Readability
Writing for Readability is Important — Here's Why
Readability refers to how easy content is for a reader to understand. Good readability provides a better user experience and greater reach for your content.
Readability refers to how easy written content is for a reader to understand. Improving readability makes content more accessible to a broader audience and promotes wider engagement.
Several factors contribute to excellent readability in content marketing, and they’re easier to achieve than you might think.
Get insight into why writing for readability is important and review tips on how to make content more readable for your audience.
Ready to review the readability of your content? Check out the Originality.ai Readability Checker.
Readability and writability both relate to how easily an idea is expressed through words. Let’s compare the definitions.
Writability refers to the relationship between the words and the writer or the words and the paper. Merriam-Webster defines writable as “capable of being put in writing,” and Cambridge defines it as being capable of being written or written on.
It should be noted that in digital data, writability refers to an electronic medium’s ability to store information. However, in the context of this article, we are talking about the capability to put an idea into writing.
The meaning of readability refers to how easy it is for an audience to read something that is written.
Your content has good readability if:
So, while readability and writability mean different things, the primary connection between them is that simplicity and clarity will benefit both.
In content marketing, the are several benefits to great readability.
The purpose of content marketing is to reach your audience by engaging them and helping them find the information they want.
By making content clear and easy to understand, you make it easier for readers to engage and make a positive connection with your brand.
When your content has good readability, you broaden your audience. Readability techniques such as using common words, eliminating jargon, and organizing your writing simply and clearly make your content more usable and understandable.
Readable content is more easily understandable and navigable to a diverse audience with different reading levels and degrees of English language comprehension.
Anytime you attract your audience’s interest and make it easy to engage with your brand through good, readable content, you are closer to converting visitors into customers.
When readers enjoy what they learn from your content and feel they received value from it, they are more likely to consider your website a source to return to or share.
Writers and readers may have varying ideas of what makes something readable, and not everyone in your audience may agree. So, there are some specific ways to ensure your written content is readable by the widest range of readers.
Your content should be comprehensible, enjoyable, and accessible to the average reader.
The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy notes that 54% of adults in the United States read at the 6th-grade level or lower.
The Center for Plain Language confirms this reading level recommendation to address accessibility concerns.
There are standard metrics and guides for readability scores to help you figure this out, including:
Reading level is critical to making your content readable and fun. As a content marketer, you want to pitch your writing at a reading level that works best for your audience.
Short sentences and paragraphs are critical to readability, and it’s no coincidence they figure into determining the reading level of a piece of content.
Break up your content into smaller, consumable chunks.
For smooth, engaging writing, vary your sentence length. Some sentences can be less than 10 words, while others might be around 15, and try not to have any above 25 words.
Keep paragraphs to one idea at a time. If you are starting a new idea, start a new paragraph.
Recommendations on how many sentences to add to a paragraph can vary. Microsoft recommends 3 to 5 sentences as a standard average for paragraphs. Yet they note that paragraphs in news reporting may be even shorter with just 1 to 2 sentences.
In addition to short sentences and paragraphs, break up text and highlight important information with bulleted lists when appropriate. For instance, rather than write a lengthy paragraph detailing a product's benefits, give readers a quick, simplified snapshot in list form that can be quickly skimmed and understood.
Headings should guide a reader through your content. They should be short and concise and include simple keywords or phrases that signal to a reader what a section of text will cover. Keep it simple and useful for the reader.
When trying to reach the broadest audience, use clear, common language that is easy to understand. If your content has a lot of idiomatic language, industry jargon, or trendy buzzwords, your readability may drop.
Active voice is preferable in writing because it makes it clear who is performing an action and what action is taking place. It’s a more natural and understandable way to construct less wordy sentences.
For example:
What is readable for your audience depends on who and what they expect from your content. If you are writing for academia, your reading level might advance simply by using terminology appropriate to the topics you cover.
Once you know the different audiences you want to reach, research to find out what reading level to target.
Simple and clear content can still be engaging and exciting for your audience. Your creativity as a content writer can — and should — still shine through. Checking readability as you create content just assures that more people will be able to enjoy your work!
Looking for more tips on how to produce the best content for your audience?
Get insight into the reading age of political speeches. Find out which candidates use the lowest reading age, which ones alter the reading age based on where their speech is, and how political speeches have changed in recent times.
It is a well known and almost universally accepted fact that Google will reward your content for something called “Readability”. As a result there have been many off the shelf content marketing tools ( think Grammarly, Hemingway readable.com etc) that have attempted to help people publish content with optimal Readability scores. The thought is that if content is published according to recommendations of these tools, they will be more likely to rank on Google Search Engines.
