The Flesch Reading Ease is a score that indicates the readability and comprehension level of a text. Specifically, it is one of the most well-known readability indices developed to analyze and improve articles written from an SEO perspective (notably adopted by the some popular SEO plugins, like Yoast).
Improving our website’s ranking in search engines is indeed a complex operation that requires considering various aspects of content creation: from mapping the site’s pages to optimizing images, from incorporating keywords to improving the readability of our texts.
In this article, we will discover why optimizing content readability is crucial for our content marketing strategy, how it enables us to connect with our target audience, and be rewarded by search engine algorithms. Additionally, we will explore how to use a readability index such as the Flesch Reading Ease to enhance our writing skills and what its main limitations are. But first, what is a readability index and what purpose does it serve?
What are readability indices and what are they for?
Readability indices are computational linguistics tools (based on the use of computer systems aiming to create statistical models regarding our language comprehension and production capabilities), developed to analyze the average reading difficulty and comprehension of a text. In simple terms, they are statistical calculations summarizing the readability level of our texts.
Why is the readability of our texts a very important element of our content marketing strategy?
- On one hand, creating readable, simple, and clear content is crucial for attracting more readers and keeping them engaged on our pages longer, as well as for consolidating the authority of our website and its content.
- On the other hand, factors such as the time spent on a page (i.e., the period someone spends looking at a web page after clicking a link in a SERP) and the credibility level of the content have significant repercussions on key variables for our search engine ranking, such as bounce rate (a high bounce rate is interpreted by search engines as a signal that the user experience on our site is unsatisfactory), their conversion rate, and so on. Furthermore, users are increasingly resorting to voice search on search engines: smooth and clear texts will therefore also be rewarded in this case. All these factors indirectly influence the positioning capability of our SEO articles and thus the possibility of attracting a larger share of organic traffic. Hence the birth of various readability indices for texts, which are generally based on parameters such as text formatting, paragraph length, scanability, sentence length, and the number of words and/or syllables used. These parameters are then summarized in specific mathematical formulas, such as the Flesch Reading Ease.
What is the Flesch Reading Ease and how is it calculated?
The Flesch Reading Ease, first theorized in 1948 by American scholar Rudolf Flesch, measures the readability level of an English text based on two variables:
The average sentence length (measured by the number of words) The average number of syllables per word These two variables are then summarized in an equation, the result of which is a score ranging from 0 to 100, with 0 indicating a very difficult text to read and 100 a text that is very clear and understandable to everyone.
Specifically, the equation is as follows:
(Readability) F = 206.835 – (84.8 S) – (1.015 P)
Where F is the readability of the text, S is the average number of syllables per word, and P is the average number of words per sentence.
The higher the score, the smoother and easier to read the text should be, and therefore accessible to everyone. In general, a text with F>90 should be understandable even by a middle school student, while an F<30 indicates a text written in technical language or otherwise very articulate, understandable only by professionals or people with a high level of education.
The Flesch Reading Ease for SEO articles: usefulness and limitations
As we have seen above, the readability of a text can significantly impact – albeit indirectly – our ranking within search engines. This explains the existence of tools for optimizing SEO articles written in WordPress, among which the very popular SEO Yoast plugin, which uses the Flesch Reading Ease equation precisely to help us improve the structure and clarity of our texts.
If you are familiar with SEO Yoast plugin, you will certainly have noticed that this tool provides you with a general overview of the readability of our texts through the use of a traffic light: green for scores above 60, yellow for those between 60 and 30, and red for those with a score below 30.
But there’s more: the plugin also checks for the presence of other important parameters that ensure the good readability of a text, such as the presence of transition words, the distribution of subtitles (header tags), the length of paragraphs and sentences, the absence of consecutive sentences starting with the same word, and a balance between active and passive verb forms.
The sum of all these elements should therefore help us write texts that capture the attention of readers and search engines alike. But there is a caveat: the Flesch Reading Ease is a statistical formula, and not always can mathematics help us understand the real search intents of our readers.
Those involved in content marketing know this well: writing for the audience is much more important than writing for search engines. When we write meaningful content that adds value to our area of expertise, people will read it. That’s why it’s very important to always keep our target audience in mind whenever we are about to write an article and why the readability of a text cannot be based solely on the length of sentences and words used. Not all topics can be addressed using simple words and short sentences, just as not all types of readers appreciate concise and unstructured texts.
That’s why we must never forget to fully understand our audience and its real needs. This may mean creating texts containing longer and more complex sentences and technical terms compared to those “rewarded” by the Flesch Reading Ease.
On the other hand, always remember that most readers have the skills to read complex texts, but they are often inclined – for reasons of time and/or convenience – to lean towards simpler articles. That’s why a good content marketing strategy should focus on finding a balance between the readability of a text and its real usability and usefulness for the reader.
Some tips to improve the readability of our SEO articles
In conclusion, the Flesch Reading Ease Score – as well as any other index that aims to measure the readability of a text – should be considered as a useful tool to improve the readability of our SEO articles, rather than as a rule to blindly follow. Therefore, rather than focusing on the absolute value of the Flesch Reading Ease of our text, we should first ask ourselves if that text is easy, clear, and understandable enough for our target audience. Readers are indeed inclined to abandon sites that do not meet their search intents, and as mentioned earlier, the time spent on a page is a very important metric for Google’s beloved algorithm.
To facilitate this task, we have identified 5 simple general tips to improve the readability of our texts:
- Understand the needs of our audience, if possible by building a reader persona (that is, a “typical” reader, with specific characteristics, age, level of education, interests);
- Adopt a clear and linear formatting through the use of paragraphs and sub-paragraphs, but also – where possible – lists and bullet points that help the reader to have an overview of the text;
- Carefully choose words, once again adapting our language to our target audience. Let’s opt for words that effectively summarize our message, avoiding unnecessary circumlocutions or overly complicated terms (especially when simpler ones exist that serve the same purpose), which only unnecessarily complicate the flow of our text. You will be surprised how much more readable an article becomes when we eliminate unnecessary words. Also, whenever possible, prefer active verb forms, as they are more immediate and easily understandable;
- Use bold to highlight keywords and particularly important concepts. This is useful not only to focus the reader’s attention on the key themes of our SEO articles, but also to facilitate their scanning by search engine crawlers.
- Lastly, always try to empathize with the reader, maintaining an informal tone, but still consistent with the message we are trying to convey. This is an effective way to capture the reader’s attention and, consequently, increase the time spent on our pages.
