Why you should pay attention to content readability

Readability, on its own, is not a ranking factor. It won’t transform irrelevant content, but good readability improves browser experience. And a good browser experience improves SEO.  

Improve your content’s readability and reap your online success.   

Make your content more readable, easier, pleasant and engaging, and, hey presto, browsers will stick around. The search engines will reward you. 

What is readability? 

Readability is the quality of the reading experience. In other words, how easy and enjoyable a piece of content is to read.  

There are many tools and plugins that offer readability scores, all calculated in slightly different ways.  

We’ll have a look at the ones in Word. 

Word readability scores 

In Word, if you’re using the Microsoft 365 version, within the Editor menu, you’ll see Insights and Document Stats. The document stats show three different statistics: 

• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 
• Flesch Reading Ease 
• Passive Sentences 

The Flesch scores 

The two Flesch ratings are both based on the calculation of average number of syllables per word and words per sentence.  

• Flesch Reading Ease: a 100-point scale, the higher the score the easier it is to read - aim for a ‘good’ rating of between 60 and 70  
• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: based on US school grade levels and rates language clarity, the lower the score, the clearer it is - aim for between 7.0 and 8.0 

Passive Sentence score 

The Passive Sentence score counts the percentage of sentences in the document that are passive.  

Passive sentences are usually more ‘yawn’ to read, feel distanced and are not considered as engaging as ‘active voice’ sentences. 

The lower the score the better. Aim for no more than 10%. 

Easily improve readability scores  

It’s important to keep in mind that readability scores are judging text structure only. The scores don’t reflect the quality of the content.  

Good readability scores will not make irrelevant content more interesting.  

If you have a good piece of content, a few edits to improve the readability scores, is time well spent.   

• Start with one main point and stick to it
• If there’s a logical order to your points, use it
• Keep sentences short and to the point
• Maximum, one or two commas per sentence 
• Don’t use semicolons (;) as they indicate more complex textual structure 
• Only use colons (:) to introduce a list  
• Don’t use overly complex, unnecessarily flowery or over-the-top words and phrases that don’t lend any extra meaning to your point 
• Use headings and lists to clearly guide your reader 
• Use active, rather than passive, voice 

Use active, not passive, voice 

Using the active voice means you put the subject up front in your sentence. Don’t distance the subject by writing about it from afar. Here’s what we mean: 

Passive voice: The readability score was improved by me. 

Active voice: I improved the readability score. 

Passive voice: The writing of clear content can be done by me. 

Active voice: I can write clear content. 

Can you see the difference? Active voice is more direct and to the point. Passive is distanced, more wordy, formal and old-fashioned. 

Express a point, not impress with wordiness 

Readability is all about your content being clear and easy to understand. If you have great ideas and points to make in your content, looking after the readability scores will only improve your rankings.  

Read in more detail about Microsoft’s readability statistics.

Need help making your content readable? Or improving SEO ranking? Get in touch with our digital team.  

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