How to write website copy a 12-year-old can follow

Most website copy is written to sound important. Most visitors do not want important. They want to know what you do, what it costs, and what to do next, and they want to know it before their thumb moves on.

The fix is not to talk down to anyone. It is to write at the level where reading takes almost no effort, which is roughly the level of a 12-year-old. This guide shows how to get there in six steps, with a worked example and numbers you can reproduce yourself.

Why a 12-year-old is the right reader

A 12-year-old is not a joke about your audience. It is a reading level: around US grade 7. Newspapers, health leaflets and good plain-language guides all aim near there, because nearly every adult reads at that level without strain, and the people who read above it read faster and enjoy it more.

Think about how people actually read a website. They are on a phone, in a queue, with half their attention. They scan headlines, glance at the first line of each paragraph, and stop at the first thing that confuses them. A sentence that takes two reads is a sentence that costs you a customer.

Plain copy is also kinder to the visitors who need it most: people reading in a second language, people tired after a long day, people with dyslexia, and people who are stressed because their boiler broke or their tooth hurts. These are often your best leads.

There is a practical reason too. Search engines and answer tools lift short, direct sentences into their summaries. A clear answer in 15 words is easier to quote than a tangle of 45.

Step 1: Measure before you edit

Gut feeling is a poor judge of your own writing, because you already know what you meant. Start with a number instead.

Two formulas have been used for decades to estimate how hard text is to read. Both only need three counts: words, sentences and syllables.

• The Flesch-Kincaid grade turns those counts into a school grade. Grade 7 to 8 is the sweet spot for web pages.
• The Flesch reading ease score runs from 0 to 100. Higher is easier. A score of 60 to 70 is called plain English, and 70 or more is easy.

You do not need to do the arithmetic. Paste a page into the free readability checker and it counts everything on your device, then gives you the grade, the ease score, the average sentence length and your longest sentence. Nothing is uploaded.

Write down the first result. That is your Before. Everything below is about moving that number.

Step 2: One idea per sentence

Sentence length is the biggest lever. Short sentences lower the grade faster than anything else, and they are easier to scan.

Use these limits as a guide:

• Average sentence: about 16 words or fewer.
• Any single sentence: 25 words at most. Over 35 is a rewrite, no exceptions.
• A headline or button: as short as you can make it.

Here is a typical offender:

We are a family-owned company that has been providing high-quality plumbing services to homeowners throughout the greater metropolitan area for more than twenty years, and we are committed to ensuring that every customer is completely satisfied.

That is 36 words and four ideas. Split it by asking one question at a time.

1. Who are you? We are a family business.
2. What do you do? We fix leaking taps and burst pipes.
3. Where? In this city.
4. For how long? For more than twenty years.
5. What do you promise? If you are not happy, we come back and fix it for free.

Now stitch the useful ones back together:

We have fixed leaking taps and burst pipes in this city for more than twenty years. If you are not happy, we come back and fix it for free.

Two sentences, 16 and 13 words. Every claim is still there, and each one can be understood on its own.

Some habits that create long sentences are worth catching:

• Stacked clauses. Count the commas and the words and, which, that and while. Each one is a place to put a full stop.
• Openers that delay the point. "In order to ensure that you receive the best possible service, we..." can become "To give you the best service, we..." or better, just start with the verb.
• Lists inside sentences. If you list more than three things, turn them into bullets.

A rule that never fails: if you run out of breath reading a sentence aloud, it is too long.

Step 3: Swap fancy words for plain ones

The second lever is word length. Short, common words have fewer syllables, and fewer syllables mean a lower grade. They are also quicker to take in, because readers recognise them instantly.

Business writing has a habit of reaching for the bigger word. Here are common swaps:

Then there is jargon: words that sound impressive and say nothing. Seamless, robust, cutting-edge, innovative, solutions, synergy, holistic, best-in-class. Ask what you would say to a customer standing at your counter. You would not tell them your "robust, seamless solution empowers their workflow." You would say what it does.

A quick test: replace the jargon word with the plain version aloud. If the sentence still makes sense, keep the plain one. If it falls apart, the sentence had nothing in it, and you have found a place where a concrete detail belongs. Numbers, names, prices, times and places do the job that jargon only pretends to do.

Keep the words your trade needs. A plumber can say "boiler" and a dentist can say "crown". Technical words your customers already use are fine. It is the words only your industry's marketing uses that need to go.

Step 4: Put the doer first

Passive voice hides who does the action. "Appointments can be scheduled by calling our office" has the customer as a bystander. "Call us to book" has them doing something, which is the whole point of the page.

Active voice is shorter, more direct and easier to follow. To spot passive sentences, look for a form of to be (is, are, was, were, be, been) followed by a word like scheduled, provided, made or carried out. Then ask: who does this?

• "A written quote will be provided" becomes "We send you a written quote."
• "Your order is processed within a day" becomes "We process your order within a day."
• "Mistakes were made" becomes "We got it wrong, and here is how we fixed it."

Passive voice is not always wrong. Use it when the doer does not matter or is not known, as in "The shop was founded in 1998." The checker marks passive voice as a hint for exactly that reason: it points at the spot, and you decide.

Step 5: Cut the filler

Filler words add length and take away force. The usual suspects are very, really, just, quite, actually, basically, simply, literally and completely, along with phrases like at this point in time (say now) and it is important to note that (cut it).

"We really do believe that our approach is very different" says less than "Our approach is different." And if it is different, say how: "We answer the phone, not a machine."

Read each marked word and ask whether the sentence loses anything without it. Nine times out of ten, it does not.

Also watch for repetition. If three sentences in a row start with "We offer", the page reads like a list in disguise. Either make it a real list, or vary the openers. The same goes for words you lean on: if solutions or quality appears five times, you are probably saying nothing with it.

Step 6: Shape the page for scanning

Plain sentences are half the job. The other half is layout, because most visitors scan before they read.

• Lead with the point. Put the answer in the first sentence of each paragraph, and the reasons after it.
• Keep paragraphs to two or three sentences. On a phone, five lines of text looks like a wall.
• Use headings that say something. "Emergency repairs, day and night" tells a scanner more than "Our services".
• Turn lists into bullets. Three or more parallel items belong in a list.
• Make buttons say what happens. "Get my free quote" beats "Submit".
• Put the next step near the top. A phone number or booking button should not wait until the bottom.

If your site is slow or hard to use on a phone, even perfect copy will not get read. The website grader scores speed, mobile and search in seconds, and gives plain-English fixes.

A full before and after

Here is a real run. The "Before" text is a typical business welcome message. It is the sample you get from the "Try a sample" button in the checker.

The Before has one monster of a first sentence, three passive phrases ("can be scheduled", "will be provided", "has been carried out"), words like utilize, facilitate and cutting-edge, and five sentences starting with "We". The rewrite:

Welcome to Brightside Plumbing. We have fixed leaking taps and burst pipes in this city for more than twenty years. Every job comes with a clear price up front. If you are not happy, we come back and fix it for free.

Call us for emergency repairs, boiler servicing and bathroom fitting. We pick up the phone day and night. Before we start, we send you a written quote.

Nothing a customer needs was lost. The company is just easier to believe, because it sounds like a person.

You will not always land at grade 3. For a page that needs some detail, such as a pricing explainer or a service terms page, grade 8 to 10 is fine as long as sentences stay short. The point is to know the number and make a choice, instead of drifting into grade 14 by accident.

A five-minute checklist

Run through this before you publish any page:

1. Paste the copy into the checker and note the grade.
2. Split every sentence the tool marks as long.
3. Swap each jargon word for the plain one next to it.
4. Cut the filler you do not miss.
5. Turn passive hints into "who does what".
6. Read the page aloud once. Fix anywhere you stumble.
7. Check the grade again. Aim for 8 or below on your key pages.

Do the home page, the main service page and the contact page first. Those three get most of the visits, so they pay back the fastest.

Frequently asked questions

What reading grade should website copy be?

Aim for grade 6 to 8. That is plain enough for almost every visitor, including those reading on a phone in a hurry, and it still leaves room for the detail your service needs.

Is it patronising to write at a 12-year-old level?

No. Plain writing is respected by every reader, including experts. Specialists read faster when the writing is clear, and nobody has ever complained that a page was too easy to understand.

Does the checker store my text?

No. All the counting and the score card picture are made in your browser. Nothing you paste is sent anywhere.

What if my industry needs technical words?

Keep the ones your customers use themselves, and explain any others the first time they appear. The aim is not zero long words. It is no long words that could be shorter.

How often should I check my copy?

Every time you write or change a page. It takes a minute, and it is the cheapest quality check you can run on a website.