PRODUCT DESCRIPTION gUIDELINES...WooCommerce, in which case you should be comfortable with this platform. Or you may be used to other platforms such as Shopify, Squarespace or Wix,

PRODUCT UPLOAD

GUIDELINES

NOTES FOR ENTERING PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS

ON THE DECORCAFE MARKETPLACE

08.09.2020

Product Description Guidelines 08.09.20 Page | 2

WELCOME TO THE DECORCAFE MARKETPLACE

We would like to welcome you to the Decorcafe Marketplace! We are thrilled that you will be showcasing your

gorgeous products on our platform and look forward to working with you on getting your Marketplace Shopfront up

and running.

The purpose of the Decorcafe Marketplace is to support our members who make or source wonderful original

products by showcasing them in our online shop. This gives you and your business an added shopfront through

which to present and sell your products.

The Decorcafe is committed to supporting our members in any way we can, and we will be running marketing

campaigns through our various channels in order to promote and highlight the wonderful work you do.

We are here to support you, so if you have any questions as you read through this guide or need any help in getting

your Storefront set up, please let us know. You can email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to

help.

PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE

Like most of our members, you most likely have your own e-commerce shop and already sell via your website. You

are therefore familiar with all the elements and hard work required to create and maintain a successful online shop.

Our shop runs on WooCommerce, which is the e-commerce platform built for WordPress sites. It is managed as a

marketplace, which means we have several vendors (or brands) selling their own unique and original products on

one platform.

This requires a certain amount of management and organisation, in order that the shop looks professional,

consistent and is optimised as much as possible for Search Engine Optimisation and Readability.

This guide has been created to run through the process of adding a product to the shop. You may be familiar with

WooCommerce, in which case you should be comfortable with this platform. Or you may be used to other platforms

such as Shopify, Squarespace or Wix, in which case some of this will be new to you.

The aim is to help you upload your products easily, resulting in a coherent, consistent and optimised online

marketplace. Please follow the format and guidelines as closely as possible.

FORMAT

The guide will take you through creating a new product from within the WooCommerce admin area, starting with

the fields on the left of the page, then moving over to the right-hand side blocks.

Once you’ve uploaded your first product successfully, you can create a copy of that product from within your admin

panel. Then you can edit it with the details of your next product, ensuring of course that each section is edited and

correctly completed for each product. This makes it much easier and faster to complete your uploads.

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PRODUCT TITLE

The product title is the headline of a product and one of the most important sections of a product page. Product titles

should be clear, concise and contain key words for the product.

The title should be made up as follows:

• Product name + feature/colour (+size in the case of cushions)

• There should be no full stops, commas, or hyphens in the title

• Keyword/s should certainly be included but not overused

Permalink

Ensure that the permalink, just below the product title, reflects the correct description. If you make changes, check

that they are reflected here.

EXAMPLE SCREENSHOT

The product title

should be written in

sentence mode with no

punctuation

Make sure the

permalink is correct,

especially if you edit

the title


PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

• These should be made up of Features and Benefits.

• Write in the language of your customer, to appeal to them.

• At the same time, keep in mind that Google and other search engines will ‘crawl’ through the descriptions

and decide whether to show your listing to potential customers, depending on what you include and what

search terms they have entered.

• Identify keywords and make sure to insert them a few times within your text. Be aware not to overuse them

though as Google will penalise descriptions that use ‘keyword stuffing’.

• The total length of the product description should be approx. 300 words (including bullet points, main text

and brand information as outlined below).

• The first line of text in the product description should be the same as the product title, which will also be the

same as the SEO title further down. Please format this as a Heading 2 title.

FEATURES

• These are the important top-line details a consumer would need to know about the product.

• On the Decorcafe marketplace, these are listed at the top of the description, as bullet points.

• If you are creating your first product, take a look at some of the other product descriptions to find one that’s

similar to yours and copy/paste/edit for your product.

• You can also copy/paste/edit the Features section from the screenshot below.

• Special note on measurements: o Measurements must be included for every product o These must be in cms and always be in this order (as appropriate):

▪ Width x Depth x Height – e.g. 50(W) x 35(D) x 40(H) cms or

▪ Diameter x Height – e.g. 50(Dia) x 45(H) cms

o If weight is important to your product (for example, if it’s a chandelier), then this needs to be included as well, as a separate bullet point. This should be in kilos and/or grams.

BENEFITS

• This section is in paragraph form and is your chance to describe the item to let the consumer know why they

should buy and how they would feel by purchasing this product.

• Include your key word or phrase for that product several times, dotted through the text.

• Use this section to appeal to your customer’s emotions by using adjectives, descriptive and emotive words.

• Tell the story of the product, perhaps a little about how and where it’s made.

• If this is your first product, you can copy/paste/edit the paragraph in the screenshot below for format and

inspiration. Or copy and paste an existing product description from within your dashboard and edit it as

necessary.

Once you successfully create one item for your product catalogue, and ensure that it is optimised and complete,

then you can copy/paste/edit from there to make the process faster.


EXAMPLE SCREENSHOT

Product title should be

repeated here as an H2

header

FEATURES

These should follow

this format.

Copy/paste/edit this

section if this is your

first product and edit

it as required.

BENEFITS

These should follow

this format.

Copy/paste/edit this

section if this is your

first product and edit

it as required.


‘A LITTLE ABOUT…’

• You will find a section at the bottom of each product description entitled ‘A Little About…’

• These are written for each brand in collaboration with The Decorcafe and, once written, should be included

at the bottom of every product description. This text will outline you and/or your brand with links back to

your Expert Page and Storefront.

• This text will appear on all products from a vendor.

• Please see below example text:

This text is written in

collaboration with The

Decorcafe. Once

finalised, it should be

copied/pasted at the

bottom of every product

description.

Links to your Expert Page

and to your main

Storefront page are

added here in orange

text.


YOAST SEO

The next section in the product description is the Yoast SEO plug in. This is a brilliant tool that will help you ensure

your product titles and descriptions contain sufficient text, focus keywords, meta descriptions, image alt texts and

more.

It provides scores on the following metrics:

• SEO: Search Engine Optimisation

This ensures the descriptions contains all the relevant keywords and checks the text for key phrases, links,

keyword density, keywords in meta descriptions, image alt attributes, SEO title and more.

Although there are no guarantees, this is intended to help ensure your product has the best chance of

showing up in search results.

• Readability

This checks your copy for passive voice, transition words, sentence length, paragraph length, subheading

distribution and a Flesch Reading score (basically how easy your text is to read).

There are clickable links in this section which will help explain what these terms mean.

Yoast SEO gives a score for both the above metrics on a red, amber and green ‘traffic light’ system.

• SEO: Ensure that the SEO score is green.

• Readability: Ensure that the score is green or at the very minimum amber. Do not settle for a red score.

Please make sure you enter the information in this section and do not leave it blank. It’s a very useful tool that will

help you have the best chance of your products getting listed and found online.

Please Note: Products with red scores will not be approved for publishing by The Decorcafe.

Take guidance from an existing product to get started if you are new to the WooCommerce platform. There are

prompts and links to articles to help you from withing the admin area. And once you’ve successfully uploaded a

couple of products, the process becomes much easier and quicker.


EXAMPLE SCREENSHOT 1

Aim for those green smiley faces on both SEO and Readability!

This is the keyword or

phrase that you’d like

the product to rank for

This is what your

product will look like

in search results.

Click on Edit Snippet

to format the way this

is written (see

screenshot 2 below)

Click on this area to

expand and see details

of your results (see

screenshot 3 below)



Click on this area to edit

your SEO results

Edit your SEO title here –

follow this format editing

just what you need

The slug is the same as the

permalink at the top of the

page. Just check that they

are the same

Edit the meta description

here – follow this format

editing just what you need



You can see details of your

SEO score here.


PRODUCT DATA

The next area is where you define if a product is Simple or Variable, add your prices, inventory, shipping charges,

linked products, and add any attributes you might need.

• SIMPLE PRODUCT: One that comes only in one size, colour, shape, that doesn’t have any variables to it.

• VARIABLE PRODUCT: One that is available in more than one colour or size.

Let’s take a look at each of the tabs that need to be filled in below:

EXAMPLE SCREENSHOT: SIMPLE PRODUCT

GENERAL TAB

INVENTORY TAB

Enter your retail

price here inclusive

of VAT here

Enter the SKU number for

your product here if you

have one

Mark your product as being

In stock, out of stock or on

back-order

Tick here if you need to manage

stock at product level

Tick here if you only want to

sell one of this SKU per

order


SHIPPING TAB

LINKED PRODUCTS

Enter your delivery charge

here

Wherever possible, add at

least 3 linked products to an item. Either items from

the same collection or

similar items from your

ranges. This helps upsell

products from your

collection.


ATTRIBUTES TAB

SHOP BY COLOUR ATTRIBUTE

• To enable viewers to search for your product by colour, please choose a colour from the Attributes section

on the products page.

• Select Attributes, then click on the little arrow in the box marked ‘Custom Product Attribute’.

• Select ‘Shop by Colour’ and click Add.

• Pick one or two of the colours from the drop-down menu that best represent your product.

• If there are many colours in your product, choose the predominant colour. If an item is truly multi-coloured,

then you can tick the ‘multi’ option, but only if no single colour stands out. Please don’t default to this option

as this will not be helpful to customers searching for your product.

• The purpose of these is to enable consumers to search by colour and these need to be broad and generic.

Please do not add any specific colour names (for example ‘Raspberry’ or ‘Cocoa’ or ‘Midnight Dreams’).

• Tick the box marked ‘Visible on the product page’.

• Do not tick the box marked ‘Used for variations’.

• Colours have been pre-determined by The Decorcafe. Below are the colours you should choose from. Please

select the closest colour to your product. This is a set of colours widely used in the retail sector and you

should find a colour to suit your products.

For Simple Products, there

is only one attribute that

you will need to select.

Click on Custom Product

Attribute and select the

option called ‘Shop by

Colour’. From the

dropdown, select the

colour that is most

representative of the

product. Pick one only if

possible. If necessary, you

can pick two. Please see

notes on this below.

Beige Copper Grey Purple Yellow

Black Cream Multi Red

Blue Gold Orange Silver

Brown Green Pink White


ATTRIBUTES & VARIATIONS FOR VARIABLE PRODUCTS

• For variable products, you will still need to complete the General, Inventory, Shipping and Linked Products

areas, as well as the ‘shop by colour’ attribute.

• For Variable Products, you will need to select an Attribute before you can select its Variations

• The tab marked Attributes is where there are options to review and select.

• Attributes and Variations have been created by The Decorcafe and are fairly brand-specific.

• Please do not attempt to add any attributes or variations manually.

• If you don’t find an Attribute particular to your product, please get in touch at [email protected] and

we will work on creating a set of attributes with you.

EXAMPLE SCREENSHOT 1: VARIABLE PRODUCT

Click on the tab marked

Attributes.

Select the desired

Attribute from the drop-

down menu.

Click Add.

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VARIATIONS FOR VARIABLE PRODUCT

• Once you have selected the Attributes, you can proceed with adding the Variations for your product.

• Click Add Variation from the drop-down menu

• Select the option ‘Create variations from all attributes’

• A window will pop up asking if you are sure – click OK

• A window will pop up confirming the number of variations to be added. If it’s correct, click OK.

Select the Attributes

required from the drop-

down menu.

Tick the boxes marked:

- Visible on the

product page

- Used for

Variations

Click Save Attributes




Click Add Variations & select

‘Create Variations from all

Attributes’

Hover your mouse on the

right-hand side and select

the little down arrow for

each variation



Once you’ve completed all your variations, click Save changes.

Here, you can upload an

image for each variation,

by clicking on the ‘upload

an image’ icon.

You must also include a

price for each variation

(even if they are the same

price).

And make sure the stock

status is correct for the

variation in question.


BLOCKS ON THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF THE EDIT PRODUCT PAGE

PUBLISH

• Once you’ve completed your product description, added all images, tags and product categories and double

checked everything, you can click the Submit button. Your product will then be checked by a Decorcafe

member.

• If everything is correct, it will be published. If edits are required, you will be notified of what needs to be

edited. You will then need to make necessary edits so your product can be approved and published.

PRODUCT CATEGORIES

• Here, you can choose which categories your product will fall under.

• The primary category for each of your product should be your brand name under the category called ‘Meet

our Fantastic Brands’.

• Then select the other categories that your products should be featured under.

PRODUCT TAGS

• Here, you can select a number of tags that apply to your product

• Tags help group your products and can help customers find products more easily

• Tags must be lower case and without hyphens, commas or full stops

• Max 6 tags per product to include: brand name, product name, product type, colour + 2 specific features if

relevant.

• Think about keywords consumers might use to search for your product.

• Keep your tags reasonable and generic enough to be useful.

• Please keep in mind that tags will be used by different brands so don’t make them too specific if you add

new ones.

VENDORS

• Please select your vendor name in this section

PRODUCT IMAGE

• Images will be cropped to a square format automatically, but to avoid your products being badly cropped, it

is best to upload your images in a square format with a 1:1 ratio

• Ideal image size is 1024 x 1024 pixels

• Use high resolution images

• Compress the image file so as to reduce its size and so that it doesn’t slow the website down. You can do this

in Photoshop or other image software by selecting the ‘Save for Web’ option to compress file size.

• The main image for each product should ideally be a cut out image of the product against a white

background.


PRODUCT GALLERY

• The more images you have showing your product in different settings and from different angles, the better.

• Here, upload images showing the product in lifestyle settings or displayed differently.

• If your product is a Variable Product, an image should be allocated to each option if relevant. For example, if

the options are different colours, each colour must be shown.

IMAGE TITLES & ALT TEXT

• When you upload a new image or edit an existing image, you should ensure that you complete the Alt Text

and Title fields that appear on the right-hand side of the screen.

• Image titles should be lower case, with hyphens or underscores in between words and should include the

product name. It’s easier to do this when you save your image on your computer/image software as this gets

pulled through whenever you upload the image anywhere. This helps in image searches.

• The image title should ideally include your brand name + product name + The Decorcafe

It is considered best practice to name the images correctly when you edit and save them on your computer

or image storage software.

Example: craft-editions-pebble-cushion-square-blue-at-the-decorcafe

• Alt Text is an important piece of text that should describe the purpose of the image. This is intended for

people with visual impairments to allow them to understand your product and what the image shows.

• Again, it’s a good idea to include your brand name, product name and ‘at the decorcafe’ - plus describe the

image briefly.


EXAMPLE SCREENSHOT

PROCESSING AN ORDER

Once you receive an order, an automatically generated email will be sent to you. Once you receive a confirmed

order, it is your responsibility as the vendor to fulfil it as quickly as possible and to keep your customer updated on

the progress of their order.

Please arrange for the item to be wrapped, packed and dispatched to the customer. If it is a special order that needs

to be made or ordered, please contact the customer to confirm that you have received their order and that you will

send the order as soon as you can. Then of course, keep them informed of the status until the order is delivered.

The Decorcafe is an online marketplace for your brand and products. However, it is up to the individual vendors to

fulfil orders and contact customers with updates and/or issues.

Payments for your orders (less commission) will be made by The Decorcafe to vendor bank accounts within a few

days.

N.B: Please update the order status from within your WooCommerce admin panel to ensure that the status of the

order is current and clear.

Enter the Alt text here

Enter the image title here.

Whatever you’ve named

your product in your

image folders on your

computer or image

software will be pulled

across automatically when

you upload your image.


PRODUCT MAINTENANCE

As the vendor, it is your responsibility to ensure your products are correct and kept up to date.

If an item is out of stock or on back order, please edit the listing to mention this, or simply hide it from your

shopfront until it is back in stock. Then of course mark it as in stock once you’re able to fulfil orders again.

If an item has been discontinued, please remove it from the shop.

CONCLUSION

Once you have completed all the sections above, you should be ready to submit your product to The Decorcafe for

approval. Someone from the team will check the product descriptions and either confirm it or come to you if there

are edits to be made.

Remember, this is an additional shopfront for you and your business on a platform that is highly relevant to your

niche. Please help look after it and treat it as an extension to your own website and business.

The Decorcafe will do all it can to help market the shop and all the products and collections.

Good luck with your product uploads! We are here to help if you need us.


CHECKLIST

Please see below a quick checklist to help ensure you have completed everything correctly:

Product Title: Product name + feature/colour (+size in the case of cushions)

Product Description: Features & Benefits. 250 -300 words including ‘A Little About…’

‘A Little About…’: Written in collaboration with The Decorcafe & must be included on each product

Yoast SEO: Green Light for SEO

Green (or min amber) Light for Readability

SEO Snippet: Update to reflect product title and keywords

Product Data: General

Inventory

Shipping

Linked Products

Attributes: Shop by Colour for all products

+ any others required for Variable Products

Variations: Picture for each variation

Price for each variation

Product Categories: Select primary category as your brand name under ‘Meet our Fantastic Brands’

Select any other category relevant to your product

Product Tags: Select relevant tags for your product, including brand name and product type

Vendor: Select your vendor name

Product Image: Including image title and alt text for each image

Product Gallery: Including image title and alt text for each image

Submit for Approval

Documents

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION gUIDELINES...WooCommerce, in which case you should be comfortable with this platform. Or you may be used to other platforms such as Shopify, Squarespace or Wix,