How to Write a Good Description for a Market Product
MetaQuotes | 16 October, 2012
You are a developer making money by writing applications for MQL5 Market? Excellent! We will help you to make even more profit from your products. Our service currently has many products for sale but some of their descriptions leave much to be desired. Many texts are obviously in need of improvement, as common traders are not able to comprehend them. Many product descriptions contain code lines, input data, slang and abbreviations that do not make any sense for customers. Most importantly, all these strange elements are unable to set your product apart from many other ones. So, a product description is an important component of successful Market sales.
Product Name
Description starts from choosing a name for your program. Use a simple, harmonious and easy-to-remember word or expression. Remember that a product name is your brand. A product with a good name can be quickly found in Market and your customers can easily recommend it to their colleagues.
Products with the same name are not allowed in our service. Therefore, each product name should be unique. Make sure that a selected word or an expression have not been occupied already. This can be done using Market search line. If the name has already been used, select another one for your Grail. For example, you may add one more word or take some other idea as a basis.
Example:
"Expert Alligator", "MA Crossover ADX" - such names are not desirable. These are widely used words and indicator names. Such names are not unique and they will not be associated with your brand.
"TR297EU138H.0.5.97" - no comments, it does not make any sense.
You can choose words that are not related to trading and finance. Good examples: "Cullinan" - the largest diamond in the world; "Tantal" - a Greek mythological figure who had access to councils and feasts of gods.
Program Logo
A logo is on of the first things your customers see. It is a visual image of a brand associating with you and your products. Therefore, your logo should contain a simple and easy-to-understand image. Besides, if it has something in common with the product name, then it is a perfect logo! A good logo will attract more attention to your product and increase your sales.
Like with the program's name, make sure that your logo is unique. Examine other Market icons and try not to use similar images. That will not make your image unique preventing your product from standing out among its competitors.
Pay attention to the image scalability. You will need two images with the sizes of 200x200 and 60x60 pixels. Of course, a small icon can be automatically generated from the big one when downloading the logo to the Market. However, the image quality may suffer in that case. Therefore, it would be better to prepare two icons of good quality having the appropriate size.
Also, it is advisable not to place any text on the logo or instead of it. A text instead of a logo cannot fulfill the main task - generating a visual image of your brand. Such bad examples of icons have already appeared in our service. The only text that can be inserted in the logo is a short and clearly seen product name.
Product Description
You should pay even more attention to the description of your Expert Advisor. This is the most important part of your program in Market. Customers should have a good impression of your product at the very first moment they see it. The first impression will greatly influence the customers' further decisions.
First of all, description should be clear. Keep in mind that you write your text for common traders who are not programmers or trading system developers. Technical terms, abbreviations and program code elements are the signs of a bad description. It is not likely that your customers will read such passages and buy your product. Write a text using a simple language that can be easily understood by ordinary traders.
Brief description
Start your text with a brief description (about 100 characters). Describe the main idea of your program in one brief sentence using plain English. Your customers should grasp the very essence of your product after reading it.
Save your customers' time by telling them what you are selling from the very beginning. If this is an Expert Advisor, specify its strategy and used symbols.
Example:
Tantal is a multicurrency Expert Advisor using a trend following strategy based on its own Kassandra indicator paired with Elder-Ray.
Trading Strategy
After the brief introduction, describe the strategy of your indicator/Expert Advisor in details. There is no limit on the number of characters but it would be better to avoid wordiness. Specify symbols/markets/currency pairs/timeframes your Expert Advisor has been optimized for. Briefly explain the algorithms and the money-management system implemented in your trading strategy. Insert an external web link to a more detailed description of the implemented algorithms if necessary.
Please keep in mind that your customers should not have to optimize the input parameters when dealing with a demo version of your program. Therefore, set the most optimal default parameters in accordance with the described trading strategy. Of course, you should not write how your customers should optimize your Expert Advisor to its best. Remember that it is not a code but a finished product which is offered to traders who may know nothing about trading robots development.
Example:
Tantal Expert Advisor trades on 3 currency pairs EURUSD, AUDUSD, EURAUD using only pending orders. Its own Kassandra indicator is used for quotes analysis. The indicator's signals are verified by Elder-Ray. A pending order is set only if two indicators send appropriate signals simultaneously. More information about the indicators' algorithms can be found on my website.
The Expert Advisor works on all timeframes without losing its profitability. However, the greatest efficiency has been observed on H3. Risk/profit ratio is the best at this period.
The trading robot is highly reliable, as it has been developed considering trading on a real account. The money-management system allows you to put at risk only 10% of your deposit. Each deal is protected by stop orders (Stop Loss and Take Profit). During the multiple tests, the maximum drawdown reached 7% on the average, while the absolute one was equal to zero. It means that the Expert Advisor has never reduced the initial deposit.
When finishing the work on this section, you should be completely sure that your customers will be able to understand all provided information. If you have any doubts, do not hesitate to add appropriate web links.
Results
Perhaps, this is the most valuable part of the description. Results should prove that your Expert Advisor/indicator is profitable and its price is fair. Give a simple example of your program's operation on the financial market. There is no need in fabulous profits here. Incredibly high profits will cause doubts or the risks will be too high for real trading.
Example should contain data on the type of market and a timeframe. Expert Advisor's/indicator's basic data should be specified: initial deposit, leverage, timeframe, test mode, input parameters, etc. The total profit should also be mentioned.
Confirm your results by screenshots that you can add in the appropriate section. Be sure to provide the detailed test report. Consider the file size when adding the images. Only the ones with the resolution of 640x480 pixels are accepted.
Present all possible data so that your customers are able to repeat your results in the Strategy Tester. That will be a reliable proof of your Expert Advisor's efficiency impacting your brand in a positive way. The successfully passed test will be a substantial argument in favor of your program.
Example:
Expert Advisor test results: Tantal having initial deposit of $10 000 have earned $33 000 on EURUSD H3 in the period from January 1, 2012 to September 1, 2012. Net income comprised 330% in 9 months. Absolute drawdown - 0%, maximum drawdown - 5.5%.
You can receive similar data by downloading the demo version and testing it.
Describe some other features of your program after Results section. Provide web links to additional data on your product. If you have a web site about your program, be sure to give the appropriate link. Links to video and images can be added in Screenshots section.
About author
It will be interesting to your customers to find some brief information about the author. Therefore, add some basic facts about yourself: who you are, Expert Advisors development experience, achievements. Be sure to add a link to your www.mql5.com profile, which should be put in order before that.
Example:
Author: MetaQuotes, developing trading platforms for over 10 years, the leader of the market of Forex trading platforms.
Attention: A compulsory condition when adding a product is the presence of a description in the English or Russian languages. Additionally, you can place the text in your native language, if it is available.
Writing a description will take a little time, but it's worth it. Create a good description to clearly explain your customers what exactly you are selling. That will help you to preserve the customers' interest to your products, as well as to develop your reputation and boost sales.