Count your keywords before you publish.

How to use the keyword count checker

The tool is built for the editing stage, after a draft exists. Checking counts while you write pulls your attention away from the sentence in front of you, which is where the quality actually comes from.

1. Paste the finished draft

Include headings if you want them counted. The important thing is consistency: if you include headings in one check, include them in every check, otherwise your before-and-after comparisons mean nothing.

2. Add every phrase you care about

Not just the primary keyword. Add the supporting terms and the two or three variations a reader might search instead. Seeing them side by side shows which parts of the topic you skipped.

3. Read the placement column, then the numbers

A phrase used four times in the opening and never again is a different problem from a phrase spread evenly across the article. The count is identical; the fix is not.

4. Open the sentences before editing

Use the highlighted draft to read the actual occurrences. Decide one by one whether each mention earns its place. Deleting keywords to hit a percentage makes the writing worse, not better.

Keyword count vs keyword density

Count is the number of occurrences. Density is that count as a share of total words:

density = occurrences ÷ total words × 100

Eight mentions in a 1,000-word article is 0.8%. The same eight mentions in a 2,000-word article is 0.4%. The writing did not change — only the denominator did. That is why density is useful for comparing two drafts of the same article and close to useless for comparing two different articles.

Count is the honest number. Density is the context for it. Keep both in view and neither will mislead you.

Why placement beats frequency

Most keyword tools stop at a number. Where a phrase appears tells you more than how often it appears, because placement is what a reader and a crawler both register first.

• First 100 words. If the opening never states what the page is about in the reader’s own words, the page reads as off-topic even when it is not.
• Spread. This tool splits your text into four equal quarters and shows which ones contain the phrase. Coverage across all four means the topic is genuinely being discussed, not mentioned and abandoned.
• Closing section. The last quarter is where readers decide whether the page answered them. A topic that vanishes halfway through rarely does.

A keyword appearing twice in the right places usually beats the same keyword appearing nine times clustered in one paragraph.

How the content health score works

The score starts at 100 and subtracts for problems it can actually measure in text. Nothing in it is a ranking prediction — it is a proofreading checklist expressed as a number.

• A target keyword missing from the draft entirely
• Density above roughly 3%, which usually reads as repetitive out loud
• Any single word dominating the text, the classic stuffing pattern
• A keyword absent from the opening or from the closing quarter
• Average sentence length running long enough to hurt comprehension
• A draft too short to cover the topic it claims to cover

Each deduction comes with the sentence-level fix next to it. A score of 100 with bad writing is still bad writing.

How many times should a keyword appear?

There is no number that guarantees anything, and Google has never published one. What exists instead is a readable range: for most articles a primary phrase lands somewhere between 0.5% and 2.5% density without any effort, simply because you are writing about the subject.

If your natural draft comes in far below that, the usual cause is not too few mentions — it is too little explanation. Add the missing section and the mentions arrive on their own. If it comes in far above, read three of the sentences aloud. If you would not say it that way to a colleague, rewrite it.

Exact-match repetition is the weakest possible signal you can send. Covering the subject properly is the strongest.

Repeated phrases are the real finding

Single-word counts tell you what you already know. The two-, three- and four-word lists tell you something you cannot see in your own draft: the constructions you lean on. Most writers have four or five of them, and they repeat across every article they write.

Switch the phrase tabs after a long draft and look at anything appearing five or more times. Some of it will be the topic, which is fine. The rest is filler, and cutting it shortens the article while making it read better.

Common keyword counting mistakes

Treating a percentage as a target

Density is a measurement, not an instruction. Moving a number without improving a sentence achieves nothing.

Padding the article to lower density

Adding words dilutes the percentage and dilutes the article. Readers notice the second part.

Checking one phrase only

A topic is a group of related ideas. Checking one term hides every gap in the other ones.

Editing without reading the sentence

Every occurrence has a context. Removing them by count, rather than by judgement, damages the draft in ways the number cannot show you.

Running the check too early

Analysing a half-written draft produces numbers you will invalidate an hour later. Finish first.

Frequently asked questions