Body text readability is appropriate for the audience
Why it matters
Hard-to-read copy is invisible copy: visitors who encounter long sentences and passive voice constructions slow down, lose the thread, and stop reading. Research on web reading consistently shows that shorter sentences, active voice, and concrete language produce higher comprehension and lower bounce rates. The problem is compounded for AI-generated marketing copy, which tends to produce grammatically correct but unnecessarily complex prose: abstract noun stacking ("enterprise-grade workflow optimization"), passive constructions ("data is processed", "reports are generated"), and sentences that run to 30 words without a clear subject. These patterns make the copy technically accurate but practically unread.
Severity rationale
High because marketing copy with more than 30% long sentences or majority passive voice constructions is significantly less likely to be read and understood — the persuasion argument never lands because the sentence-level experience is too effortful.
Remediation
Paste the hero section and first three content sections into the Hemingway App (hemingwayapp.com — free, browser-based) and read the highlighted output. It marks long sentences in yellow, very long sentences in red, and passive voice in green.
Practical rewrite rules:
Sentences > 25 words: split at the coordinating conjunction or clause boundary
Passive → active:
"Data is processed by our system" → "Our system processes your data"
"Reports are generated automatically" → "We generate reports automatically"
"Your account will be created" → "We create your account"
Abstract noun → concrete:
"optimization" → "speed" or "performance"
"utilization" → "use"
"facilitate" → "help" or "let"
"leverage" → "use"
"synergistic" → delete it
For AI-generated copy: ask the AI to review the copy in a separate pass specifically for passive voice and sentence length — this catches issues that aren't obvious when generating copy and reviewing it in the same context.
DetectionPro
The detection method for this pattern is part of AuditBuffet Pro.
The full method (what to look for, pass and fail conditions, and how results get reported) ships inside the Content Quality Audit. The pattern definition, severity rationale, and remediation remain openly licensed under CC-BY-4.0.
Taxons
History
- 2026-04-18·v1.0.0·Initial import from marketing-content-quality·automated