a Homepage copy should be three or four paragraphs long, or about 200 words. If you don’t feel inspired, just keep it simple by including the following:

First paragraph: two sentences on who you are.

Second paragraph: two sentences on what you make/sell, and one sentence on what’s special or different about it.

Third paragraph: what you want your customers to get out of your products, whether that’s to enjoy your products, give them to a loved one, or share your values.

Your homepage copy should contain no website address or link, no email address and no phone number.

b Product titles should be no more than 20 characters long, contain no brand names, no company name, no formatting and no punctuation marks.

c Product copy should be two to three short paragraphs long (about 150 words):

Introduce the product in a sentence or two with a proper, but brief description, and a single special comment. Is it a best seller? Made of organic cotton? Featured in a magazine? A limited edition?

State any big advantage: Is delivery free? Unlimited products for one delivery cost? Is this a discounted product?

Your second paragraph should go into more detail: one or two brief sentences to explain what it’s made from or what it does. Talk about materials, textures and colours in friendly, meaningful language.

A third, separate line should cover practicalities like size, special care instructions, tips on choosing or how many are included if the product is sold in a pack.

d Your options (pull down menus and text fields) MUST be consistent with the copy.

If your product comes in three sizes, here’s where you specify exactly what they are.

If the options beg a question, answer it there and then. Small (is that size ten, or eight?) Blue (What kind of blue? Show the image). Paisley and floral print (Clarify which is which.)

TEST your pull down menus to make sure you can select then add to basket without any difficulties.

Remember to include a "free text" box if your products can be personalised, and specify if there is a limit on the number of characters that will fit.

e To ensure your copy is recognised by search engines (like Google), and brings you up in ‘natural’ search results, please keep in mind these simple rules.

First, you need to decide on ‘key words’ or ‘key phrases’. When choosing your key word, think about how someone will search for the product. For example, ‘personalised baby’s blanket’ could be your key word.

You will also need a supplementary phrase to capture a more general shopper’s search request, so for our ‘personalised baby’s blanket example’ a good supplementary phase would be ‘christening gift’.

Try to write your home page and product copy so six in every 100 words is the key word or phase. Don’t use any more than this, or you could be penalised and excluded from the search results.