write content that both readers and search engines love
Readability Analysis
Your content could be great, but if it’s hard to read, your audience won’t stick around. Our Readability Analysis helps you turn complex ideas into clear, engaging writing.
Included in Yoast SEO, Yoast SEO Premium, Yoast WooCommerce SEO, Yoast SEO for Shopify, Yoast SEO Google Docs Add-on, and Yoast SEO AI+.
Why does readability matter? Because your audience won’t wait around for bad writing
If your content feels like a chore to read, packed with long sentences, jargon, or passive voice, your readers will bounce. Fast. Search engines notice this behavior. When visitors spend more time on your page, it signals to search engines and AI that your content is valuable.
Besides SEO, readability is also about respect. Respect for your reader’s time, attention, and intelligence. Clear, engaging writing builds trust, keeps people coming back, and turns casual visitors into loyal fans. With Yoast SEO’s Readability Analysis, you’re not just improving your content, but giving your audience the experience they deserve.
The different readability assessments in Yoast SEO vs Yoast SEO Premium
| Readability assessment | Yoast SEO | Yoast SEO Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Subheading distribution | ✓ | ✓ |
| Paragraph length | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sentence length | ✓ | ✓ |
| Consecutive sentences | ✓ | ✓ |
| Passive voice | ✓ | ✓ |
| Transition words | ✓ | ✓ |
| Text presence | ✓ | ✓ |
| Word complexity | – | ✓ |
| Text alignment | – | ✓ |
How Yoast SEO’s readability checks work
Great content isn’t just about what you say, but also about how you say it. That’s where Yoast SEO’s Readability Analysis comes in. Our tool scans your writing in real time, flagging potential issues and offering actionable tips to make your content clearer, more engaging, and easier to digest.
Think of it as your personal writing coach, guiding you to create content that resonates with your audience and gives it the best chance of being found in search results.
Here are some of the Yoast SEO tools you can use to improve the readability of your content:
Passive voice check: Keep it direct and powerful
Passive voice weakens your writing. “The decision was made by the team” feels flat compared to “The team made the decision.” Our check flags passive sentences so you can rewrite them in active voice, making your content clearer, stronger, and more engaging.
Transition words check: Guide your readers smoothly
Great writing flows like a conversation, not a series of disconnected ideas. Transition words (like “however,” “therefore,” or “for example”) act as signposts, helping readers follow your thoughts effortlessly. Our transition words check ensures you’re using enough of them so your content feels natural, logical, and easy to read. No more losing your audience mid-paragraph!
Word complexity check: Keep it simple, keep them reading
Big words don’t impress, but confuse. If your audience needs a dictionary to understand your content, they’ll click away. Our word complexity check flags jargon and complex terms, replacing them with clearer, simpler alternatives. This will help you write content that’s easy to read, inclusive, and engaging for everyone.
Write for readers, not robots
Long sentences and endless paragraphs make your content feel like a chore. Starting every sentence the same way puts readers to sleep too. Our text structure checks help you trim sentences, break up blocks of text, and mix up your phrasing so your writing feels natural, engaging, and easy to follow. No more overwhelming your audience or putting them to sleep. Just clear, scannable content that keeps them hooked.
Content insights: Know your writing inside out
Great content starts with understanding what you’ve created, and our Insights give you the full picture. See your word count at a glance to keep length in check, spot overused or prominent words to avoid repetition, and gauge your Flesch Reading Ease Score to ensure your writing is accessible. Plus, Estimated Reading Time helps set expectations for your audience. With these insights, you’ll refine, polish, and perfect your content.
Sell more with readable, SEO-optimized product pages
Yoast SEO ecommerce tools help your product pages get found, convert, and read effortlessly. Optimize identifiers (GTINs, ISBNs), SKUs, and lists for search while keeping descriptions short, scannable, and engaging. The best product pages sell without confusing their audience.
Your personal writing coach
No more guessing if your content is clear. Our Readability Analysis gives you real-time feedback as you write. It flags long sentences, passive voice, and complex words, then shows you exactly how to fix them. Think of it as having an editor by your side, helping you polish every sentence before you hit publish. Now, you’ll have content that’s sharp, engaging, and easy to read, every time.
Clarity meets SEO
Great content is about keeping readers hooked. Yoast SEO’s Readability Analysis ensures your writing is clear, concise, and scannable, so visitors stay longer and engage more. When your content is easy to read, search engines take notice, too. It’s the perfect balance, as writing that resonates with humans also works well for search engines and AI platforms.
Turn “good” into “can’t-ignore”
You don’t need to rewrite your entire post to make it shine. Yoast SEO’s Readability Analysis highlights quick, high-impact fixes, like breaking up long paragraphs, adding transition words, or simplifying jargon. These small tweaks transform confusing content into something clear and compelling, and keep your audience coming back for more.
Upgrade to Yoast SEO Premium
Yoast SEO Premium gives entrepreneurs and in-house teams real-time SEO guidance, so content meets best practices and drives visibility, no expert knowledge needed
For marketers and content publishers looking to boost brand awareness and visibility, this package combines powerful on page SEO tools with AI brand monitoring and insights.
Built for WooCommerce stores, this bundle helps your products stand out in Google with rich results and smart SEO, plus Yoast SEO Premium to save time and boost visibility.
FAQs
Passive voice tends to make sentences longer and harder to follow. Yoast SEO’s threshold is 10% of your sentences, based on testing what keeps writing clear without being unnecessarily strict. Read more about how the assessments were built.
Yoast SEO checks whether enough of your sentences use words like “however,” “therefore,” or “for example” to guide the reader. There’s no need to force one into every sentence, just enough to keep the flow logical. See the full list of transition words.
Most assessments, including passive voice and transition words, support a wide range of languages. Word complexity and the Flesch Reading Ease score are English-only, since they rely on English-specific language data. Check language support.
The free plugin covers the core assessments: sentence length, paragraph length, passive voice, transition words, and subheading distribution. Premium adds Content insights, including word complexity and text alignment.
No single score guarantees a ranking outcome. Readability affects how long visitors stay and how easily they understand your content, which are both signals search engines and AI systems take into account, but it’s one factor among many.
No. The assessments are guidance, not a hard requirement. Some sentences read better in passive voice, and some paragraphs need to run long. Use your judgment alongside the feedback.