“Keep it simple stupid.”

It’s a timeless saying. One that most of us learned before we went to elementary school (at least I did) and has continued to popped up throughout our lives since. It’s often true in the real world as it is in the digital one, especially when it comes to digital content. It’s true lots of reasons, a few of which I’ll talk about here

1. We’re creating digital content for multiple audiences and I don’t just mean human audiences (even though that’s what this post will focus on). Think about it. How’d you find this post? Chances are you found it through a digital platform (probably Google) whose bots indexed it and then decided that you’d be interested in it based on some algorithm.
2. We’re also creating content in a world where people are distracted. Hardly anyone gives a digital property their undivided attention. How can they? Notifications, alerts, ads, other devices, the physical world it’s all competing for our attention. Are you reading this on a phone? I think that buzzing sound means your mom’s calling.
3. Then there are the devices. People consume content on a variety of devices. Smart speakers, phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, smart TVs, watches. Do I need to continue?

So what does this all mean?

Well, it essentially means that digital content needs to be thought about through multiple lenses.

“You’re not dumbing down, you’re opening up.”

This is a quote from Sarah Richards that can be found on the Yoast blog. When talking about what keeping content simple actually means. It’s an interesting way to think about digital content and digital audiences.

One of my former clients was an investing company. They swore their audiences knew where to go in their digital ecosystem for the relevant information and that they understood the verbiage that was used across their digital properties. With traffic and engagement metrics starting to level off, I was able to talk them into a test. Their site was built in Drupal, so I talked them into installing the Beauty Tips module, which allows a tip or popup to appear when a user hovers over an element. We started small and did this for 15 terms. Displaying the definition on hover on select pages. The results saw increased engagement metrics across their digital ecosystem including more pages per session, more return visitors, and increased average time on site.

I don’t share this story to say digital audiences are dumb, but I share it to demonstrate that digital content can reach a variety of digital audiences that you may not be thinking about. Audiences that you may have miscategorized or did not think were your audiences. For those audiences you’re not dumbing it down, you’re opening up the content to allow them to connect, learn, and ultimately grow with you and your digital properties.

What’s your level?

The thing about digital audiences they often have a lower reading level than you might expect. Siteimprovement.com quotes a few stats about this. For instance, the UK central government encourages content writers to aim for a readability level of a 9-year-old. Another interesting one is that experts suggest aiming for a Fleisch-Kincaid readability score of 60 or higher to serve readers of all ability levels.

So digital audiences are dumb?

Sometimes, but that’s not what’s at the heart of these recommendations. These suggestions are recommended for a couple of reasons.

1. Accessibility. As this Yale University article describes digital content is open to most users. That means some users may not speak the same language. Others could have cognitive impairments. In other words, people of all ages, races, geographies, and educational backgrounds can come across the majority of digital content. Since all users have potential value, we should take that into account.
2. Multitasking. We’re not great multitaskers. Yes, we consume content on a variety of devices throughout our day, but how often does that content have our full, undivided attention? When we’re multitasking we’re not really giving anything 100%. As this 2018 Nielsen article shows, the amount of digital content we access is increasing. Since much of the time spent consuming that content includes time spent multitasking our ability to comprehend complex content decreases, just like our productivity when we multitask.
3. Speed. Not only are digital audiences distracted, but we live in the world of NOW. If it’s slow or we can’t find it immediately, we move on to somewhere or something else. I believe we’re all pretty practical people at our core. We go to digital properties to find something, most of us don’t really want to spend time looking that thing we came for so we skim. Think about it, have you read every word of this post? Probably not (That’s okay, I know it’s long) and void of pictures and graphs.

The calvary

We’ve discussed the reasons to keep it simple, but what can we actually do to keep it simple? As content creators, we can be close to the content and sometimes will use industry jargon. Sometimes we’ll write complex sentences. Not all topics can be broken down and flushed out in a simple way. So what can we do?

If you can, get Yoast SEO and pay attention to the Readability Score and tips. This looks at things like sentence length, transition words and the Flesch Kincaid reading score. The easy to understand color dot can help us produce content that both humans and bots can better comprehend.

There are a number of other digital tools out there as well including this one from Web FX and this one from Online Utility.

In addition to these digital tools, I do something that I learned when I was in Journalism school. It’s simple, read the content out loud. Even though it’s written and will likely be consumed quietly, read it out loud. See if you stumble through parts. Or if you skip words. Or if you have to stop and reread something. This will give you a place to start. Asking a friend or neighbor to consume the content can provide an outside opinion from someone who is not as close to it.

Happy digital content creation!