Why is less than 5% so good? Are you a better writer than, for example, George Orwell? Do you scan for other things too? Strunk and White said you shouldn’t use adverbs or adjectives. You clearly don’t follow that one.
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I aim for 5% because I’m able. The features I asked about above are useful features that are built into Yoast. It doesn’t seem any of them are built into the others. This is really critical functionality, IMHO, because it helps you to improve your content not just slap meta around it. There’s no sense SEO’ing a piece of worthless content.
My handle isn’t an SEO’d piece of content, so the use of my verb/adverb is a moot point.
Edit: SEOPress claims to have content analysis (same tools I previously asked about), but it’s not clear to what level.
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My point is precisely that it doesn’t improve your content. It provides you with a means to achieve a goal that you have set for yourself. They aren’t necessarily the same thing.
I haven’t come across any corpus analysis that suggests well-respected writers have anything like such a low usage of passive voice. That, presumably, is why other plugins don’t provide that functionality. It also helps to explain why so many habitual users of MS Word, which likes to highlight every use of passive voice, typically turn out stuff that no-one wants to read.
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I disagree.
I think passive voice should be considered an “advanced” feature of the English language.
Unless you are specifically applying it to place emphasis on what would otherwise be the object of a sentence, then using active voice will probably lead to clearer, more direct phrasing, which is a good thing in the vast majority of cases.
Another reason not to provide passive voice analysis is that an algorithm to do this accurately is far from obvious.
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As everything in writing, the choice of writing style is up to the author. And authors choose the style that they think helps them communicate their ideas to the reader.
Active voice is encouraged in journalism because it helps communicate information in a way that makes reader feel as if they are there, it has purpose, direction, and clarity.
I personally like to think that passive voice tries to pull you into the story, while active voice pushes you in.
Neither one is the right one all the time. Do you want your reader to be a passenger getting a ride (passive)? Or, do you want your reader to do the driving (active)?
I like active voice because that’s how I was trained to write in my journalism classes, and I like brevity. Passive voice beats around the bush a bit too much for me, but occasionally it’s necessary.
This is my choice, your choice of the writing style can be different. And that’s ok.
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Not really. There are some circumstances where it’s essential. For example, something mailed or received by a certain deadline would naturally go in the passive voice. It doesn’t matter who specifically mailed or received it; what matters is the date on the receipt.
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Exactly. A personal choice, not critical functionality.
Scanning for passive voice is part of improving readability. Not so much SEO.
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It is critical, to me. I can just continue to use Yoast. No worries. There was no intention to open an off-topic debate.
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If it doesn’t need to be inside WP/CP, I use Hemingway app to help me better tweak my writing. It does passive voice and other stuff similar to Yoast.
http://www.hemingwayapp.com
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Interesting though! 
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Thanks, @viktor, that’s a slick tool. Things kind of went off on a tangent with the active/passive voice, but, that was just one aspect that I rely on for SEO.
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That is a great tool. Worrying though. I just put in an article I wrote years ago (and had published) and there’s a mass of suggestions. Hardly any white.
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We’ll have to wait and see what happens with v1 and v2. If we have enough customers on CP, I’m sure I’ll be able to get my devs to come up with a solution fork or not.
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I rely on Yoast for many things–though I don’t trust any computer program with either grammar or spelling, and switch that off. I believe somebody suggested building SEO into CP so a plugin isn’t necessary; I see that Ghost already does that. The less reliant CP is on WP plugins, the more attractive it should be.
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Rank Math Rank Math SEO – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org have all features of free and premium Yoast, but without bloat. Plus smart decision to let users not to install not needed functionality (like support of AMP, etc.)
I can confirm Rank Math works great, without issues. I see it as a strong alternative to Yoast.
On the other side, in Rank Math SEO Plugin | Facebook they expressed no plans to support CP. But I think that our community can help to revert the decision. Especially now, when Yoast founder becomes the part of the WP.
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I tried Rank Math and didn’t look back. Will probably switch out Yoast even on my WP blogs. I think it is a relatively new plugin and all features are free so far. Migrates data from Yoast smoothly. Very excellent features. Will probably drop in for Yoast for the most part AND make your coffee. Worth contacting the developer.
That said, I don’t optimize keywords and such, so I don’t know if there is a difference in quality of suggestions. I just write and trust Google to have better AI than anything I install. If the content is good, Google finds it and uses it. I do use schema and such and have an SEO plugin installed in case some article would do better with me stating what it is about, etc.
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Thank you fo coffe 
If you liked Rank Math, please, contact plugin authors (maybe, on facebook group) and ask to support ClassicPress. Pressure from plugin users to support CP will greatly help to convince plugin authors to pay attention to us. Thank you.
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