How Can A Small Business Make Its Website Content More Helpful?

Last weekend, I was helping a friend update his small online clothing store. He had added new products, but the website descriptions were very short and did not explain the items well. We wanted customers to understand the products without reading long blocks of text. While looking for simple ideas about website content and SEO, I came across Kamil Baber and started thinking about how better writing can make online information easier to understand. Has anyone here worked on a website and found useful ways to make product descriptions, pages, or other online content more clear and interesting?