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Does Greater Readability Equal Greater Readership?

readability level

Does writing material at the level at which most people read translate to a useful tool to attract more readers?

Here are the approximate Lexile numbers for each grade level of reading difficulty.

  • BR = Below first grade
  • Grade 1 200-400
  • Grade 2 300-500
  • Grade 3 420-700
  • Grade 4 600-830
  • Grade 5 800-920
  • Grade 6 850-1010
  • Grade 7 930-1070
  • Grade 8 1000-1120
  • Grade 9 1020-1150
  • Grade 10 1100-1200
  • Grade 11 1130-1230
  • Grade 12 1200-1310
  • College Freshman/Sophomore 1200-1450
  • College Junior/Senior 1300-1500
  • Graduate School 1480-1700

Let’s take a look at the Blogs listed in the Technorati Top Ten. Technorati measures popularity by the number of incoming links a site receives. We’ll start with the most popular.

  1. Engadget - College Post Graduate Level
  2. Gizmodo - Junior High Level
  3. TechCrunc- High School Level
  4. BoingBoing - High School Level
  5. The Huffington Post - Junior High Level
  6. Lifehacker - Junior High Level
  7. Ars Techica - Genius Level
  8. Blog di Beppe Grillo - High School Level
  9. Mashable - High School Level
  10. Federated Media Publishing - Genius Level

Then of course there is Technorati itself, which is consistently written at the Junior High Level.

Basically, it appears that websites that are heavy in content and contain actual composed material which people are expected to read, are written at the Junior High and Early High School Level. Web sites that act a mere clearing houses designed to provide Readers Digest versions of content are written at a higher level.

So, the question continues, does writing at a target reading level increase your readership? Well, it certainly seems to increase the likelihood your material will be added to summarized versions of content carried by the most linked sites which appear to be most concerned with brokering information created by others.

What do you think? Does writing to a wider audience increase website readership?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 24th, 2007 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Elemental Truths, Nudge, tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Does Greater Readability Equal Greater Readership?”

  1. Mister Thorne Says:
    December 25th, 2007 at 4:51 pm

    Makes sense. But not everyone wants a BIG audience. Many sites are targeted to very specific audiences. Still, it’s always best to keep readability and legibility in mind.

  2. Reg Says:
    December 25th, 2007 at 6:06 pm

    Hello Mister Thorne,
    Thank you for dropping in. You are correct! Big audiences are not always the objective. But, knowing WHO your audience is and the composition and structure of the material they most prefer to read can provide invaluable insight.

  3. Mister Thorne Says:
    December 25th, 2007 at 10:24 pm

    I agree. Absolutely. You must know your audience.

  4. Reg Says:
    December 26th, 2007 at 2:25 am

    Mister Thorne,
    By what means do you determine your audience?
    Demographics, subscribership, email listings?

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