If the language used on your web site is over the head of the average eighth grader, you’re probably losing traffic and sales. This is not to say that your site’s visitors are stupid, but they are easily bored and they have plenty of other options. Sites that are loaded with jargon or technical information aren’t typically easy to read and if you’re not creating a site only for doctors or scientists you need to make sure that you’re using plain, everyday English to describe your products and services.
If you’re a professional in any field it’s easy to get stuck in your own world and use mostly formal words and technical terms that are easily understood by your colleagues. This kind of language can even be used to convey expertise when speaking with potential clients or customers, but it can also be sales suicide if it clogs up the pages of your web site.
The good news is that it’s easy to improve your site’s readability in minutes using a couple of free tools. Financial consulting firm Deloitte & Touche offers a free software download called Bullfighter at
http://www.dc.com/insights/bullfighter/index.asp. This software works like a spelling or grammar checker within Microsoft Word and PowerPoint except that it focuses on jargon and readability.
Once you’ve cut the unnecessary jargon and technical language from your pages, you can use the readability tool within Microsoft Word to check their reading grade level. The tool basically scores your pages based on the number of words per sentence and the number of syllables per word and you want to aim for an eighth grade reading level.
To use the tool in Word select the Tools menu, click Options and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab. Select the checkbox marked Show Readability Statistics. Now whenever you click Spelling & Grammar on the standard toolbar it will finish with a readability statistics window after it’s done checking for errors in spelling and grammar. This window will display a Flesch Reading Ease score of between 1 and 100, the higher the score the easier the document is to read. Below that score will appear the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score of between 1 and 12, for example a score of 7 indicates a seventh grade reading level.
Copy and paste the text from your web pages into a Word document to check them for excessive jargon and poor readability scores. If your pages get between 9 and 12 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score, try making the paragraphs and sentences shorter. Check the readability level again and if it’s still high take a look at the average number of syllables per word. Use the built -in thesaurus to help you replace as many of the long words as you can. Keep checking your scores until you’re comfortable with them. Remember that lengthy URLs in your text can increase your score due to the number of letters and “syllables” in them so you may want to test the pages with and without the URLs present to get a more accurate reading.
These tips can help you to instantly increase the amount of time that visitors spend perusing your web pages, which will help you get your sales message across. Internet surfers generally scan pages looking for information that they’re interested in before deciding what they want to read, so your shorter sentences and paragraphs will keep their attention longer and that will have a positive impact on your sales.
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S. Denise Hoyle is President and co-founder of http://affiliatesifter.com/, an affiliate directory site devoted to providing links, news and information of interest to webmasters and affiliate program managers.
