Text Readability: Indices and What to Do with Them
Readability is an assessment of how easily text is perceived: sentence length, word length, proportion of complex constructions. It does not directly affect ranking, but it influences whether the page will be read. You can calculate it using a readability analyzer — it provides several indices at once.
What the Indices Mean
Classic readability formulas are based on simple features: the average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per word. The result is usually related to the level of education required for easy understanding of the text. The formulas were developed for English, so for Russian and other languages, their values are interpreted as guidelines rather than verdicts.
What to Do with a Poor Result
- Break long sentences. The quickest way to improve any index is to put a period instead of a comma.
- Remove nominalizations. “Verification is being carried out” → “we verify”.
- Replace terms with understandable ones where the audience is not professional.
- Add structure: subheadings, lists, tables. Formulas do not see this, but readers do.
- Read aloud. The place where your breath catches is an overloaded sentence.
| Audience | Complexity Guideline |
|---|---|
| Mass, broad query | Simpler: short sentences, minimal terms |
| Professional | More complex is acceptable: terms save the reader's time |
| Documentation | Medium: accuracy is more important than ease, but without bureaucratic language |
What the Formulas Do Not See
Indices count words and syllables but do not understand meaning. A text made up of short sentences filled with terms without explanations will receive an excellent score and remain unclear. Conversely, a complex sentence with a clear example reads easily. Therefore, after edits, it is useful to give the text to someone who is not familiar with the topic — their questions will tell you more than any formula.
Connection to Promotion
An unreadable page loses visitors before they reach the offer — and links do not compensate for this. If a page is on the brink of the top, working with the text and snippet often yields a quicker boost than links: see meta tag verification.