Fuel your blog’s readership with MS Word

If you want to build up your blog’s readership quickly and easily, one of the best things you can do is make sure your blog posts are, well, readable. You’d be surprised at just how many blogs out there make it hard for visitors to read and assimilate its content.

So today, I’ve decided to share with you a little-know way to make sure your blog posts are more readable using MS Word. Here’s how it’s done:

Boosting your post’s readability
Next time you sit down to write a blog post, don’t do it directly within your blog’s administration interface. Instead fire up your Microsoft Word and do the following:

1) Click on “Tools” in the top menu
2) Select the “Spelling and Grammar…” option
3) Once the Spelling and Grammar menu pops up, click “Options…”
4) In the “Grammar” panel check the box next to “Show readability statistics”
5) Save your new settings and run a spell check on your post.

Following the above instructions lets your Microsoft Word to run your writing through two of the most commonly used readability tests: the Flesch Reading Ease test and the Flesch-Kinkaid Grade Level test.

These two formulas take into account what many great writers have always preached: short sentences with short, common and personal words are easier to read. Here’s how the results from these tests will show up:

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The “Flesch Reading Ease” value can go from 0 to 100. The higher your score, the easier your text is to read (with 60 - 69 being the average).

The “Flesch-Kinkaid Grade Level” means the number of years of education (school grade) generally required to understand your writing. While this totally depends on your readership psychographics, master copywriters recommend that you aim to write for a 6th grade level to assure a higher communication ratio.