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phanio
08-30-2010, 11:19 AM
We have recently revamped our website attempting to make it a bit more user friendly, clearer in its goals and much more concise. As part of this revamp, we run our site through several SEO web site graders to see how it stakes up to our competition, how it is seen by search engines and, most importantly, how it is seen by our users.

To that note, one recent site scan by websitegrader.com, recommended that we dumb down our site’s content. In fact, this was it analysis and recommendation;

“Readability Level: Graduate School

This score measures the approximate level of education necessary to read and understand the web page content. In most cases, the content should be made to be simple so that a majority of the target audience can understand it.”

Not only were we shocked by this but a bit surprised as we felt our entire site was written in a “plain English” manner that all could easily understand. Further, we thought it would be extremely rude to assume that our users or any users for that matter need to be talked down to or have content dumbed down for.

Thus, it is either us that is wrong (and we think we know our user best) or the website grader.

To the note, we will ask you. Tell us what you think. Do you think our site is written at a graduate school level and should be made simpler “so that a majority of the target audience can understand it?”

Spider
08-30-2010, 12:01 PM
I read a couple of pages, not the entire site by any means, and they sounded fine to me. They were written in good, balanced English and very explicit, to my ear. Perhaps the auto-grader wanted shorter sentences. Perhaps the typical high-school dropout cannot be expected to understand complex sentences. But are high-school dropouts your target audience?

KristineS
08-30-2010, 02:22 PM
I didn't think that it was too complicated. Things were explained in clear English, and it didn't strike me as using a lot of language that the average person wouldn't know.

The whole "dumbing down" thing seems to be a common theme in Marketing and Advertising now. I think a lot of time the intelligence and understanding of the average person is grossly underestimated. I also think there should be different standards for sites about different things. If you're writing about entertainment, for example, you should probably keep the language very simple. If, however, you're writing about finance and loans, you want your readers to have a higher level of comprehension and understanding. If they can't comprehend what is currently on your site, how would they comprehend a loan document?

vangogh
08-30-2010, 11:43 PM
First take all tools that attempt to tell you how well your site is performing with a grain of salt. None are every going to be accurate. Most are written to attract incoming links to the page and site and the majority of seo grader tools at best give you some really basic advice. Most also give some rather bad advice as well.

As far as the writing on the site is concerned, be careful listening to any of us too. Frederick and Kristine say it reads fine, but Frederick and Kristine are both rather intelligent people. I don't know if either went to graduate school, but it's obvious both are more than capable of reading at a graduate level.

There is something called the Gunning Fog Index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunning-Fog_Index). I wrote a post about it (http://www.vanseodesign.com/blogging/the-secret-to-more-subscribers/) a few years ago. The Index is meant to determine the reading level of your writing.

From my post:



Take a full passage that is around 100 words (do not omit any sentences).

Find the average sentence length (divide the number of words by the number of sentences).

Count words with three or more syllables (complex words), not including proper nouns (for example, Djibouti), compound words, or common suffixes such as -es, -ed, or -ing as a syllable, or familiar jargon.

Add the average sentence length and the percentage of complex words (ex., +13.37%, not simply + 0.1337)

Multiply the result by 0.4


The above leads to the formula



0.4 * ( (words / sentences) + 100 (complex words / words) )


A result of 12 corresponds to a high school senior.

The basic ideas behind the advice of the seo tool is that more people have a bachelor's degree than a graduate degree. More people have a high school diploma than a bachelor's degree. By "dumbing down" (I hate that phrase by the way) your writing, it can better communicate with more people. I think the ideal for general writing is between 10th and 12 grade, though don't hold me to that. Naturally your ideal depends on who you're writing for. Is your audience more or less educated than the average. If you're not sure aim for the 10th - 12th grade level.

Steve B
08-31-2010, 05:47 AM
I think the target is typically 8th or 9th grade. At least that's what I remember hearing at one time. Of course, that's probably based on 8th or 9th grade educations from a long time ago which had considerably more spelling, grammer, and sentence structure than today - so 10 to 12 might be the current target.

vangogh
08-31-2010, 10:41 AM
You might be right. I'm not entirely sure about the 10th to 12th grade target. If you read some of the stuff on the best seller list it's often targeted toward a 6th or 7th grade reading level. Naturally it comes down to who your audience is more than anything.

jamesray50
12-03-2010, 03:33 AM
Phianio - I ran my website through the same webgrade as you when I first finished mine. I had written the content myself and gave my website a high school level. But I had a few negative feedback, changed it, still got a high school level so I hired a copy wirter from this forum. I changed my website today and ran it through again and got the same Graduate School readability level. I wanted a higher readability level. My target audience are small business owners, so I imagine the majority of them will have some kind of education beyond high school. Probably not graduate school level, even I don't have that. But my content does sound better than before. But my grade with down 5 points, I wonder if that is why, I didn't change anything else, except to add an image.

AmyAllen
12-03-2010, 09:31 AM
I think it's hilarious that we have computer programs just to tell us that people are too dumb to read. :P

There are some parts that are a little lingo heavy. (Here is one example: "Additionally, many small businesses, due to their innovation and market potential, can qualify for alternative financing options like venture capital or even government equity financing resources." ) But I assume your target audience (small businesses looking for start-up financing) would probably have researched their options enough to follow the copy.

KristineS
12-03-2010, 02:48 PM
I think it's kind of hilarious that we think about this at all really. A lot of things now days seem to be set to the lowest common denominator. I think I said this earlier, but a lot of times companies tend to underestimate people's intelligence, or their willingness to research something or learn more if they don't understand.

Spider
12-03-2010, 06:32 PM
I'm sure this suggested 8th grade reading level (or whatever is recommended) relates to easy reading, novels, newspapers, magazines, tv advertising and so on. Keep the general stuff simple to appeal to the general population. But when you are reaching out to a specific demographic your writing style should match that demographic. So,f you are trying to appeal to highschool dropouts, write like a highschool dropout. If you are trying to appeal to engineers, write like an engineer. If you are reaching out to young mothers, write like a young mother. If you want Harvard professors to buy your stuff, write like a Harvard professor.

billbenson
12-03-2010, 11:15 PM
Remember people skim the text on websites. Sometimes you may want text that makes people think and read, but I bet PHD's want simple text.

vangogh
12-06-2010, 11:12 AM
Bill I think people scan text on websites to decide if they want to read, but having made the decision to read they do read. I'd also add that people skim text online has a lot to do with most content online being worthless to read. When I pick up the New York Times or Washington Post I feel pretty confident that any article I start to read will be worthwhile. I also know the most important information will be at the top of the article. When I land on someone's site I don't have that confidence. Some sites I've learned to trust over time, but even with those I often find subpar content. So a quick scan helps sort the stuff I want to read from the stuff I don't.

@Frederick - I think the 8th grade target reading level is more to do with increasing the reach of your writing. Less people go to graduate school than go to college. Less go to college than go to high school. I think this is less about dumbing things down than it is reaching a wider audience. That also suggests the reading level you write to should depend somewhat on your topic and who you see as your market.