Are you looking for some relevant & valuable ways to improve the readability of your content? First of all, you must know that thousands of blogs are published every day, but only a few of them are considerate of the readers.
Hence, when writing for a specific audience, your first goal should always be to create something easy to follow. Something that’s simple yet has the charm or attractiveness to attract audiences.
It is an endless process of understanding your readers and putting in all your efforts until you make it. So, are you ready to explore the needs of your audience & make it a worthy and fruitful process?
Let’s start our guide on improving your content’s readability to help you achieve your goals.
8 Tips to Improve Readability
1. Identify Your Audience
Before you write anything, you should definitely know who you are writing for. It is the base of the whole foundation. For instance, suppose you have to reach a specific person you don’t know anything about. Could that work for you? Absolutely no, right?
Henceforth, knowing your readers’ preferences can help you get their attention. The more you know about them, the more you can connect with them. Additionally, it can also benefit you in strengthening your position as a reliable source.
Therefore, the first step in the process of improving your content’s readability starts with your understanding of your audience.
2. Keep Sentences Short
When we read something, what bothers us most is a sentence that’s a bit dragged too much. If you think it is a trivial problem, you are absolutely wrong. Reading a long sentence can kill your reader’s interest in the text, which can be fatal in creating engaging content.
Moreover, if you keep your sentences short, people can easily understand them. They can keep it in their minds more effortlessly, which can definitely improve your engagement rate.
Hence, make your sentences up to 20 words if you want to see a better result. And don’t forget to break any long sentence in your text if you notice one.
3. No Long Paragraphs
Yes, extended paragraphs can complicate your content’s readability. Always remember, no one wants to read a long paragraph in a blog post. What’s more? It can also make them leave your site immediately. As for its visual appearance, a bulky long paragraph can hardly look beautiful.
So, be mindful of the length of your paragraph, and don’t extend it up to 4 to 5 lines. You can also use different sections for different ideas to make them more valuable.
A good, well-managed paragraph adds beauty and standards to your text. Therefore, please don’t take the length of your paragraph for granted, as it can seriously influence your readability score.
4. Mind Your Word Choice
One of the most critical factors that directly affect the readability of your content is your choice of words. It immediately questions who you are writing for. For example, the word choice for an academic piece and a blog post is almost entirely different.
However, as we know, we are currently talking about social posts. So, remember that your audiences are likely to be people from all age groups and categories. Hence, if you are writing for them, you should use as simple words as possible.
Along with that, avoid using excessive jargon or hard-to-follow words. Using pretentious words or jargon can displease your readers, which is not beneficial for your blogs.
5. The Grammar
Proper use of grammar in your text is necessary if you want to score high on your readability. To be reachable and understandable by social communities, you should use grammar that we generally use. It might look a little scary, but don’t worry; you will get this once you start writing.
Furthermore, be confident in what you are writing and let your readers be in the flow of your words. And make sure to use some advanced grammatical usages like transitional words to enhance the sentence. Transitional phrases can easily make your sentence clearer, more profound, and close to the meaning.
Apart from that, make sure to reduce passive voices in your content because passive voice makes the content difficult to read and understand. You can take the help of writing tools like Grammarly to improve your grammar.
6. Format Is Important
A suitable format is undeniable if you want to improve your content’s readability. Keep in mind that a perfect structure and format lead to an excellent writing piece. So, plan the whole structure in your mind and then put it in your desired format.
However, don’t use any unusual format that can cause you a disadvantage. For example, choosing your font style, headings, and subheadings are essential to the whole thing.
Most importantly, be careful of the size of your words and the space between your sentences. A single mistake can cause your readers difficulty while reading your blog.
7. Use Friendly Language
If you want to connect with your audience directly through your writing, using friendly language is essential. Your tone of speaking can make a reader closer to your text, and it can also make them distant too. Hence, always choose your words correctly to deliver the exact message you want to convey.
In addition, the more you make your blog simple, the better will be the readability score. Most people are interested in reading something easygoing and straightforward.
Would you like to check the dictionary while reading a blog post repeatedly? Of course, no. Hence, you can guess the importance of friendly language in engaging your content.
8. Editing & Proofreading
The last touch is necessary to organize the whole thing into a valuable piece of work. And without editing, it is impossible. We often make mistakes while writing, and editing can fix the flaws.
We are sometimes in a different mood when writing. Hence, writing can also vary based on the writer’s mood. So, to ensure your writing goes in the right direction, don’t forget to give it one final touch.
Another essential step to improve your readability is proofreading. And we recommend you do it with a proofreader. We get so familiar with the text when we write that we can’t notice our flaws. Hence, before publishing, proofread it properly, and you’ll know where you are missing to connect with the audience.
Final Words
To be able to write something engaging, you must keep trying until you reach your goal. It’s not an overnight process. It is a long process of understanding what you are writing and who you are writing for. And there are many other things you should consider to improve your readability, like, SEO factors, images, etc.
However, we hope our tips to improve your content’s readability will help you reach your target. And if you want to know more about quality content and how to make it according to Google, stay connected.
