Passive voice?

Hello

I am working on my blog and now i'm stuck.
I bought some articles here from someone, but i have a problem with it.
Yoast is the plugin that i use for seo, but the plugin says that the articles are unreadable because there is 33% passive voice and that is way above the 10%.
Is this a big problem to rank high on Google or do i not need to look at it?

Have a read through this article which describes what Yoast is trying to tell you.

https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/passive-voice/

Remember; Yoast is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to writing for the web. My suggestion would be to tread Yoast as a tool that gives you some hints and pointers along the way, nothing else.

Passive voice may prove hard to follow for some readers, which leads to a decreased readability and a higher bounce rate. Try to keep the passive voice usage at a minimum, but it's okay if the article is readable as is (Yoast is too objective, and you need to base your decision on what people expect from your content).

YOAST instructions are so old .. it's not how internet works nowdays

As for content, let a native english speaker reads it, not a machine.

Belgisch said:

Hello

I am working on my blog and now i'm stuck.
I bought some articles here from someone, but i have a problem with it.
Yoast is the plugin that i use for seo, but the plugin says that the articles are unreadable because there is 33% passive voice and that is way above the 10%.
Is this a big problem to rank high on Google or do i not need to look at it?

Click to expand...

Did you ask for the article to be written in a specific tone, style etc ?

MisterF said:

Did you ask for the article to be written in a specific tone, style etc ?

Click to expand...

No i did not.

Put it through http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ and https://www.grammarly.com/ or ask @Sherb to re-write it.

@Asif WILSON Khan is correct. Grammarly will assist in finding the specific passive voice instances better than Yoast, since if you highlight the noted sections in Yoast and change anything in-text, you have to scroll back down to highlight it again. However, Grammarly won't fix them for you, and a lot of times you end up with an awkward sentence if you try and fix it yourself. Sometimes when I have passive voice, it takes revisions of an entire paragraph to get things sounding correct. This is why money site content writing can be difficult, and getting actual converting content is an art demanding experience with how to sculpt the English language into something people want to read, not just something that search engines like.

While a lot may say "forget Yoast, it is outdated and dumb", they have a solid reason for pointing this out, and @Nerva is absolutely spot on with how it can be difficult for some readers to understand, affecting conversion and bounce rates and your bottom line. I try to keep passive voice at or below 10% for that reason. There's nothing wrong with a little bit of it, but 33% is definitely overkill, and reeks of filler content and writing just to hit a word count.

And yes, if your budget allows, I'm happy to provide a rewrite.

Sherb said:

Grammarly will assist in finding the specific passive voice instances better than Yoast, since if you highlight the noted sections in Yoast and change anything in-text, you have to scroll back down to highlight it again. However, Grammarly won't fix them for you, and a lot of times you end up with an awkward sentence if you try and fix it yourself. Sometimes when I have passive voice, it takes revisions of an entire paragraph to get things sounding correct. This is why money site content writing can be difficult, and getting actual converting content is an art demanding experience with how to sculpt the English language into something people want to read, not just something that search engines like.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the direction. I'm a Yoast user and as I'm fairly new to this I rely on it pretty heavily. I've seen their measurement on passive voice and wasn't sure how much weight I should give it. I'll use Grammarly to compliment.

Sherb said:

And yes, if your budget allows, I'm happy to provide a rewrite.

Click to expand...

Back in action? Guess someone’s dm inbox will get flooded pretty soon.

Expect one from me in a couple of weeks time. Just answer it with a relative high quote to not be bothered again.

If your aim is to get Yoast perfection, your blog would sound really bad. Just make sure that you get green lights for both Readability and SEO and you are all good.

With the passive voice, you should have given that as part of your instructions. But that's just one part of the many ways you can get a green light in readability.

33% passive voice is pretty bad. Not to jump to conclusions, but your bounce rate will be high. As a client, always be specific with your instructions to copywriters. I assure you, you can get a pretty decent article even from a tier 2 article writing service. Don't be lazy. Take your time out to make a detailed list of instructions that you want from all your future articles. If you can't do it by yourself, hire a copywriter to do it for you.

I feel like it does not matter as far as it's easy to read. My passive voice is almost always higher than 10%. Might just be the tone of the article.

Do not pay so much attention to Yoast's thoughts about passive voice

As long as your text has a natural flow and reads easily, passive voice isn't that important. However, that only means that you shouldn't fret about it being a couple of percentage points above the Yoast-recommended 10%. I must say, 33% is too much, and the text is surely hard to read.