5 Easy Ways to Test Your Content

You’ve put time and energy into crafting the perfect piece of content. But how do you know if it’s actually working?

Testing your content for effectiveness doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. A few simple checks can reveal whether your content is helping meet your goals or falling flat.

Here are five easy ways to test your website's effectiveness:

1. Ask Real People

Before diving into analytics, get feedback from actual humans. Share your content with colleagues, friends, or anyone in your target audience. A few things you can ask:

• What’s the main takeaway?

• What would you do after reading this?

• Was anything confusing or unclear?

Even just 3-5 responses can uncover patterns in what is or isn't working.

2. Check Readability

How easy is your content to read? Is it clear and accessible? Would you need a PhD to understand the piece? Readability scores show how much education someone needs to understand your content. If your content is hard to read, folks will tune out and leave. Worse, it can also impact your Google rankings. 

You can use tools like the Hemingway App or Grammarly to test your content's readability. These tools flag anything that might slow your reader down: long sentences, passive voice, and jargon. We use Hemingway all the time to review our blog posts, social media content, and web copy. 

What's a good readability level? At Word Nerds, we aim for an 8th-grade reading level or below. One major exception to this? If your content is for a specialized audience like legal, pharmaceutical, or finance. 

3. Write for Scanning 

Writing for the internet is not like your high school English papers. You may put effort into every single word. The hard truth? People don’t read online content word for word: they scan in an F-shaped pattern. 

To optimize your content for this, ask yourself:

• Are your headings and subheadings descriptive? 

• Is key information in the first sentences of a section? 

• Is the content broken up into small sections or interspersed with images, diagrams? 

• Can someone skim the page and still grasp the main idea?

  
  

If you say no to any of these, restructure your piece for scannability.

4. Use the 5-Second Test

If you want a truly fast test, this one is for you. Show your content (or just a key section) to someone for five seconds. Then ask:

• What do you remember?

• What was this about?

  
  

This test can give you an idea of how memorable your message is. If people struggle to remember or articulate it, it's time for a rewrite.

5. Measure with Simple Metrics

You don’t need a full analytics team to track performance. Keep an eye on:

• Time on page: Are readers sticking around or bouncing fast?

• Scroll depth: Are they reaching the bottom of the page?

• Click-through rate (CTR): Are they taking action?

  
  

These metrics can help you a lot. It can help you identify which pages to fix or which are doing better than you expected. Even basic tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar can give you these insights.

Bonus: Try A/B Testing

If you’re unsure which headline, image, or CTA works best, run an A/B test. An A/B test means you change only one thing on the page and see how that changes metrics. It can tell you a lot about how much impact one small piece of content can have on a page. 

At Docusign, we changed one CTA on the product homepage. We tried shifting from BUY NOW to VIEW PLANS. That change alone not only boosted CTRs but also got more folks long term to buy plans. 

You can use tools like Optimizely, Unbounce, or email platforms like Mailchimp to compare two versions of the same content.

Final Thoughts

Testing your content doesn’t require a massive budget or a marketing degree. Small, consistent checks can quickly reveal what’s working and what's not. Over time, these little tests help you build content that connects, converts, and keeps your audience coming back for more.

If you want a second pair of eyes, we'd love to help! We'll do a free 30 minute consult to help you get started.