Readability describes how much effort it takes to read and understand a piece of writing. Short sentences, familiar words, clear structure and good formatting make text more readable. On the web, where people skim and often read on phones, readability affects whether visitors stay long enough to find the answer and whether they trust the page.
What affects readability
Formulas like Flesch Reading Ease measure the first two, but layout and structure matter just as much for real readers.
- Sentence length and complexity
- Familiar words over jargon, or jargon explained where it is needed
- Active voice and concrete subjects
- Paragraph length, headings and lists
- Typography: font size, line length, contrast and spacing
Readability and SEO
Google has not said it uses readability scores. Readability matters because it shapes how people experience the page: whether they find the answer, keep reading and act. It also helps machines. Clear sentences with one idea each are easier to extract as a passage for a snippet or an AI answer.
Writing for expert audiences
B2B SaaS readers are often specialists who expect technical vocabulary. Readability does not mean dumbing that down; it means removing unnecessary difficulty. An engineer reading about API rate limits wants the precise terms, delivered in clean sentences without filler.
Quick ways to improve it
- Split sentences that carry more than one idea
- Replace abstract nouns with verbs: "perform an evaluation of" becomes "evaluate"
- Define a term the first time it appears if part of the audience may not know it
- Keep paragraphs to a few sentences on screen
- Read the draft aloud and fix wherever you stumble
Example
Editing a security page
Hypothetical vendor Vellumtide's security page opened with a 70-word sentence about its "holistic, defense-in-depth posture." An edit split it into short statements of what the company actually does: encryption at rest and in transit, SSO, audit logs, annual penetration tests. Buyers' security teams could now scan for the controls they needed.
Common mistakes
Optimizing for a score alone
A formula can be gamed by chopping sentences into fragments. Read the page aloud; that is the better test.
Questions
There is no official target. Aim for the simplest language that stays precise for your audience, and test with real readers where you can.
