Why am I telling you to market to 5^th graders for fun and profit?

Actually I’m really not.

What I’m really trying to say is that you should take advantage of the fact that most people don’t like to read complex copy.

I know I don’t.

In fact, most people prefer to read short paragraphs, short sentences and simple words.

In other words, people like to read content that even a 5^th grader can understand!

The question now becomes how do you determine the reading ease of your copy?

Besides the few tips I’m going to reveal in a moment, there is a way Microsoft Word can tell you exactly the U.S. grade reading level your copy is written in, or how many years of education a person must have in order to understand your copy.

And you do it all with one click of your mouse.

But before I get to that I want to explain a few things to you.

First I want you to understand that people crave simple and easy to understand content.

I can assure you that no one will ever complain that your writing is too easy to understand.

You think your audience is too sophisticated for this?

I wouldn’t be so sure.

A study by the American Institutes for Research shows that more than 50 percent of students at four-year colleges and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges in the United States could not:

• Understand the arguments of newspaper editorials.
• Interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure.
• Summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.
• Compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees.

What’s even worse is that these college students are more literate than the average U.S. adult.

Yikes!

Do you now see the importance of keeping things simple?

Your copy needs to be so simple that in less than five seconds your visitors will understand what you wrote on your page.

Notice that I said “understand” not “read,” there is a big difference between the two.

Your headlines, sub-headlines, body paragraphs, links, and even your navigation bar should all communicate clearly what they’re all about.

You have to write so people can understand what you are trying to say without second-guessing themselves or pulling out a dictionary.

“Write to the chimpanzee brain. Simply. Directly.”
~ Eugene Schartz

5 Tips For Writing Easy To Understand Copy:

Good marketing copy is written in clear, conversational, concise, simple words that get your point across.

You can often ignore what you learned in 5^thgrade about grammar if it makes your content more easily understood.

Try these 5 tips to create great easy-to-understand copy:

1. Simple Sentence Structure

Sentence fragments; one-sentence paragraphs, beginning with conjunctions and ending in prepositions are all fine, and sometimes even necessary.

Most people “skim” online, so it is also a good idea to use plenty of bullets and numbered lists whenever possible.

2. Choose Simple Words

Only bring out your thesaurus when you are trying to find a simpler way of saying something.

For example, say “a lot” instead of “Myriad,” “story” instead of “anecdote,” and “surprised” instead of “flabbergasted.”

Only use longer or more complex words when there are no other words to explain what you are trying to say.

3. Write Short Simple Sentences

You should keep sentences short for the same reason you keep your words short: they’re easier to read and understand.

How short should sentences be?

Drew Eric Whitman, author of the book Ca$hvertising (you can read my book review here) recommends that for best readability your sentences should be approximately 11 words in length.

Each sentence should have one simple thought. More than that creates complexity and invites confusion.

4. Keep Paragraphs Short

Yes, you guessed it.

Just as your words and sentences, paragraphs should be simple and short.

Just look at any newspaper or magazine and notice how short paragraphs really are.

This is done to make reading easier, because human brains take in information better when it’s broken into small pieces.

Remember, writing in marketing is not the same as academic writing.

In marketing, writing is more casual, the style is less formal and paragraphs may be as short as a single sentence or a single word.

5. Don’t forget the Slippery Slope

Think of your copy as nothing more than a slippery slide to get people to slide down your content.

Your headline needs to get your reader to your first sentence. Your first sentence needs to slide the reader into your second sentence. And so on.

Don’t try tricks or clever or cute headlines, or sentences. Just straight, uncensored, easy-to-digest copy.

Do it any other way and you’ll repel people, bore readers, and lose money!

The Flesch Reading Ease Score

Now that you understand why we need simple copy and you understand the basics of how to write it; we need to find a way to check if the copy you write is easy to understand.

Of course you can ask your friends, family or colleagues to help you out and give your their opinion; But as you might imagine this could bring in mixed results and you will not get a real sense of how easy your copy is to read.

Luckily for us there is a more elegant and simple way to gauge the reading ease of your copy.

Enter Dr. Rudolf Flesch.

In the early 1940s Dr. Flesch developed a formula to determine readability that is still used today.

The Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), is a mathematical formula that determines how readable your copy is based on a scale from 1 to 100.

100 being the easiest to read and 1 being the hardest. For example comic books typically score around 90 while legalese can get a score below 10.

Let me show you how the ease score works with a few examples.

The sentence, “John wants food.” Has a Flesch Reading Ease Score of 100. This means that everyone would be able to understanding this sentence, no matter what reading grade level you’re in.

Now let’s take it to the next level, “John is feeling exhausted after a long day and would like to eat some food now.” This sentence has a FRES of 84.8, which means that it is written at about a 6th grade reading level.

This last sentence shows you where you don’t want to be if you are writing marketing copy: “Apparently John has had a tremendously demanding day, which has exhausted him and he would like to have supper immediately.” This sentence has a FRES of 38.4, which means that it is written at a college level.

Flesch Reading Ease Score Chart: Based on U.S. Reading Grade Levels

Your Score	U.S Reading Grade Level
0-30	College Graduate
30-50	College
50-60	10th – 12th grade
60-70	8th – 9th grade
70-80	7th grade
80-90	6th grade
90-100	5th grade

How Do You Calculate The Flesch Reading Ease Score?

The Flesch Reading Ease Score is calculated like this:

1. Calculate the average number of words you use per sentence.
2. Calculate the average number of syllables per word.
3. Multiply the average number of syllables per word multiplied by 84.6 and subtract it from the average number of words multiplied by 1.015.
4. Subtract the result from 206.835.

Flesch Reading Ease Score Formula:
206.835 – (1.015 * average_words_sentence) – (84.6 * average_syllables_word)

If all this sounds confusing to you then don’t worry!

There is no need for you to calculate it all yourself. I let Microsoft Word do all the work for me. – Yes, the same word processor I’m using right now to type this blog post that you’re reading!

Microsoft Word can figure out your Flesch Reading Ease Score with one click of your mouse, and I will show you how to do it.

Using Microsoft Word To find Your
Flesch Readability Ease Score

Using Microsoft Word to find your Flesch Readability Ease Score is really simple.

First, make sure that your readability statistics are showing.

You can enable them on the Proofing Options.

Once you enable the readability statistics you can simply click the spell check button.

After the spell check is complete you will get a window with the readability statistics of your page, or selection.

In these statistics you will find the Flesch Reading Ease Score near the bottom of the window.

(you can also activate the readability scores in Outlook if you wish.)

Microsoft Word also shows you the Flesch-Kinkaid Grade Level Index, which is used by the U.S. Department of Defense to check readability of its forms and publications.

The Flesch-Kinkaid Index tells you the number of years of education your readers need in order to understand your copy.

In the 3 “John wants food” examples above, the Flesch-Kinkaid scores were 0, 5.4, and 12.8.

Want to learn more about copywriting and keeping things simple?

I would recommend reading Drew Eric Whitman’s book  Ca$hvertising, he speds a whole section talking about simplicity and the Fresch Reading Ease Scores.

Google and The Reading Ease Score

Did you know that Google is also implementing the readability ease scores in their search results?

If you haven’t notice them yet, try searching for your website and see how you rank.

Simply enter “site:” before any website address on the Google search input box and click on the search button.

In my case, I would type”site:marketingunfolded.com”

Then, on the left hand side options in the search results page click on “show search tools”
and then click on “reading level.”

This will bring up all the pages on your website that are indexed by Google, along with a reading level chart for your site.

This chart shows the percentage of pages you have in each reading level.

In my case, 10% of my pages are written in a basic reading level, 90% in an intermediate level, and 0% in an advanced level.

Clicking on any of the links will narrow your search to the pages in that reading level.

Here’s an example of what the Harvard Law website looks like:

As you can see it is a little harder to read than mine.

How does your website rank?

The Bottom Line

There is no doubt that creating easy to understand copy is essential to marketing.

There are plenty of rule of thumbs to follow, and tools like the Flesch Reading Ease Score to help you write good content.

But keep in mind that the Flesch Reading Ease Score and the Flesch-Kinkaid Index are only gauges to determine the ease of readability of your content. You should not make an obsession out trying to reach a certain reading grade level.

Even though a 5^th grade reading level would be ideal, it is not necessary for easy to understand copy.

As long as your FRES is not too low and your Flesch-Kinkaid is not too high, you should be OK.

Just try to keep things simple, clear, and to the point.

And always remember:

“Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.”
~ Leonardo Da Vinci