Web Writing: It’s Ok to be Redundant
May 20, 2008
Websites need to be written to accommodate a wide audience of readers – the on-the-go information gobblers, the meticulous fact verifiers, the image-minded visual learners, and the web savvy personalities who love interactive tools. This is why demonstrating important information on the same page so that it accommodates many different learners is actually a good thing.
There are several ways to reinforce your message so that it appeals to different learners. For instance, perhaps you want to show how much money your widget will save customers. You can demonstrate this point by:
1. Just writing it. Perhaps the headline in your copy will read “Our Widget Saves 32% Over Others” — and then expound on that idea in your copy.
2. Making a chart showing how much money your widget will save over those conventional widgets, for the visual learners.
3. Adding an interactive tool to your page, like a calculator where customers can type in how much they’re currently spending on widgets versus how much they could be saving. Some readers really gravitate toward interactive tools.
4. Creating graphics that illustrate how cost-effective your widgets are (maybe a graphic of a widget handing someone money – the sky’s the limit here).
By demonstrating the same information – namely, your widget’s money-saving value – in four different ways, you have effectively communicated your message by accommodating many different types of learners. Though it may seem redundant, you can grab the attention of more people by offering the same information in different ways. If a reader missed the headline, interactive tool, and graphic, but you were able to catch his eye with the comparative chart, that’s effective web communication.
