Sometimes, Redundancy & Repeating Yourself Are Good

One of our recent blog posts addressed the question, “How Many Words Do Industrial Webpages Need?” The short answer there is: not a ton, but the more the better—roughly 300 words is a good yardstick. Upon reading said blog, you may have thought, “Great! I can write up 300 words on [Product X], no problem.” This is often easier said than done, however. Many are those who have started out with the best of intentions and a head full of ideas, only to stall out far short of their word-count goal. Sometimes, there’s only so much to be said about a given product or service. You know you need more content to boost your site’s search engine rankings, but you’ve already put down all the pertinent information about your product/service. And you have a bunch of other, similar pages on your website that will need content, too. How can you beef up your word count without resorting to college freshman-style padding tactics like avoiding contractions and doubling up every “very”? If It’s Important, Make Sure They See It One easy and effective way to extend your word count on multiple website pages is to repeat the same information on each of them. For example, if you sell ten different, but similar, widgets, there’s probably a good deal of information that applies to all of them. If all ten are available in the same range of materials, sizes, colors, styles, configurations, etc., mention those options on every widget’s individual page. If you’re ISO-certified or RoHS-compliant, tell your visitors so on every page. Do you use a unique or proprietary process in producing your products? Talk about it on every page. Now, this may seem like needless redundancy: “We already said it once, why keep repeating it?” However, keep in mind that most people visiting your website aren’t going to read every single word on every single page. By repeating your most important info on multiple pages, you’re multiplying the chances that your visitors will see it. If mil-spec compliance is important in your industry, for example, say it everywhere it’s applicable on your site. Users might miss it the first time, but if it’s on a handful of pages for products/services where it’s pertinent, they’ll almost certainly catch it. When they come across it again on a different page, they’ll likely skim over it, but that’s okay—it’s far better to run it into the ground than having your visitors miss it entirely because the info is only on a single page. Change It Up Don’t just copy and paste, though, because Google will see that as “duplicate content” (which is exactly what it is, in that case), and will likely penalize your site. Dropping copy into your pages with Crtl+C and Ctrl+V can—and will—hurt your search engine rankings. Instead, rewrite the copy for every page so it’s distinctly different, but still conveys the same information. Don’t just go to town with the thesaurus, though—instead of swapping out a few descriptors here and there, actually rewrite the whole thing each time. Obviously, there’s going to be some word-for-word repetition, but that’s unavoidable and perfectly acceptable. If you still need help fleshing out your website copy, contact Ecreative. We have expert copywriters who know how to write content (and plenty of it!) for real live people and for search engines. Photo credit: zharth / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND