Readability Checker

Google doesn't have a "readability score" input in its ranking algorithm, but readability drives every metric Google DOES measure: bounce rate, scroll depth, time on page, and whether users come back to search results and click a different result. A page written at a college level about lawn mowing loses to a page written at a 6th-grade level that says the same thing more clearly.

The Flesch Reading Ease scale runs 0–100. Higher is easier. Most consumer web content should target 60–70 (roughly 8th-grade level). Technical B2B content can live at 40–50. Legal or medical content sometimes has to be at 30, and that's fine as long as your audience is specialists. What you want to avoid: a homepage or blog post below 40 unless there's a specific reason.

Shorten sentences. Anything over 25 words is usually two sentences pretending to be one. Break them apart. Cut adverbs — "very," "really," "extremely," "basically." They almost never add meaning. Replace multi-syllable words with shorter ones: "utilize" → "use," "commence" → "start," "in order to" → "to."

Use active voice by default. "The report was written by the team" becomes "The team wrote the report" — same meaning, fewer words, higher clarity. Break walls of text with subheadings every 200–300 words and bullet lists for anything you can enumerate. Add one image or diagram per 500 words. All of these move your Flesch score up and — more importantly — get people to actually read what you wrote.

Not every page should be at 8th-grade level. If your audience is oncologists, patent attorneys, or backend engineers, dumbing down the language makes you look unserious. The rule: match your reader's expected reading level, not the scale's "ideal." A whitepaper for CTOs at a Flesch of 45 is exactly right. That same 45 on a homepage aimed at small-business owners is a mistake.