If you use Yoast SEO or any other popular SEO plugin on your WordPress blog, you may already be familiar with the readability analysis of those plugins. However, you may be wondering: What is the readability of Flash, and what can I do to improve it?
You’re not alone. Many WordPress users ask themselves what makes Flash easier to read. Fortunately, this metric is very straightforward. Basically, it tells you whether your text is (or isn’t) easy to read. Plus, getting a good flash reading ease score isn’t that hard when you apply some good writing practices.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the Flash readability score and why it’s important. Then, we will share some tips to help you improve your score. let’s get started!
What is Flash Reading Ease Score?
Flash readability is a metric that measures the readability of a piece of text. it is named the author who made it Rudolf Flesch.
This readability test is often used in education to measure the difficulty level of books. It takes into account two factors when determining the score of a lesson:
- The average length of sentences (measured by the number of words)
- The average number of syllables per word
A high score (60-100) indicates that the text is easy to read, while any score less than 60 means that the content is difficult to read and understand. here is a complete score breakdown,
- 90-100: The text is very easy to read and even an 11-year-old student can understand it.
- 80-90: The content is written in conversational English and is easy to read.
- 70-80: Overall, the text is quite easy to read.
- 60-70: The text is written in general English and can be understood by students aged 13 to 15.
- 50-60 Writing is hard to read.
- 30-50: The text is difficult to read and is best understood by college graduates.
- 0-30: The material is very difficult to read and is best understood by university graduates.
As you can see, the scores are based on education level. However, the flash reading ease test can also be applied to other forms of online content such as web copy and articles.
In fact, many SEO plugins like Yoast use this to determine the difficulty level of a blog post:
Any number above 60-70 is considered a good score. This means that your text is written in clear, easy English and can be understood by almost everyone.
Why is the Flash Reading Ease score important?
Now that we have seen what flash readability is and how it is measured, let’s discuss its importance.
As we’ve seen, a good score (60-100) indicates that your content is easy to read and understand. Even if your blog targets a fluent audience with a higher level of education, your posts should still be worth reading.
It’s important to remember that a large proportion of your site’s visitors will be viewing your content from a mobile device. If they’ve got large chunks of text and long sentences, they can easily feel frustrated by all the scrolling and verbose language. This can lead to a higher bounce rate, as many people will leave the page before even reading the post.
Additionally, about 73% of people will only see your blog posts [1], Therefore, you’ll want to make sure that your content is not only readable, but skimmable as well.
Aiming for a high Flash readability score can help you increase engagement on your site. If a visitor finds your content interesting and easy to read, they may decide to check out other posts on your blog.
A high engagement rate will show Google that your site provides valuable and relevant content. This in turn can help improve your ranking in search engine results.
Plus, users are more likely to read a post to the end if your content is easy to understand. They may also click on your affiliate link, leave a comment, or share your post.
Therefore, Flash Reading Easy Score can help you publish engaging content. You can use this to determine the readability of your post and make any necessary adjustments to improve the text.
How would you improve the Flash Ease of Reading score?
Now, let’s take a look at some tips to help you improve your flash read ease score. As mentioned earlier, this metric is based on the average length of sentences and the number of syllables per word.
So, if your content contains a lot of long sentences, you are likely to get low marks. Similarly, a post that contains many difficult words will not do well on a flash reading ease test.
Luckily, if you’re using Yoast on your site, the plugin will tell you if a post has a high percentage of long sentences:
if you click on the eye sign, it will also highlight these sentences for you. Then, you can simply rewrite them so that they are shorter and easier to read.
Yost also recommends using less difficult words. This is especially important if you want to reach a wide audience.
For example, if you write troubleshooting guides for website owners, you’ll want to avoid using technical jargon. Many readers will be unfamiliar with these concepts. Also, they probably want someone to explain the problem in simple terms.
While you’re writing your post, you’ll want to keep an eye on your Flash Reading Ease score. Otherwise, you may reach the end, get a bad score, and have to rewrite the post.
If you use Yoast, select the SEO tab and then find the Insights Section:
Click on it and scroll down to your Flash Reading Ease score:
Here, you will also find the average reading time and word count of your posts. If your score is unsatisfactory, Yoast suggests using shorter sentences and easier vocabulary.
Conclusion
The Flash Reading Ease Score is a metric that measures the readability of a text. A high score (60-100) indicates that the content is easy to read and understand. This can make your post more engaging and provide a better ranking in search results.
Some SEO plugins like Yoast will include this metric in their analysis. To make your content more readable, you’ll want to use short sentences and avoid difficult words. Overall, you need to aim for simple and concise language.
