Camille Cunningham
Camille is Content Manager at Yoast. She writes and optimizes blog posts and enjoys creating content that will help people master SEO.
Writing seems easy enough, but writing compelling text that will grab attention is quite difficult. Especially online. In order for people to stay on your side, you need to write quality content that is easy to read. Easier said than done? You are absolutely right. That is why we introduced a readability analysis in our Yoast SEO plugin five years ago. On the occasion of the 5th anniversary, our CEO Marieke van de Rakt and Irene Strikkers (creators of the analysis) explain why readability is important for your content SEO.
But first the Yoast readability analyzer
Before we start our interview, you can watch this short video about our readability analysis. Check this out to get an idea of how our readability analysis works, and what it can do for you!
The importance of legibility
Can you tell us why readability is important?
Marieke: “If a text is nice and easy to read, you have a higher chance that your readers will stay on your side and read your text. You won’t get bored anytime soon and the chance that they will understand your message will be greater. Sometimes the thing you are explaining may be difficult, but your formulation or structure should never make it difficult. “
And why is readability important for SEO?
Marieke: “Google tries to offer the user the best possible experience. If a text is nice and easy to read, that is simply better for the user. Readability is therefore important indirectly through user-friendliness. But there is also a direct effect: Google also reads texts. Google’s algorithm tries to imitate a human. So if Google reads texts in the same way as humans, the demands on readability increase. “
Read more: What is readability and why is it important? »
How the readability analysis came about
How did you come up with the idea of doing a readability analysis?
Marieke: “Well … the idea came from me. We had the SEO analysis in our plugin and I felt that sometimes people were forced to write texts that were illegible at all. Too much focus on SEO can affect the readability of a text. I felt we needed something to make up for that. Also, the Panda update and the Hummingbird update showed us that text and context are important. Therefore, readability became more and more important for SEO. And that made the need for a tool that helps people read more urgently. “
“We decided to hire a linguist to help us develop the readability analysis. And then Irene came to Yoast. “
Irene: “I came in 2016 for a planned 6-month project. However, it turned out there was so much we could do and build. And there were so many things that required language-specific research that it’s been an ongoing project ever since. We even now have a whole team working full-time on adding language-related features. “
Were there any similar tools back then?
Irene: “There were some tools for correcting spelling and grammar, but very few tools that focus on readability. Those that existed didn’t give really actionable feedback. They said a sentence was difficult to read but didn’t explain what to do about it. Or they focused on very specific details within sentences, such as finding adverbs that could be removed. In addition, almost all of the feedback would be at the sentence level. We have seen very few tools that provide feedback on the structure of the text, for example on paragraph length or the use of subheadings. “
What was the process of creating the readability analysis like?
Irene: “We started by researching the existing tools and their effects. In addition, we read scientific papers on the factors that influence the readability of a text. This allowed us to compile a long list of potential readability checks and exploratively examine what the algorithms might look like. It also helped us decide whether it was even possible to create an algorithm for them. “
“Together with the Yoast board of directors, we decided which checks to implement. Which would be reliable, doable, and could contain actionable advice that we could provide as feedback. Then we continued researching what the algorithms should look like, what the limits would be and thus the scores of the different colored balls in our analysis. But also what weight the various checks should have in the overall readability of a text. “
“After all of this was clarified, we could start implementing the checks in our Yoast SEO plugin. And of course lots of testing and fine-tuning to get where we wanted to be. We used real-world texts to see if the scores of the individual exams as well as the total score make sense. One of the checks was already removed in this last phase because it was simply not reliable enough. “
Analysis can help you with this
What can readability analysis do for Yoast SEO users?
Marieke: “I think our analysis can really help users to write a text that is nice and easy to read. And that will help their users better understand the message. Writing can be difficult, we make it a little less difficult. “
You can find the readability analysis in the Yoast SEO Metabox or Sidebar
Doesn’t it depend on my audience how difficult my text should be?
Marieke: “If you have a very niche audience, you can of course get away with a more complicated text. However, the whole idea of SEO is to reach audiences beyond the people you already know and reach. SEO is about attracting more people, people outside of your specific niche. Writing a readable text is about opening up your knowledge to more people. “
“I wrote a dissertation on the intergenerational transmission of criminal convictions over the course of life. It’s pretty difficult. It even passed the readability test. “
The analysis can currently be used in more than 15 languages, but how do you decide which language to add next?
Marieke: “The language availability in our analysis has to do with the number of users we have in a certain country or a certain language, but also with our expertise. To add a language, we need a linguist who knows the language. Otherwise it’s really hard. That’s why we’re not that far with languages like Japanese. “
Irene: “We recently started working with native speaker advisors. We are less dependent on how many languages we speak ourselves. These consultants do most of the research for their native language and our linguists lead them and do the check based on their input. “
Where do you get the input for the analysis in different languages?
Irene: “Whether we’re working on a language that one of us speaks or working with a native speaker, every new language expansion begins with a lot of research. We need to figure out how to recognize the passive voice, make a list of transition words, find a way to count syllables, and much more. We also need to explore the limits of the ratings. For example, 20 words is a reasonable sentence length limit for English, but 15 words turned out to be a better limit for Hebrew. For all of this, we use a combination of the researcher’s language skills and other available sources about the respective language. “
How much has the readability analysis changed in the last 5 years?
Marieke: “I think the biggest change in our analysis has to be the support of many different languages. We started with an analysis that focused on English, but today it can be used in more than 15 languages. “
What’s your favorite readability analysis feature?
Marieke: “I like the short sentences. This is the best way to make a difficult subject easier to understand. When writing for a niche, you will likely need to use certain words. If you shorten your sentences, your writing really becomes accessible to a wider audience. “
Irene: “I’m a fan of transition word evaluation. However, people learn transitional words because of this, and additionally at school, when they learn to read and understand texts. However, in later life, some people forget that they exist. The use of transitional words throughout the text can really make the difference between a coherent text and just a series of sentences. “
What’s next …
Can we expect changes to the analysis to be made in the near future?
Marieke: “We have so many ideas … but we can’t build everything at once. We will definitely add more languages. But we are also thinking about a tool for how to write inclusive. “
Irene: “We are also planning to expand our linguistics team. That means that in the future we will do more research and build things faster! “
What can we expect before our readability analysis turns 10?
Marieke: “We will cover many more languages! And we will have additional functions, such as an inclusive write check. We can also do spelling and grammar checks. I think the Yoast SEO Readability Analysis should be a tool that can help you with every aspect of your writing! “
Irene: “I would really like to add more non-Indo-European languages. For languages like Japanese that don’t use spaces between words, we even find it difficult to count words. We have done some initial research for Japanese and have often had plans to really start working on that language. I think that will finally happen sometime in the next 5 years! “
Would you like to know more?
We hope you enjoyed this interview and the insights into our analysis! If you want to know more, you can read our article on how to use analytics or use Yoast SEO to get started with your content readability.
