For writing an attractive and well-informed blog, you have to follow a couple of steps. You need to research the topic, prepare a rough draft and then compose the article. After completing it, you have to scan for grammatical errors and plagiarism issues. Another necessary step is to check for the readability score of your blog.
If you want to improve the readability of your blog, you need to follow some key strategies. This blog discusses the easy and simple steps you may follow to increase your readability score.
What Is a Readability score?
Readability is about how easy or difficult it is to read an article on a website. It is about communicating ideas in the simplest and clearest ways possible.
Why Is the Readability Score Important in An Article?
Readability of a blog determines how simple it is to read. The importance of readability in a blog is:
- A readable and simple text keeps people on your website as it takes less time to understand the content.
- The readers can understand the entire article without putting in much effort. This will help them find answers easily on your website.
- If the first few sentences are easy to understand, it builds trust between you and your visitors. This will increase website traffic. It is highly likely that the readers will read through the entire article.
- Nowadays, Google recognizes high-quality and skimmable content. They can predict what people want to read. Based on it, they rank the various website ranking.
Proven Strategies to Improve the Overall Readability Score
After completing the blog, you must pass it through an online readability tool. Here are seven full-proof strategies that you can use to improve your overall readability score.
1. Use short and easy words
The wordier your sentences are, the harder they are to read. When composing an article, try to avoid using four-syllable words. You must consider that not everyone has the same vocabulary list as you have.
So, if you use complex words, you will lose most of your readers. The writer can use an online SEO readability tool to pick short words from suggestions.
2. Shorten your sentences
No one likes to read a sentence comprising 20 words as it becomes complex and monotonous. If you have long sentences in your article, try dividing them into several short sentences.
3. Use fewer adjectives and adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs work as modifiers as they slightly alter the meaning of a noun or a verb. Unless the adverbs are adjectives are an important part of your blog, do not use them.
4. Avoid jargons
Most professionals use technical language which is not understood by the general public. Unless you are writing for professionals, you need to replace jargon with layman words.
5. Use easy to read fonts
You can be tempted to use various fancy fonts like Papyrus or Algerian to make it look authoritative and appealing. However, this can reduce your readability score. Always use easy-to-read fonts, such as, Times New Roman, Ariel, Calibri and Open sans.
6. Break your content
Long and monotonous paragraphs can compromise readability. It becomes difficult and frustrating for the readers to understand something from a long paragraph.
So, to make it simpler to read, you must use subheadings and bullets to separate your points.
7. Test the readability score using the Readability formula
A reading grade of eight is considered average for the common readers. The popular readability formulas are:
- Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: The score should be between 60 to 70 for the general audience.
- Flesch-Kincaid grade level: Instead of a score, you get a grade. For example, a 12 grade means that the article can be easily read by someone in 12th grade. You should always write articles which is between 7-8th grade reading level.
Final Verdict
Improving the readability score of your writing makes it stronger and easy to read. It also enhances the integrity and authority of your writing. If you have a higher readability score, your website will be ranked higher in the search engines.
A traveller at heart, writer by profession, Bidisha carries 5 years of experience in content writing. Her words give wings to brands, businesses and influencers and help them notch up their work to the next level. Writing is definitely her cup of tea, and she prefers sipping it now and then. When not writing, you will find her cooking and dancing.