Introduction
You may not have seen it, but there’s an excellent way to measure the readability of your content. It’s called the Flesch reading ease test and it measures how difficult it is to read and understand the text. The higher the score, the easier your content will be to digest. If you want to improve your writing skills—you need a high Flesch score! Here are tips to improve Flesch readability :
Flesch Scores examples:
| Flesch reading score | Reading difficulty |
| 90-100 | Very easy |
| 80-90 | Easy |
| 70-80 | Fairly Easy |
| 60-70 | Plain English |
| 50-60 | Fairly difficult |
| 30-50 | Difficult |
| 0-30 | Very difficult |
Reader’s Digest magazine has a score of about 65.
Time magazine has a score of about 52.
An average grade six student has a readability score of 60–70.
So a score of 60+ should be the goal for bloggers.
Use short words to improve the Flesch reading score
The Flesch reading ease score measures how difficult it is to read your content. If you use short words, the easier it will be for readers to understand what you’re trying to say. This makes them more likely to read through your entire article and share it with others on social media so that they can also learn something new!
- Ideally, write each sentence in one breath as if speaking directly into someone’s ear and use headings and subheadings as needed.
- Don’t use jargon, abbreviations, or acronyms unless absolutely necessary since these might confuse readers unfamiliar with those terms, and even then only use them sparingly.
Use short sentences.
A good rule of thumb is that the average sentence should be no more than 15 words long. A simple way to keep track of this is by counting the number of words in each sentence, then dividing by three (this will give you your average). If a sentence has too many words, break it up into two or shorter sentences.
A reader’s attention span is limited and can only handle reading one idea at a time before they need a break from reading. Breaking up longer ideas into smaller components makes them easier for readers to grasp and remember what they’ve read—and reduces the risk that they’ll get bored or confused by what you’re trying to say!
Use short paragraphs.
The length of a paragraph is determined by the number of sentences in it. A good rule of thumb is to keep paragraphs no longer than five sentences, and if you can use fewer, even better maybe 3. This helps with a readability as well as keeping your content on topic and easy to follow.
The same goes for your headlines; short phrases or sentences are much easier to read than long ones. You can use emojis in headlines too if they fit!
Write as you speak.
Write as you speak, not in formal prose (if you speak informally). If necessary, edit so that it reads better than how someone would actually talk or write out loud.
Use headings and subheadings to break up content.
Headings and subheadings are useful for many reasons, but they’re particularly helpful if you’re writing a long piece of content.
The Flesch reading ease scale is a measure of how easy a piece of text is to read. A higher score is better because it means the content will be easier to understand and achieve maximum comprehension by its audience.
In order to improve your Flesch reading ease score, consider how often you use headings and subheadings in your blog posts. You should have at least one main heading per post which usually appears at or near the top as well as any other headings or subheadings throughout your text.
Write in the active voice instead of the passive voice.
- Write in the active voice instead of the passive voice. The active voice is more direct and concise, which makes it easier to read, while the passive voice is indirect and wordy, making it more difficult to process.
- Use grammatical cases correctly when you write—for example, don’t use an abstract noun (such as “content”) as a subject or a verb (for example, “conversate”).
Don’t use jargon, abbreviations, or acronyms.
One thing you don’t want to do is use jargon, abbreviations, or acronyms.
- Jargon is specialized terminology that only makes sense to a small group of people.
- Abbreviations are shortened versions of words.
- Acronyms are abbreviated names for companies or organizations.
For example “The employee union is trying to negotiate with management on how best to implement the new mandatory dress code policy.” In this sentence, there are three examples of jargon: union, management, and mandatory dress code policy.
These words only make sense to those who work in human resources departments or large corporations; however, most people will not know what these terms mean and will probably not be able to understand your message without some context around them explaining what you mean when using them.
Another example would be using the word “the” as an abbreviation for The United States (i.e., “The US has been known since its founding as a land of opportunity”). It may seem obvious but many authors don’t realize that these types of words do not belong in their writing because they assume everyone knows what they mean already!
Don’t use big words where small ones will do the job.
This is a simple one, but it can make all the difference to your writing—and to people’s willingness to read it. If you need a reminder of what “big words” are, look no further than this list of the most commonly used words in the English language:
- I
- we
- and
- to
Avoid using negative terms like “not” and “no one” as they add extra words that you don’t need.
- Avoid using negative terms like “not” and “no one” as they add extra words that you don’t need. Instead, use positive terms to make your sentence more concise.
Examples:
“Not everyone is happy about it.” → Everyone is happy about it.”
“No one can do this job.” → Someone can do this job.”
Use analogies and examples to explain technical concepts or difficult ideas.
- Use analogies and examples to explain technical concepts or difficult ideas.
- Use simple language when explaining technical concepts, rather than jargon.
- Be clear and concise in your writing, so that the reader does not get lost in complicated sentences.
You can use these tips to improve your blog posts
If you want to improve the readability of your blog, here are 20 tips to make it easier for readers.
- Always prefer short words
- Write short sentences.
- Use short paragraphs and headings and subheadings to break up content.
- Do not use jargon, abbreviations, or acronyms that are likely unknown by general audiences.
- If possible explain them in simpler terms instead of using them at all
Conclusion
These tips to improve the Flesch reading score are really simple, but they’ve helped me to improve my writing a lot. I hope they can help you too!