What the brief is for
A product brief is the reusable master copy for every listing: tagline, short description, long description, audience, and supporting facts. Write it once, well, and every directory gets consistent, accurate text — instead of five half-remembered variants written into five forms at midnight.
Two audiences read it. Directory editors use it to decide whether the listing is real, accurate, and fits the category. Readers (and, increasingly, search and AI systems that read those pages) use it to decide whether the product is for them. Both reward the same things: concrete, verifiable claims in plain language.
The tagline: one sentence that names the job
A good tagline says what the product does and for whom, in under about 90 characters. It survives truncation and it makes a specific claim. Avoid three-word abstractions ("Unleash your creativity") that could describe a thousand products.
Short description: the 160-character elevator pitch
Many listing forms cap short descriptions around 150–160 characters — the same budget as a classic meta description. Write to the limit on purpose: one sentence, front-load the essential claim, and cut anything a category label already says.
Long description: a five-paragraph structure
A long description in the 300–500 word range is enough to be substantial without padding. Google's people-first guidance asks whether content is a substantial, complete description of the topic and whether it demonstrates first-hand depth of knowledge — a structure helps you meet that honestly.
- Problem — one sentence on who struggles with what.
- What it does — two to three sentences on the core workflow in the user's words.
- Who it is for — the audience and two real use cases.
- How it differs — one honest comparison sentence; name capabilities, not competitors' flaws.
- Evidence — public facts only: pricing model, platform availability, integrations, a real changelog or review link.
Audience and category fit
Write one audience sentence and test every directory against it: would a browsing reader of that directory's category recognize themselves here? Submitting a fiction-writing tool to a generic "AI productivity" directory is not automatically wrong, but the audience sentence should explain the fit rather than stretch the product.
A useful test: read the directory's existing listings in the intended category. If none of them describe a product like yours, the audience sentence you write is probably doing the marketing the directory's readers will never do for you — a weak fit worth reconsidering.
Example field limits
Limits vary by directory. The table below shows typical example limits of the kind you should plan for — treat them as an illustrative form, not as the limits of any specific directory, and always check the form itself.
| Field | Typical example limit | Planning note |
|---|---|---|
| Tagline | 80–90 characters | One sentence naming the job |
| Short description | 150–160 characters | Front-load the core claim |
| Long description | 300–500 words | Five-paragraph structure |
| Product name | 40–60 characters | Exact official name |
| Screenshot images | 2–4 files, ≥ 800px wide | Workflow screens, not marketing pages |
| Logo | square, 512×512 px+ | Survives light and dark backgrounds |
Using AI to draft — with human review
AI drafting is genuinely useful for first-pass descriptions, but the review is not optional. Google's guidance on generative AI content is clear that how you use it matters: automation used to produce volume without oversight is a poor fit, while AI-assisted content that a knowledgeable person reviews, corrects, and stands behind can be just as useful as anything hand-written.
- Give the AI your real source material: the site URL, the fact sheet, existing copy.
- Treat every AI-suggested fact as unverified until checked against a public page — AI drafts can invent features, prices, and integrations.
- Fix tone and specificity in the pass that matters: replace abstractions with the user's own words.
- Sign off explicitly. If you cannot read the final text and agree with every claim, it is not done.