The readability of your website depends on your targeted audience.
In most cases, I recommend keeping everything simple to reach the widest audience. In some cases, you may find it better to use a higher level of English:
- A University English Department
- An audience you need to impress or sound sophisticated
There are many tools to help you measure readability on websites. Most of the ones I found don’t work. Here are 2 that do:
- Readable.io. can be used for free but for repeated use you need a subscription.
- Hemingway
- Their recommendations include:
- Write short sentences
- Don’t use long words
- Avoid adverbs
- Avoid passive voice
They will help you make sure you website is easy to understand. If you are a global company, you are probably targeting people that use English as a second language. In this case there are additional considerations:
- Using Idioms will confuse people as they don’t know their meaning. Avoid them.
- Use graphics to explain. Illustrations are a universal language and understood by everyone.
For more tips on how to increase conversions globally click here