New study finds quality of brands’ content sorely lacking

Only a third of the world’s largest companies have high-quality site content based on human factors such as style and clarity and tone of voice (in addition to basics like grammar and spelling).

The study from linguistic analysis company Acrolinx is the first of its kind to try to quantify something that’s hard to pinpoint: For a business, what’s the value of writing?

(It’s the first as far as I know, and I’m happy to be wrong, so please let me know in the comments section.)

At the very least, it underscores the importance of paying attention to not just what you say, but how you say it.

Some details:

A mere 31 percent of brands worldwide earned a passing grade for the effectiveness of their website content—a score of 72 or higher on a scale of 0 to 100—according to Acrolinx’s analysis of marketing, corporate, technical and customer support website content. Download the free white paper, “How to be a brand journalist,” to learn how to tell your organization’s compelling stories.