Update: How to make your content more readable

A friend of mine was struggling with her website content a few weeks back and I volunteered to look it over. As a former editor, I was so pleased to see that she was literate — her subjects and verbs agreed, she was a great speller and her punctuation was flawless. And as a business owner in a highly specialized field, she certainly knew her stuff. Beyond this point, I began to find some issues. Her SEO was all over the place. She needed some backlinks to boost her sites. I think she needs to read less of her blog and read Indexsy’s review of Rhino Rank which would be a good use of time!

She could have also thought about talking to a website development agency who could help her redesign her website to look more appealing to those in her target audience, pairing that with an SEO company would mean a better outcome that she was looking for, rather than sticking to what she was going for already that wasn’t giving her the best results.

The big problem: I zoned out after about the second sentence — and I knew what she was talking about. I did tell her before she started that it was probably better for her to contact an SEO agency who would be able to do this for her. I do know that many businesses decide to do this so they can focus on their own work instead of working on a website when you can get someone to do it for you. I’ve heard that law firms like to use a company similar to Juris Digital, (you can check out their website here) for help in this area so they know that it has been done professionally by experts in this area. This allows them to get the best possible outcome for their clients. I think it’s a great idea, and after looking at my friend’s website, it’s probably something she should consider for the next time too.

So I ran a readability test (more on this later) on her copy and discovered she was writing at a 12.6-grade reading level. When I told her that, she blew a gasket.

“But I’m a college graduate!” she sputtered. “I’m smarter than that! I can’t believe this is written at a high-school level!”

It’s not about intelligence

That’s when I gave her the second dose of bad news: She should be writing for a lower grade level — much lower. Like eighth grade. That’s what I was taught in journalism school and nothing in the 30-plus years since I graduated has convinced me that it’s wrong.

That set off a whole new round of fireworks about “dumbing down” her content, telling me she wrote it for search engine optimization (SEO) and what some of the copy in her content really meant.

OK. Stop right there.

• It’s not about “dumbing down” anything. It’s about how to write for your ideal client in such a way that he or she will understand what you’re trying to say. My friend’s prospects aren’t dumb; they just don’t know as much about her business as she does (a common issue). Not only that, they’re smart enough to know they need someone like her to navigate through a confusing technological landscape.
• If you have to explain what your content says, you haven’t done a good enough job writing it. What are you going to do — provide a phone number so when someone doesn’t get it, they can give you a jingle and ask you to explain? Umm…no. They’ll just move off your site to read something they can understand.
• If you’re savvy enough to be in a highly technical field, then you’re smart enough to write about it in a way that accomplishes your SEO goals as well as in a fashion that people can understand. Of course, there is another alternative of writing the content that is easily understandable yet technical enough to prove that you’re professional within your field, and then have the SEO processes carried out by a company such as these found at LinkMoose.com, or others that can offer complete Search Engine Optimization services.

Figuring out your grade level

So how do you determine how easy it is to read your content and the comprehension grade level of your copy? It’s measured in two ways — the Flesch Reading Ease test and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test.

Reading ease is measured by a complex formula that uses total number of sentences and words (including how many are “polysyllabic,” or contain multiple syllables). The higher the score, on a scale of 0 to 100, the easier it is to read.

Readers Digest has a readability score of 65, “easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students.” Harvard Law Review, on other hand, has a readability score of 30, “best understood by college graduates.”

You want your reading ease score to be 60-70, unless you are in a highly specialized field, writing for others in the same field.

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test also uses word, sentence and syllable counts, but computes them differently. Your goal should be an eighth-grade comprehension level.

Here’s the good news: You don’t need to mess with the formula yourself. Most word-processing programs include it in their spell-check function, but you have to select it.

Here’s how to do that if you’re using Word:

1. With your document open, go to File/Options/Proofing.
2. Click on “Show Readability Statistics.” Click “OK.” And you’re done!

Now all your copy will come up with readability statistics after your run spell check. You’ll get all kinds of nifty information, like number of letters in each word and how many sentences, as well as the number of passive sentences. (You want your verbs to be as active as possible). At the bottom, you’ll find your readability scores.

But perhaps the most important thing to do is find someone who can read over your copy to see if it makes sense. If there is any question at all about something, if just one thing needs to be explained, then you say “Thank you, I’ll fix it” and go back to the keyboard.

You will soon discover — as my smart friend did — that writing content that people understand is a worthy challenge of even college graduates.

P.S. The reading ease level of this article is 69.9 and the grade level is 7.3. Please let me know if I have insulted your intelligence!

This just in!

Here’s some late-breaking news. As pointed out by Shelley Webb, these instructions work for Word 2010, but not for earlier versions (thank you, Shelley!)

Here are instructions for earlier versions:

When Microsoft Word finishes checking spelling and grammar, it can display information about the reading level of the document, including readability scores based on the average number of syllables per word, and words per sentence.

To show the readability statistics after checking spelling and grammar, turn on the Show readability statistics option.

To do this in Word 2002 and in Word 2003, follow these steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Spelling & Grammar tab, click to select the Show readability statistics check box.
3. Click OK.

To do this in Word 2007, follow these steps:

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Proofing.
2. In the When correcting spelling and grammar in Word section, click the Show readability statistics check box.
3. Click OK.

And here’s where I found it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292069