The readability technique, in addition to the Posts, can be used in call-to-actions and all of its digital presence. Do you adopt this strategy?
Growing content marketing has brought out several behavioral changes. Many, even, extremely positive.
Companies and people who previously did not produce content began to produce. Some companies surfed the wave and settled.
Readability has entered the discussion of this universe, but few know the subject or adopt it as they should. The truth is that the readability factor has changed the way you produce content (and Google is aware of this).
The importance of the subject
In 2016 I read a lot of content on Neil Patel’s blog.
The way he wrote, using paragraphs and short sentences caught my attention.
I asked some friends of digital marketing about it and with that I had my first contact with readability.
We only have eight seconds to win the reader’s attention to read our content. In 2010 it was 12 seconds. The challenge is great and will be increasing.
Not getting the necessary attention, the reader will go away. Your bounce rate will increase and therefore your ranking on search engines will be adversely affected.
Having a good readability applied in your content will contribute to the reading of your content by the users. You will get a lower bounce rate. You will have better rankings and more business opportunities.
How to improve the readability of your content
You need to improve your content from “yesterday”. Adopt readability improvement as soon as possible. I suggest doing the following: consider posting posts here with good readability. Schedule yourself to act on the old posts and improve them.
To improve the readability of your content you need to pay attention to the following factors:
- Use short paragraphs;
- Create short sentences;
- Focus on your audience;
- Use few difficult words;
- Use transition words.
About using short paragraphs
Some experts advocate an average of five sentences per paragraph. Others claim that from seven to eight are long paragraphs.
The type of content in use is crucial to this issue. For example, very technical articles or very specific content will have longer paragraphs.
The balcony is to use the most relevant and highest impact sentences in the beginning. Hold the reader’s attention at once.
The use of subtitles also helps a lot to organize the ideas through topics that allow contextualizing the text for the reader.
Even if you do not have a relevant Flesch Score, you’ll be able to keep the user reading.
About creating short sentences
Short sentences are considered when adopting between 20 and 25 words. The quantity is variable per language.
The use of this technique allows the reader to digest the subject more easily, to form an opinion about it, and to maintain interest in reading.
In addition, it avoids grammatical errors by facilitating revision.
Applying short and intelligent sentences will also contribute to the use of short paragraphs. Thus, we already have two techniques applied together.
Focus is on the audience
The main focus of your content should always be the audience. As said, the type of content addressed, may not allow or facilitate the use of paragraphs and short sentences.
The public profile will define the approach to texts as well as the ease or otherwise of reading.
Writing to children and addressing diverse subjects is very different from complex, technical issues and aimed at a more specialized audience.
Use few difficult words
If readability is easy to read, we should avoid using difficult words. Convince them that they do not contribute anything to readability.
Words with four or more syllables are considered difficult. In some cases, the amount of characters is taken into account.
It is necessary to pay attention to the keyword to be used and the similarities that allow us to diversify, to create the semantic field and to facilitate the reading.
Adopt transition words
Using transition words is a technique for improving legibility in a sentence. We are allowed to use “content” to connect one sentence to another.
To adopt these words is to facilitate reading and to help the reader to better digest the ideas presented.
For example, to conclude an idea we can use the words “therefore” and “consequently”.
But before that (and if the intention is to summarize), punctuate, we can make use of “first”, “second”, or create contrast through the words “instead” or “while.”
Transition words, as mentioned, are used to help the reader more easily read between ideas in one sentence.
All techniques together
You have to be careful and not robotic your content. Find out more about each technique and apply each one.
Over time you will be using them all together. And of course, you publish texts with greater and better readability for your readers. After all, the focus is on the audience.
How readability calculation works
As readability impacts on the positioning of published posts, the subject has to be studied and then the techniques should be applied.
It is important to understand how the text readability calculation works. You will need to have tools on your side to support you in this analysis as you write and to help you review before publication.
In short, calculating readability works by analyzing the size of words, sentences, and paragraphs. In addition, there are different weights in various situations.
For example, it is recommended to have less than 25% of the sentences of the text with less than 20 words in use.
The technical term for the subject is the Flesch Reading Score. In its formula, the higher the score indicates that the text is readable. On the other hand, a low score indicates reading difficulties.
There are other forms also used, namely: FORCAST, McLaughli’s SMOG, Fry readability graph, The Gunning fog, The Dale-Chall, The Flesch, Flesch-Kincaid.
Tools to analyze readability
There are several tools that support us in legibility analysis.
Some are separated from your text editor, others integrated. This last group is the most interesting, for giving you a real-time view.
In WordPress, we have plugins that do these calculations. However, the most used is the Yoast SEO that brings functionality in its “Readability” tab.
For those who do not use WordPress, or write the texts in other editors. There are some options like:
- Readability Test Tool;
- Readable;
- Readability;
- Readability Test;
- Text Content Analysis Tool.
The impact of readability on SEO
Posts with better readability will positively impact your search engine optimization strategy.
Text with better readability facilitates reading, increases engagement, decreases bounce rate and the consequence is to improve its ranking.
Spreading the same keyword in the text is obsolete. Google recognizes synonyms since its update known as Hummingbird.
And one of the focuses of this update is to take the user to read texts with good readability. Therefore, readability is a technique that needs to be taken into account.
Consideration
The Google search engine is updated frequently. This takes us out of the comfort zone all the time, leading us to know new techniques and studies at all times.
The good news is that it helps us grow and bring positive impacts to our business.
In addition to posts, the concept of readability can be taken to other scenarios, such as the call-to-action and the texts used in the layout of the site as a whole.
This will result in better use and reading experience of your entire digital presence.
How has your experience with readability been in your posts and projects? Let us know in the comment box.
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