New study from social media scientist, Dan Zarrella, shows that using simple blog titles leads to more sharing on Facebook.

This blog has a 15% greater chance of being shared on Facebook than your average post.

That is a pretty big deal when you consider that a well-shared blog post can attract hundreds of additional readers, clients, and even journalists looking for experts to interview.

But what is it about my post that lets me make a claim like that without even knowing exactly what I’m going to write, much less who is going to read it?

According to a new study done by social media scientist, Dan Zarrella, the reading grade level of a blog title has a major impact on how much it will get shared on Facebook. In fact, titles with 2nd grade reading level are shared nearly 30% more than average while titles at a 15th grade level suffer a nearly 20% decrease in shares.

You can see a full chart of this effect at Dan’s blog but here is a quick table:

So what does this mean for you?

It means it’s time for you to start practicing simplicity in your writing. Spend the time to craft headlines that are not only interesting but also use simple language and sentence structure.

When I first started writing this post, my headline was at a 7th grade level. A few quick tweaks later and I was at a 3.5 grade level for a net increase of 25% from the original!

In case you’re wondering, you can find readability level using Microsoft Word, or a free text readability tool.