say what? … how easy to read is your web content?

Simple, concise language, short sentences and plenty of sub-headings are key to making a website easy to read, according to all the research. But how can you tell if you’ve done a good job in writing your web content?

I’ve just come across this great tool to measure and rank the readability of your web content: The Readability Test tool.

I found it in this very useful article on best practice tips for improving web content.  I recommend this article as a good start to anyone wondering how to tidy up their website.

And how did this site rank?! The tool said it should be easily understood by 15 to 16 year olds. Not quite our target market! … but we think we need to get it down even lower to around the 12-13 years age  group. We want it to be quickly and very easily understood by very busy people.

Here’s a page of links to tons of high-quality papers and essays about how users read on the Web and how authors should write their web pages.

Some high-level information about web writing is here.