on.