1.8 Category-Specific Templates and Writing Tones
Overview
Every product category has different visual characteristics. A handmade ceramic mug, a piece of jewellery, a garden ornament, and a piece of furniture each require a different approach to image description.
SmartDescribe Pro helps you tailor AI-generated image alt text through writing tone settings and category-specific templates.
These features help you create descriptions that are more consistent with your products, your customers, and your store’s overall presentation.
Important: Writing tones and category-specific templates influence image alt text generation. They do not guarantee that every description will be accurate, and they do not replace the need to review AI-generated results.
Why Writing Tone Matters
Writing tone influences how a description is expressed.
For example, the same image of a handmade ceramic vase could be described in several ways:
- Professional: A clear, straightforward description focused on the visible product.
- Friendly: Natural, approachable wording that is easy to understand.
- Luxury: Refined language appropriate for a premium product presentation.
- Technical: More precise wording that emphasises relevant visual characteristics.
- Playful: A lively style suited to products with a fun or whimsical appearance.
- Minimalist: Short, direct wording without unnecessary detail.
These examples illustrate different writing approaches. The exact tone options available depend on your installed version of SmartDescribe Pro.
Regardless of tone, the description should accurately represent the image.
Why Use Category-Specific Templates?
A general writing style may work well across a store, but different product categories often need different descriptive priorities.
For example:
| Product category | Useful visual details |
|---|---|
| Handmade crafts | Materials, colours, patterns, and distinctive handmade features |
| Jewellery | Type of item, visible materials, colour, shape, and decorative details |
| Clothing | Garment type, colour, pattern, and visible design features |
| Home décor | Object type, colour, shape, finish, and decorative style |
| Garden ornaments | Subject, colours, shape, distinctive details, and visible finish |
| Furniture | Furniture type, colour, shape, material appearance, and design |
| Artwork | Subject, dominant colours, composition, and distinctive visual elements |
These are examples of useful descriptive priorities, not a claim that SmartDescribe Pro includes a separate built-in template for every category listed.
Step 1: Open SmartDescribe Pro Settings
- Log in to your WordPress administration area.
- Navigate to SmartDescribe → Settings.
- Locate the writing tone and category-template controls available in your installed version.
Review the current settings before making changes.
The exact labels and menu layout may vary between releases.
Step 2: Choose a Suitable Writing Tone
Select the writing tone that best suits your store and its products.
Consider the following approaches:
Professional
Suitable for stores that need clear, consistent descriptions without overly casual language.
Friendly and approachable
Useful for stores with an informal brand personality and a customer-focused presentation.
Luxury and premium
May suit premium products where refined language supports the brand, provided the description remains accurate and avoids unsupported claims.
Technical and detailed
Useful when specific visible characteristics are important to understanding the product.
Playful
Can suit colourful, whimsical, or novelty products, provided the wording remains clear and informative.
Minimalist
Useful when you prefer concise descriptions that focus on the most important visual details.
Choose a tone that supports your brand without making descriptions unnecessarily promotional.
Step 3: Configure Category-Specific Templates
If your installed version provides category-specific template controls, use them to tailor the instructions applied to products in different WooCommerce categories.
A useful template should help the AI prioritise relevant visual information.
For example, a template for handmade ornaments might instruct the AI to focus on:
- The object or subject shown.
- Distinctive colours.
- Shape and decorative details.
- Visible materials or finishes, where these can reasonably be identified.
- Features that help distinguish the item from similar products.
A template for jewellery might instead prioritise the type of item, its visible shape, colour, and decorative details.
Do not assume that every category has a separate template by default. Configure only the category options that your installed version actually provides.
Step 4: Keep Template Instructions Clear
When creating or editing a template, focus on the information that matters most for the relevant products.
Good template instructions should:
- Encourage accurate descriptions of visible features.
- Prioritise the most important visual details.
- Avoid unnecessary promotional wording.
- Discourage repetitive keywords.
- Encourage concise, natural language.
- Avoid asking the AI to invent details that cannot be established from the image.
For example, a useful instruction for handmade products could be:
Describe the main object, its distinguishing colours, visible patterns, and notable decorative details. Keep the description natural and concise. Do not invent materials or product features that cannot be confirmed from the image.
This is an example of template wording, not a claim that the plugin automatically uses this exact instruction.
Step 5: Consider the Character Limit
A writing tone or category template should work alongside your configured character limit.
The goal is to provide enough information to identify the image without including unnecessary wording.
When reviewing a generated description, ask:
- Does it identify the main subject?
- Does it include the most useful distinguishing details?
- Can any redundant wording be removed?
- Does the description remain accurate when shortened?
A longer description is not automatically better. Focus on relevance and clarity rather than filling the available character allowance.
Step 6: Test Your Settings
Before applying a new tone or template across many products, test it on a small selection.
- Save your settings.
- Open the Products screen.
- Select a representative product from the relevant category.
- Run individual optimisation.
- Review the generated alt text.
- Compare the result with the visible image.
- Adjust your settings if necessary.
Test more than one product when a category contains substantially different items.
For example, a handmade crafts category might include mosaics, pottery, textiles, and decorative ornaments. A single template may not produce equally useful results for every type of item.
Step 7: Review the Results
After changing a writing tone or template, assess the resulting alt text for:
Accuracy
Does the description match the image?
Relevance
Does it focus on the most important visual details?
Consistency
Does the output follow a reasonably consistent style across similar products?
Natural language
Does it sound clear and readable rather than mechanical?
Accessibility
Does it help someone who cannot see the image understand its relevant content?
Brand suitability
Does the wording fit your store without sacrificing accuracy?
If a description is inaccurate or misleading, correct it rather than accepting it simply because it follows your preferred tone.
Using Templates with Bulk Optimisation
Once you are satisfied with a tone and category template, you can use your normal bulk optimisation workflow where supported.
For best results:
- Test the settings on individual products.
- Select a small group from the relevant category.
- Run bulk optimisation.
- Review a sample of the generated descriptions.
- Confirm that the output remains consistent and accurate.
- Expand to larger groups when you are satisfied.
Do not assume that changing a template automatically updates previously optimised products. Existing alt text generally needs to be processed again if you want to regenerate it, and the behaviour depends on the available optimisation controls.
Before regenerating existing descriptions, check how your installed version handles current alt text and whether the previous values can be recovered.
Common Problems and Solutions
The descriptions sound too promotional
Choose a more neutral tone and revise the category instructions to focus on visible characteristics rather than sales language.
The descriptions are too long
Review your character limit and remove instructions that encourage unnecessary detail. Test the revised settings on a small selection.
Different products receive nearly identical descriptions
Check whether the template is too general. Encourage the AI to identify the distinguishing visual features of each individual image.
The AI invents materials or product features
Make the template more explicit about describing only what can reasonably be established from the image. Review the results and correct unsupported claims.
The selected tone does not appear to change the output
Confirm that the setting was saved successfully. Test another product and check whether the current optimisation process uses the configured tone.
I cannot find category-template settings
Check whether your installed version exposes these controls and consult its release-specific documentation. Do not assume that every version has identical settings.
Best Practices
- Choose a tone that suits your brand and customers.
- Keep category templates focused on useful visual information.
- Avoid instructions that encourage keyword stuffing.
- Do not ask the AI to invent product attributes.
- Test settings on representative products before bulk processing.
- Review generated descriptions for accuracy and accessibility.
- Recheck your templates when your product range changes.
- Keep a record of important existing alt text before large-scale regeneration.
Summary
Writing tones and category-specific templates help you tailor SmartDescribe Pro’s AI-generated image alt text to different products and brand requirements.
The best results come from clear instructions, suitable settings, careful testing, and regular review.
Use templates to guide the description, not to replace accurate observation of the image.
Next Guide
1.9 — SEO Plugin Integration: Yoast SEO and Rank Math
The next guide will explain how SmartDescribe Pro relates to common WordPress SEO plugins and how to check that image alt text and other SEO settings work together correctly.