Online Readability Checker to Test Reading Ease Level

Simply put, readability is an index that denotes the amount of effort a reader should put in order to understand a text. The better this index is, the easier it is to comprehend the material. Generally speaking, readability is determined by the complexity of lexical and syntactical means used in a given piece of writing. In addition, such typographic aspects as font, its size, intervals, and line length, also contribute to the readability index.

The vast majority of formulas dedicated to calculating the readability index comprise several aspects:

1. Short sentences are usually easier to comprehend than the long ones.
2. Simple and short words are a lot easier to understand than their counterparts.
3. Commonly known words are easier to comprehend than some specific terms or old-fashioned words.

Any material that has decent readability score is a lot easier to read through and, consequently, understand it clearly. For instance, if a person wants to show off their large vocabulary and uses such words and expressions as commence, in close proximity, facilitate, etc., it negatively affects the readability index as some people may be unaware of them. If the text is hard to comprehend, many people will just stop reading and your thoughts, no matter how brilliant they are, will simply remain unheard.

Another example is complicated language in contracts, where people can hardly understand what they are signing. As a result, to avoid being in an awkward situation, people usually read through a contract several times to understand it fully. Of course, this is not the case when it comes to a web-page content. Just like in the first example, people will simply close the tab with your web-page if they don’t understand what they are reading. To avoid such situations, it’s better to improve the text and make it more readable by using simpler words and syntactic constructions.

It is a known fact that search engines do not usually score the readability index, as they pay attention to other aspects like keyword density and uniqueness. At this point, you may ask, why should I care about it, then?

The truth is that the search engine ranking system takes into account users’ behavior. For example, such aspects are considered while ranking this or that page: time spent on the page, bounce rate, exit rate.

As you see, if the text is readable, then users will dedicate their time to check it and, consequently, will stay at your web page longer. As a result, it will be ranked better, as the search engine will understand that people like what you write.

Nobody wants to deal with information that is hard to perceive and comprehend. We live in a fast-paced world, and no one wants to waste their time. Thus, it is our job to make users like what they read. SEO experts recommend to choose “readable” and short domain names for websites, so users can easily understand and remember them.

A well-written article with good readability score is more likely to be read by a bigger number of visitors, thus boosting bounce and exit rates that will result in better SEO.