The readability score given by wordpress plugin like Yoast is an index to indicate how readable your text is. Undoubtedly, it is a measure of the success of the text of the article. Moreover, we need these measures since we can not estimate the difficulty level of a text written by ourselves.
In this case, WordPress provides tools that can be very handy and do the analytics on an automated level. Furthermore, it displays tips on simplifying text right inside your WordPress dashboard. Besides in-built tools, there are external tools also which we will learn in this article.
What is a Readability Score?
The readability score is output to certain tests. Moreover, these tests measure how difficult a particular passage is to read. For example, these tests are Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, and the FOG Index.
Just as a quick example, let’s look at the most widely used test, the Flesch Reading Ease:
- A score is generated between 0-100.
- If your text scores 90-100, the average 10 years old should be able to easily understand it.
- 60-70 ought to be pretty easily understandable by younger teenagers.
- 0-30 scoring texts are best understood by someone with a college degree.
Tools for increasing the Readability score
Yoast SEO for readability
Yoast is more than just a readability analyzer. It places the result in the post edit screen under the text editor. Moreover, as the image suggests, Yoast uses the Flesch Reading Ease test to determine the level of difficulty of the text. Besides that, it also interprets the score. By the way, this is really nice because you don’t have to be familiar with how to interpret the score. This is because Yoast does all the work for you.
Furthermore, the whole purpose of simplifying the content is that you are automatically growing your audience and not just people. In fact, virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri have to be able to work with it as well. Moreover, even Google increasingly uses well-written pieces of content for rich results like featured snippets.
At the moment, Yoast SEO uses the following checks:
Transition words
The transition words issues will be shown as per the image. It is recommended to have 30% of the sentences to have transition words.
It is a good practice to use transition words to construct a link between two sentences. In fact, it enhances the readability of the article although it will not help you in reaching a higher position in SERPs.The below example will help you in understanding it more clearly.
I’m going to discuss a few reasons why practice is important to learning skills. The only way to truly master a skill is by actually doing what you’ll have to do in the real world. I think practice can be a fun way of putting in the necessary hours. There are some people who will disagree. It is said that people tend to remember only 10-20% of what they’ve heard or read. That number rises to as much as 90% when you put theory to practice. Following up explanation with practice is key to mastering a skill.
In this paragraph, I’m going to discuss a few reasons why practice is important to mastering skills. Firstly, the only way to truly learn a skill is by actually doing what you’ll have to do in the real world. Secondly, I think practice can be a fun way of putting in the necessary hours. There are, however, some people will disagree. Thirdly, and most importantly, it is said that people tend to remember only 10-20% of what they read or hear. Moreover, that number rises to as much as 90% when you put theory to practice. In conclusion, following up explanation with practice is key to mastering a skill.
The transition words are shown in the italicized and bold way in the green box.
Sentence beginnings
The image shows the green flag which means there is variety in the sentences.
The tool also indicates if any of the consecutive sentences begin with the same word. In fact, if the flag is set in the Yoast SEO then it means that you have to put variety in your text. However, sometimes, it may not be possible due to the type of content like a poetic verse but most of the time the writer has to make sure that this indicator is green. The example is given below.
We went shopping in the city to buy some new clothes. And then we had dinner. And then we went for a walk in the park. And then we went to the movies
We went shopping in the city to buy some new clothes. After that we had dinner. Then we went for a walk in the park. And finally, we went to the movies.
In the above sentence, the word “And then is repeated”. This practice should be avoided.
Flesch reading ease
The images show the reading score of the article.
As discussed above, the world-famous test analyzes the text and rank them on a scale of 1-100. Usually, a reading ease score of 60-70 is assumed to be acceptable for web copy. Hence, it is desirous to break long sentences into smaller ones as shown below for a good score.
My favorite place to visit during weekends is my grandparents’ house near the lake, where we love to fish and swim, and we often take the boat out on the lake.
My favorite place to visit during weekends is my grandparents’ house. It’s near the lake, where we love to fish and swim. We also often take the boat out on the lake.
Paragraph length
Here none of the paragraphs are longer than 150 words. It is desirous to break the big paragraphs into smaller ones.
The Yoast SEO will indicate the writer to break up a long paragraph into smaller ones so that they look less daunting.
The image shows the 2 paragraphs which were split from a single large paragraph.
Subheading distribution
It indicates that there are subheadings in the article. If there is a paragraph with more than 300 words then break into 2 paragraphs with subheadings as done in the current article.
It is desirous to break the content into sub-headings. The subheading consists of H2 and H3 tags in WordPress.
Sentence length
The image indicates the sentence length is okay.
Sentence length is one of the main aspects that can make a text hard to read. Moreover, do not try to put more than 20 words per sentence. As a result, if the sentence contains more than 20 words then there are chances that the readers may lose track of the context of the line. Here is an example.
Although it can be a challenge to write shorter sentences, it’s really important to do so, because it makes your sentences easier to read, even if it requires a little more effort.
It can be a challenge to write shorter sentences. Still, it’s really important to make an effort to do so. After all, it makes your sentences easier to read. It’ll be worth your while!
In the above example, the context of the large sentences is broken into separate sentences and then connected together through transition words as italicized.
Passive voice
The use of passive voice is indicated as shown in the image.
It is recommended to use a lot of active voice in your content. Furthermore, the passive voice makes it difficult for the reader to understand the text.
The message in the red box after fixing the passive voice issue ( removing italicized words ) will look as shown below in the green box.
It is recommended to use a lot of active voice in your content. Furthermore, the passive voice makes it difficult for the reader to understand the text. The active voice will be indicated in the below way:
The content should convey the message in an active voice. Furthermore, the passive voice makes it difficult for the reader to understand the text. The image below indicates the use of active voice.
Hemmingway Editor external tool for readability
Hemmingway Editor is another great tool for analyzing the content on the readability front. Moreover, the readability score between 6 to 8 converts into a good Flesch score on the Yoast SEO. Furthermore, the tools give you pointers on several fronts as depicted in the image. Hence, Hemingway makes your writing bold and clear. More so, it’s like a spellchecker, but for style. Therefore, it makes sure that your reader will focus on your message. Just copy-paste the contents in the online version and you are good to go.
Grammarly external tool for readability
Grammarly’s efficient AI not only corrects your grammatical mistakes but also makes your writing more understandable and helps you make the right impression on the reader. It is available as both free as well as the paid version. Moreover, with the paid version of the tool, more features are available like advanced grammar checking. Hence, with Grammarly, you can rest assured that your writing is always held to the highest standard. The tool is generally installed as an add-on in the browser and will provide you inputs as you write.
Should all bullets be green?
Finally, we can say that it is not important to have all the checks green as per the tool. However, it will add more value if we strive to convert all the red/orange flags to the green ones. Sometimes, due to the technical jargon present in the text, the Flesch reading score will be less and it will be flagged. But it should not deter you from publishing your article.
Conclusion…Wrapping up
In conclusion, we can say that a readability score is a great tool to discover mistakes in writing. Hence, if you need to ensure your creation should be understood by the audience, then this score provides great help.
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