Do you want to improve your readability score for better SEO rankings and user experience?
The readability of your website content is probably not a direct ranking factor, but it’s pretty important for your website visitors and SEO.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to improve your readability score on WordPress. We’ll also cover what readability is and why a readability score is necessary.
What Is Readability and How Is It Important?
Readability is the term that describes how easy it is to read and understand your website content. It can be measured with metrics like word choice, sentence length, and syllable count.
When you simplify your content, it will be easier for your target audience to understand what you’re trying to convey. This motivates the readers to continue reading, which ultimately increases engagement on your website.
Clear and readable content also benefits your website’s ranking and SEO. It reduces bounce rates so you can persuade users to spend more time and do what you want them to do on your site, like buying a product, clicking on a link, signing up for your list, and more.
How Readability Score Works
Everyone has their own style of writing and knowledge of vocabulary. So, how do you track if your content is readable or not? This is where the readability score comes in handy.
A readability score helps you keep track of the readability issues and errors in your writing. By analyzing the score, you will know how difficult or easy it is to read your content.
There are a lot of different online tools that help you analyze the readability score of your content. If you install All in One SEO (AIOSEO), the original WordPress plugin for SEO, you can find the readability score of your content and improve it right within your WordPress post editor.
There are a few criteria that you need to meet for a good readability score, such as shorter sentences, smaller paragraphs, use of headings, and more.
Once you know your score, you can make changes and fix issues if needed.
9 Ways to Improve Your Readability Score on WordPress
When writing for the web, there are many factors you need to consider to make your content readable. Some of the factors are:
1. Avoid Using Complex Words
Not all readers have the same vocabulary skills. If you use words that are difficult to understand, readers will abandon your content.
When writing, remember to use simple words that explain what you are trying to say. Dumb down your content to make it easier for all readers to understand.
2. Easy to Understand and Short Sentences
Online readers have shorter attention spans, and they usually read the first few lines and move on. So, making your sentences short and concise is the best way to improve your readability.
Trying to get your point across can be difficult. Avoiding long sentences entirely is not possible. However, make sure you optimize your sentences and use fewer words wherever you can.
3. Write Shorter Paragraphs
Long and heavy paragraphs are boring to read and scare away the readers. So keep your paragraphs short and easy to scan.
4. Add Images and Videos
Pictures speak a thousand words, so add helpful images and videos to your website content. This is especially true for tutorials or concepts that are difficult to put into words. Painting a picture using images makes it easier to help readers “see” what you’re explaining. For example, in an article explaining HTML sitemaps, an image would help show readers how to access the HTML Sitemap settings.
Check out our image SEO guide for details on ensuring your visuals aid your SEO efforts.
5. Divide Your Content with Headings
Ensure your subheadings are descriptive of your subject matter. Subheading tags, such as H2 and H3, make it easier for search engines to read and understand your content.
For more information on this, check out our guide to header tags.
6. Check the Use of Passive Voice
A lot of writers tend to write in a passive voice. However, sentences written in active voice are clearer and easier to comprehend.
What is passive voice?
Passive voice is a grammatical construction where the subject of a sentence receives the action rather than performing it. The structure typically uses a form of “to be” (is/was/were) + past participle.
Examples:
- Active: The cat chased the mouse
- Passive: The mouse was chased by the cat
A few ways to spot passive voice include:
- Subject becomes object
- Action verb changes to past participle
- Often adds “by” phrase
- Can omit the actor entirely (The window was broken)
While passive voice is grammatically correct, active voice generally creates clearer, more direct writing. It also results in engaging content, helping you keep readers on your page longer.
7. Use Transition Words
Transitional words are words and phrases that help your content flow smoothly from one idea to the next. Some of the transitional words are ‘however,’ ‘because,’ ‘therefore,’ ‘besides that,’ and ‘on the other hand.’ Common categories of transition words include:
- Time: then, next, finally, meanwhile
- Addition: furthermore, moreover, also
- Contrast: however, nevertheless, although
- Cause/Effect: therefore, consequently, thus
- Comparison: similarly, likewise, in comparison
- Sequence: first, second, lastly Example: for instance, specifically, namely
These words help guide readers through your argument or narrative by showing relationships between ideas. Plus, they also help your readability score.
8. Make Your Content Conversational
Along with grammar and other rules, you need to make sure that your content is interactive. To grab the attention of your audience, you can write in a conversational tone.
Conversational content is writing that mimics natural, everyday speech patterns to create a more engaging and relatable connection with readers. Here are the key aspects:
Informal Tone:
- Using contractions (don’t, can’t, we’re)
- Including personal pronouns (you, we, I)
- Writing how people actually speak
Natural Flow:
- Varying sentence length
- Using questions and rhetorical questions
- Including brief asides or personal examples
Engagement Elements:
- Addressing the reader directly
- Using active voice
- Incorporating everyday expressions and colloquialisms
The goal is to make readers feel like they’re having a friendly conversation rather than reading a formal document. It’s particularly effective in blogs, emails, social media, and marketing content where building rapport is important.
9. Flesch Reading Test
The Flesch reading ease test is a popular tool for writers to analyze their content for readability. The Flesch Reading Ease score is a readability formula that measures how easy a text is to read based on sentence length and word complexity (syllable count). The score ranges from 0 to 100:
0-30: Very difficult (Best understood by university graduates)
30-50: Difficult (College level)
50-60: Fairly difficult (High school/some college)
60-70: Standard (8th/9th grade)
70-80: Fairly easy (7th grade)
80-90: Easy (6th grade)
90-100: Very easy (5th grade)
Don’t want to go through the hassle of checking each of the factors in your content? We’ve got just the right solution for you.
Improve Your Readability Score with the AIOSEO Plugin
AIOSEO is a complete WordPress SEO plugin that offers tons of tools and features to optimize your website content in a few clicks. It helps you boost your website SEO and rank well on Google.
With AIOSEO’s TruSEO feature, you can edit your content, add a keyword, and see your readability score in real time. It analyzes your content and rates the overall post, where 100 is a full score.
As soon as you add your content, AIOSEO gives you a score based on the factors that we have mentioned above. So you won’t need to waste your time checking all your content features yourself.
Plus, AIOSEO gives you pointers and ideas on how to improve your readability score on WordPress on the post editor.
Now, let’s get started with AIOSO and improve the readability score in 3 simple steps.
Step 1: Install the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) Plugin
First things first. In order to use the readability test, you’ll need to install the AIOSEO plugin on your WordPress site.
Once you sign up for an AIOSEO account, you can find your plugin file and license key on the Downloads tab.
Next, all you need to do is upload the file on your WordPress dashboard and install the plugin. For more details, see the WPBeginner guide on properly installing and setting up a WordPress plugin.
In the Settings tab, you can enter your license key to activate the plugin.
Step 2: Add Your Content
After you install and activate AIOSEO on your site, you can start editing your content right away.
AIOSEO checks content for all your WordPress pages and posts. So you can edit your existing content or add new content as you like.
To add new content, go to the page or post tab on your WordPress panel and click on Add New.
Then, simply add your content to the text editor and see your AIOSEO readability score immediately.
Now, go to the AIOSEO section on the page editor and see if there are hints for improvements and issues.
Step 3: Analyze Readability Score & Improve It
In the AIOSEO section, you can see several recommendations for correcting your content. If your content already matches a readability factor, you’ll see a green checkmark for that.
When there are readability issues on your content, you’ll see the pointers along with a red cross. As you try to fix these issues, the cross icon will change into a green checkmark.
Here are the main factors that determine your readability score in AIOSEO.
- Images/Videos in content
- Paragraphs length
- Sentences length
- Passive voice
- Transition words
- Consecutive sentences
- Subheading distribution
- Flesch reading ease
AIOSEO analyzes all these factors in your content and gives you a score. This helps you keep track of your content readability as you write and edit your post.
In the SEO section, you can also add your focus keyword and optimize your content for better rankings.
This also shows you suggestions for improving your SEO strategy on your content. It includes optimizing SEO titles, headings, meta description, URLs, and more.
After editing your content for both SEO and readability, you get an overall score on the top of your page or post editor.
If you utilize the suggestions in the AIOSEO readability list, you can increase your readability score on WordPress in no time.
How to Improve Readability Score in WordPress: Your FAQs Answered
What is readability?
What is readability?
Readability is a measure of how easy a piece of text is to understand.
Why is a readability score necessary?
Why is a readability score necessary?
A readability score is necessary to ensure that your content is easy to read and understand. This is important because it can help you to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and conversion rates.
How can I improve my readability score on WordPress?
How can I improve my readability score on WordPress?
There are a number of things you can do to improve your readability score on WordPress. Some of these include:
- Using shorter sentences and paragraphs
- Avoiding jargon and complex words
- Using headings and subheadings to break up your text
- Adding images and videos to your content
- Using the AIOSEO plugin to analyze your content
Fortunately, AIOSEO can help you easily handle most of these readability best practices.
That’s all for today! We hope this post helped you learn how to improve your readability score in WordPress with ease.
We hope this post helped you know how to improve your readability score in WordPress. You may also want to check out other articles on our blog, like our tutorial on starting a small business blog or our list of the best free SEO tools.
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