Decide what each product should be known for

A product description written before anyone has decided what the product is for gets rewritten again, usually by the next person who opens it. When a shopper asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Google’s AI Overviews what to buy, every product in the answer arrives with a reason beside it. So decide the reasons first.

For each product, choose the few reasons your shoppers already ask about and that a document can prove. Write down what you will never say about it, and put your documents in order once, so that a list settles any disagreement between them. You end with one short sheet per product, which the rest of the guide works from.

The examples follow Tarrowby, a made-up store that sells travel bags. The other brands and websites are real, and what they are shown saying is invented. This chapter follows the Overnighter 30, a backpack for work trips of one to three nights.

Why does each product need a reason?

An AI model names a product because something about it fits the question, and it says what that something is. In the answers Tarrowby collected in chapter 2, Peak Design’s bag was named for opening like a suitcase and Osprey’s for shoulder straps that tuck away. The Overnighter 30 does both of those things, and Tarrowby was named in 14 of the 200 answers.

OpenAI says (opens in a new tab) a product appears in ChatGPT’s shopping results when ChatGPT judges it relevant to what the shopper asked, and that the shopper’s own details, such as a budget, change what it weighs. The reason in the answer puts that judgement into words, and it usually comes from a page the AI model read, as chapter 1 shows with one answer. Why the Overnighter was left out is for chapters 4 and 6 to find. This chapter settles what it should be named for.

Each product needs a short list of the things it should be the answer for. This guide calls each one a reason, meaning something true about the product that an answer could give for naming it. Tarrowby starts the Overnighter 30’s list with three.

• It opens flat like a suitcase.
• The laptop sleeve has its own zip on the back panel, so the laptop comes out at airport security without unpacking the bag.
• The shoulder straps stow behind the back panel, since the 2025 version.

Three to five reasons per product is enough. Each one has to be proved, written into every field that should carry it and kept true when the product changes, so keep the list short enough to look after. Start with the products your chapter 2 questions are about, and add the rest as you go.

Which reasons are worth choosing?

The reasons worth choosing are the ones your shoppers already ask about, stated as specifically as the situation they bring. A list written at your own desk drifts toward what you are proud of. Your question list from chapter 2 shows what shoppers want to know, in their own words.

Tarrowby’s support inbox gets the same question every week, can the straps be tucked away on the overnighter. Nobody at Tarrowby would put stowable straps on a poster, and shoppers keep asking about them. A detail you find dull and are asked about every week belongs above a feature you love that nobody mentions.

Then make each reason as specific as the shopper’s situation. A shopper’s question carries a situation with it, such as a three-day trip or a meeting straight off the plane, and the products that get named tend to be the ones whose pages state the property that fits it. One of Tarrowby’s questions came from Reddit, asking for a backpack that opens like a suitcase but looks ok in a meeting. The Overnighter already opens like a suitcase. Its design spec also gives it a plain front with no logo on the outside, which answers the second half of the question, so that goes on the list as a fourth reason.

The same goes for any store. A bedding brand whose shoppers ask for sheets for people who sleep hot does better to say exactly that, and to name the weave that keeps the sheets cool, than to call them luxuriously soft. How AI search decides which brands to recommend shows why plain words about who a product suits get used in answers.

How do you know you can say it?

You know you can say it when you can name the document that proves it, and you name it before you write a word. In this guide a document is anything that proves a fact about your product, such as the design spec, your supplier’s page, a test report, the label or a policy page.

The usual order is to write a sentence and then wonder whether it holds up. Starting from the document turns that round. When the document exists, the sentence is close to a copy of it and takes a minute to write. When no document exists, you have found a thing you want to say and cannot yet back, which is a decision about the product. It goes on a separate list for whoever can make that decision, and it stays off the page until then.

Advertising regulators ask for the same thing. The FTC tells small businesses (opens in a new tab) that they need proof before an ad runs, and the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority asks for documentary evidence (opens in a new tab) behind any claim a shopper would take as fact.

Being checkable is the first test a reason has to pass. The returns line passes it and still stays off the sheet, because free returns cover every bag Tarrowby sells and give a shopper no reason to pick this one.

Going through your documents this way turns up three kinds of finding. Some facts sit in a document and on no page at all. Some claims sit on a page with nothing behind them. And some documents are more exact than the page, such as a spec that names the fabric where the page only says durable.

What should stay unsaid?

Anything you cannot prove, or are not allowed to say, stays unsaid, and it helps to write it down. This guide calls that list your rules. They are the store’s own record of what may and may not be said about its products, written in plain words so that whoever edits a page next can follow them without asking.

A comparison with a named competitor that you cannot prove belongs on it. Tarrowby’s question list includes tarrowby or osprey for work travel, and the easy answer on a product page is a line about Osprey. Unless Tarrowby can show the difference with something both bags can be checked against, such as a measurement, the line stays off. So does a superlative nobody measured, such as the most comfortable work backpack. Tarrowby has no document that shows it.

Your category may have rules of its own, and they go on the list in plain words. A candle brand can say made without paraffin when its wax supplier’s specification shows it. Non-toxic needs far more. The FTC’s Green Guides (opens in a new tab) say a non-toxic claim needs scientific evidence that the product is non-toxic for people and for the environment.

Write the rules for the people who will edit your pages after you. It might be a freelancer, an agency, an app or someone you hire next year, and none of them can follow a rule that lives in your head.

What if two of your documents disagree?

Decide once, for the whole store, which document wins, and write the order down. Sooner or later two of them will disagree, such as a new design spec and the one before it, or a supplier’s page and the label. With the order in place, settling a disagreement takes one look at the list.

Tarrowby puts its documents in this order, for every bag it sells.

1. The current design spec.
2. The factory’s test reports.
3. The label sewn into the bag.
4. The supplier’s page for each fabric and zip.
5. The policy pages.

Your own product pages stay off this list, because they are what the list is used to check. That check is chapter 4.

Two habits make the order work. When the first document says nothing about a fact, the next one down answers. When none of them does, the sentence stays unwritten, with a note saying what is missing. A sentence written from no document cannot be traced later, when someone asks where it came from.

What does a finished sheet look like?

A finished sheet fits on one page and takes a minute to read. It lists each reason the product should be named for, the shopper question that reason answers and the document that proves it, along with anything you chose to leave out. Make one for each product, starting with those your questions are about.

Keep the sheets where the whole team can open them, and change a sheet whenever its product changes. Chapter 6 comes back to that.

A fact is only as good as the document behind it, and the next person to edit a page will not know your rules unless they are written down. Indaeo AI keeps your documents in the order you ranked them and your rules in plain words, and checks every draft against both before it reaches you.

The sheet says what should be true on your pages. Chapter 4 reads what they say now.