SEO and Readability

June 20, 2009
Rob Ackerman

First and foremost, what is readability and what does it have to do with SEO?

 (such as Gunning Fog, Flesch Kincaid, etc) are formulas for determine the reading ease of copy, typically using the counts of syllables, words, and sentences. However these formulas do not take the meaning of the words into account, so they are not considered definitive measures of readability. As for the portion of what does the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of my page have to do with SEO, the answer is not much. So why use it? While the short answer of Readability doesn’t do much for SEO, there is a much longer answer defending the use of these readability tests.

Most importantly these readability formulas try to evaluate the quality of the content on your pages. Use your findings to tailor your writing style and content for your audience. Ensure that your readers can easily understand your content, without insulting their intelligence. Do not use big words just to impress your readers or the Search Engines. The important thing is that you are providing quality content, at the reading level that is expected.

Many aspects of SEO involve analyzing what your competition is doing, what they are using for their keywords etc. This is also the case with readability. Take a look at your competitors, who are they targeting with their writing? If your competitor’s content is vastly different from your content in terms of readability, you may want to double check who your target audience is.

If you write your copy just for the purpose of search engine optimization your site may perform well, but you may end up losing your customers, because they were not the actual audience you were trying to target. One important aspect for SEOs is not only getting good SERP results, but targeting your audience and how it all converts. What good is getting people to your site, if they don’t?