Writing for your readers
Sunday evening I took part in Blogchat on Twitter. During the chat someone brought up the readability level of one’s blog.
Writing for the Web is different from writing for print. When writing for the web the KISS principle comes to mind. K.I.S.S stands for keep it simple stupid.
Not every visitor to your blog will have the same reading comprehension level.
Keep your sentences simple
I think it is important to make sure that your content is easy understandable to all your visitors. When writing, avoid really long sentences and complicated words that has your readers reaching for their dictionary. Use words that are familiar to readers. Keep your sentences short.
Avoid corporate-speak
The bigger the words and the more complex your sentences are, the more difficult it may be for some to understand. The goal is to write in a way that your audience will be able to comprehend.
How often have you read a post or article, and had to reread it in order to fully understand what the author was saying?
How to test the readability of your blog?
Readability formulas are used to determine what comprehension level something is written at.
The Juicy Studio readability test uses the Gunning-Fog, Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid grade level indexes. “Gunnings’s Fog Index is one of the best known for measuring the reading difficulty of any document. An “ideal” score is 7 or 8; anything above 12 is too hard for most people to read.” According to ‘the readability tester‘ my blog post ‘Provocative Fashion Trends and Teens,’ received a Fog Index of 7.28. This is probably due to the fact that my writing is not all that hard to comprehend.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Score- rates text on a U.S. grade-school level. A score of 8.0, means that an eighth grader can understand the post. My score was 5.05, meaning by U.S grade standards a child in grade 5 should be able to understand my post ‘Provocative Fashion Trends and Teens.’
Flesch Reading Ease Score - rates text on a 100-point scale; the higher the score, the easier it is to understand the post. I scored 77.75. The standard is to aim for a score of 60 to 70.
An experiment
I decided to test the ‘Gunning Fog Index Readability’ of different websites. I selected three posts from three different websites.
I took a post from New York Times, Blog Herald and from Pro Blogger. The post from the NY Times, ‘Facebook And Twitter’s New Rival’ written by Jenna Wortham scored a Gunning Fog Index of 8.95. Making Sushi and Making a Blog Are Surprisingly Similar” written by David Fishman (posted at blogherald.com) had a Gunning Fog Index of 8.45. The post “Become a Playful Blogger and Inject Some Energy into Your Blogging” written by Darren Rosse had a Gunning Fog Index of 7.56, therefore making Darren’s post easier to read out of the three posts I tested.
The results of the experiment were interesting.
In closing:
There are a number of other online tools available that can assist you in the readability of your blog. While the tools are far from perfect in testing the readability of a blog, they do give us a basic idea of what level we are writing at.
Readers will be more incline to stay and read a post if they can understand it.
Many people have commented to me that my blog is clear and easy to understand. I’m glad! That is one of my blogging goals.
Check your blog’s readability today and share your results as well as your thoughts on keeping your content easy for all to read.
What reading level is your blog?
Further reading
Dan Zarrella wrote an interesting post titled “Simple Language Gets Shared More on Facebook.” His findings were to use simple language if you want to get shared on Facebook.
To Be or Not to Be by Brian Clark Brian says “Good copy is written in clear, concise, simple words that get your point across.”
Related Post:
- – How to Find Things to Write About by Reading Comments on Other Blogs
– Seven Reasons Why No One Is Reading Your Blog
– Better Writing Through Blogging
– How to write titles for your blog posts
– What Are Active Users on Facebook?
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It will look like this: What reading level is your blog
September 13th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Probably a low reading level, although I do include some pretty big words sometimes.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
September 14th, 2010 at 1:15 am
Actually it was low.
That’s a good thing.
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September 13th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Rose,
I never knew that there were such writing tests. I supposed the thought just never crossed my mind. I just try to keep it simple as you suggested and write at a level that I would expect my primary target audience to be able to comprehend.
I think that paying attention to and scoring your writing would be really important for sales copy though. It would probably be really important if you were specifically targeting a less educated audience as well.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
September 14th, 2010 at 12:01 am
I think it is important in all aspects of web writing. In case you are curious your Flesch-Kincaid Grade level of your most recent post is 4.88 making it very easy to understand.
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September 13th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
I’ve taken a look at reading levels a number of times over the years. The difficulty seems to vary with the topic i’m writing about.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
September 13th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
I imagine it would vary. I just tested your last post “Atomic powered bomber” and it is written at a Gunning Fog Index of 9.01. Your Flesch Reading Ease was 60.0–70.0 meaning that it is easily understandable by 13- to 15-year-old students.
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September 13th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
That sure is a challenge. I love well written blogs but realise not everyone majored in English! These tests would be an interesting take on how easy one’s blogs are to the visitor.
I often have to rewrite my blogs when they are about medical trials cos although I have a nursing background I appreciate that many people reading my posts do not have the same background.
Ido usually take what my visitors say in the comments section as a measure of whether I have pitched it at the right level.
Patricia Perth Australia
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
September 13th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Good for you for not writing in a language only understood by the medical profession.
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September 14th, 2010 at 1:41 am
Ohhh I like the idea of a ‘Further Reading’ heading and I am totally going to steal it in the future!!
In terms of readability – one other suggest I would give is to refrain from inside jokes unless you know your readers very well.
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September 14th, 2010 at 1:48 am
So, indubitably, I oughtn’t to obfuscate with exhorbitant multisyllabic palindrome which would nefariously terrify the peruser?
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
September 14th, 2010 at 2:15 am
Stop writing at a university level. lol
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September 14th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Hi Rose
I try and keep my sentences short and easy to understand . I use the same principle when writing speeches.
The readability tools sound interesting – must try them out.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
September 14th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Keith, I think that is great that you use that concept in your public speaking.
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September 15th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Rose, I took the tests:
Gunning Fog Index 7.38
Flesch Reading Ease 74.26
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 4.80
I’ve never thought about the readability of my blog, and while that’s fun to know not sure I “care.”
I’m a great believer in the KISS philosophy, but I’m not into dumbing things down. Yes cut out the boilerplate and babblespeak, but keep it real even with big, fat SAT words. What reading level is my blog? Light on substance, heavy on snark
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
September 16th, 2010 at 1:04 am
I don’t consider it dumbing things down. You actually write at a level easily understood.
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September 16th, 2010 at 5:11 am
Great article Rose,
I was directed here from you comment on my blog. Liked is so much, and though that it would add great value to my post that I added a link to it in the post. Hope you don’ mind.
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September 16th, 2010 at 9:52 am
I know what your saying, and thanks. My babbling brook of a point is: if I start editing myself to stick with two-syllable words any idiot can understand, more than “dumbing down” .. I’d loose my voice and style. I think that’d be worse for my blog than just being harder to read.
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