Wordpress Style short and long product descriptions

Store Design
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Topic summary

Issue: Migrating from WooCommerce (which has separate short and long product description fields) to Shopify, where the Dawn theme appears to offer only a short description area. Concern about how to add extensive content for SEO.

Key facts:

  • Shopify natively provides a single product description field. Themes display it differently.
  • Metafields (custom data fields you can add to products) can store a separate short description if the theme is customized to render it.
  • Page builder apps (e.g., PageFly) can create custom product layouts with separate short/long sections per product.

SEO guidance shared:

  • Structure copy like a news article: first paragraph with key info; second expands details.
  • Use bullet points early for scannability.
  • Add descriptive, keyworded Alt Text to images.

Theme/layout notes:

  • The Brooklyn theme was cited as allowing multi-paragraph text, bullets, icons, and images in the description. Screenshots were shared (images central to understanding layout).
  • Concern about empty left-column space on desktop; one store reported ~85% mobile usage where that column doesn’t show, reducing impact.

Status/outcome: No single theme replicating Woo’s two-field model was identified. Practical paths: use metafields or a page builder, or choose a theme with flexible description rendering. Discussion remains open.

Summarized with AI on January 9. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hi all,

We would like to switch from WooCommerce to Shopify, but have run into a small issue.

In WooCommerce each product has a short description field and a long description field.

However in the Shopify theme I am trying Dawn (free at the moment) there is only a space for a short description.

I have tried a few ways to add a long description area but it seems to be impossible.

I am guessing this is a limitation of a Free theme but I can’t find a paid theme that has a lot of extra content (long description) for each individual product.

I’m actually wondering how some Shopify stores manage to get any SEO with so little text about their products.

So can anyone point me to a theme that is more like a WooCommerce Single Product page, with a short description for the product highlights and a longer description field for adding lots more content about the product for SEO.

Thanks!

2

@Molinoglass - by default shopify has only one description field which is in the product backend, check if any metafield can add short description for all products separately

or you can try some page builder app like pagefly to check if you can add this short description field on each product

3

I have found Shopify to be very good with SEO. My own site shows up in the top 5 on Google.

When I was setting up my site back in 2020, I tried to follow all the Shopify advice. https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/promoting-marketing/seo

I wrote my product descriptions as if it was a newspaper news article. The 1st paragraph contained all the important info, the 2nd paragraph expanded on it. Google will pick up on this.

I found bullet points in the 1st paragraph to be very helpful for my products because I found customers don’t read beyond the title.

Also, I made sure all my photos contained a short sentence with keywords in the Alt Text.

Hope this is helpful.

4

Thanks for your reply.

I’ve been building ecommerce sites in WooCommerce for years and I don’t see where in the shopify product page you can write very much.

There is barely enough space for a very basic description and specs.

How are you displaying multiple paragraphs of text?

shopify product description.png
shopify product description.png1016×907 136 KB

5

Hi Molinoglass

I am using the free Brooklyn Theme and I haven’t found it restrictive with the paragraphs in the product description. Maybe it is just my theme.

Here is a screen shot of a product page with bullet points, paragraphs and icons & image links.

wedding album sample page.jpg
wedding album sample page.jpg2481×3508 259 KB

6

But what about that empty area in the left column?

7

The left empty space doesn’t really matter to me as 85% of my customers use their mobile phone to order and that left column doesn’t show.

For the 10% that use desktop/laptop , I am not worried. If they scroll down to read that far I would be lucky.