7 Awesome Tools to Make Your Content More Readable
Have you ever wondered how “readable” your writing really is? How can you know — not just guess — that you have achieved a good fit between what your content is and your intended audience?
The truth is that no matter how good your writing is, if it is not at a level your specific audience can understand, it will simply not be effective; moreover, it will likely not be remembered (or even understood in the first place.)
That’s were a Readability Index tool comes in…
Readability Index
A readability index (RI) is a tool designed to measure the reading level of a particular piece of writing. Most are a measurement of what level of education your reader might need to understand your written piece, for example, 8th Grade, 12th Grade, University, etc.
The process is fairly simple. Each tool uses a different formula, of course, but in general it is typically some version of the number of characters per word, the number of words per sentence, and the number of total sentences, all divided into one another.
Generally, on most scales, the higher number (i.e. score), the more difficult your writing is and, thus, the more education your audience would require to grasp it.
Simple, right?
If you are interested in seeing what level your writing is catering to, here is a quick list of some of my favorite RI tools:
Readability Test Tool
Test Your Readablity
Document Readability Test
Readability Analyzer
Perry Marshall Reader (the simplest)
SMOG Analyzer
Analyze My Writing (more difficult to "interprete", but LOADS of valuable data)
Important Tip: I strongly encourage you to do your actual writing in whatever mode you are currently using, such as Word, Google Docs, etc. and then just copy and paste your work into the program.
These RI tools are online and, as you may know, sometimes online things crash. I would hate for you to lose hours or days of hard work just because your connection was interrupted.
Post a comment to let us know your favorite RI tool and how it worked for you.
Good luck :-)
Recent Comments
46
Wow, a boatload of information in your short blog. Thanks for the links. Yeah, I use Word and Grammarly to the letter.
I'm actually using Yoast. The RI is built into the SEO. What is your experience with it? Paula
Nice. I don't use Yoast, but that's a great feature if it's already built in. How is it working for you?
That's awesome. You should put out a training on how to use it. Sounds like an awesome tool :-)
I haven't looked this up yet, but this just blew me away.i can't wait to see this......your the greatest
Jimmy G
Hi Aj,
I appreciate the valuable information that you have shared with us. Thank you! Much success to you!
Kind regards,
Nichola
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Really great tolls!
I will test one of these programs.
Thanks
Ingrid
Awesome. Let me know how it works for you : -)