By S. Denise Hoyle
If the language used on your web site is over the head of the
average eighth grader, youÆre probably losing traffic and sales.
This is not to say that your siteÆs visitors are stupid, but
they are easily bored and they have plenty of other options.
Sites that are loaded with jargon or technical information
arenÆt typically easy to read and if youÆre not creating a site
only for doctors or scientists you need to make sure that youÆre
using plain, everyday English to describe your products and
services.
If youÆre a professional in any field itÆs 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 itÆs easy to improve your siteÆs
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 youÆve 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 itÆs 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 youÆre 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 theyÆre 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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About the author:
S. Denise Hoyle is President and co-founder of
http://getitappraised.com, the domain name portal offering
expert domain name and developed web site appraisal services
from certified appraisers.
(c) Copyright 2003, S. Denise Hoyle. All Rights Reserved.
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