Keyword Density Checker

What keyword density measures, and what it does not

Keyword density is the number of times a word or phrase appears in a piece of content, divided by the total number of words, expressed as a percentage. It is one of the oldest measurements in SEO, and it has aged into something more useful than its reputation suggests, provided you understand what it is now for.

It is not a ranking factor. Google has not rewarded a particular density for many years, and no target number will lift a page on its own. What density is genuinely good at is catching two specific mistakes: a page that mentions its own subject twice in two thousand words and therefore reads as being about nothing in particular, and a page that repeats a phrase so often it reads as written for a machine. Both are real problems. This tool finds them.

Why the numbers here differ from other tools

Most free density checkers count the entire page. That means your navigation, sidebar, footer, cookie banner and comment section are all counted as content. On a typical WordPress theme that is several hundred words of template text, which drags every percentage down and fills the results with phrases like “read more” and “recent posts”.

This tool extracts the main content first, the way a browser’s reader mode does, and analyses that. If you want the old behaviour for comparison, untick “Main content only” and the figures will move closer to what other tools report.

Reading the report

• Count and density for every phrase of one, two, three and four words. Long-tail phrases are where the useful findings usually are.
• Prominence is how early a phrase first appears, as a percentage. A term used five times in the closing paragraph is a very different signal from one introduced in the opening line, and no other free tool reports this.
• Placement is a six-dot matrix showing whether each phrase reaches the title, meta description, H1, subheadings, URL and image alt text. This is the column that tells you what to change.
• Focus keyword takes the phrase you are targeting and gives you its count, density, a plain verdict and a placement checklist.

What a healthy density looks like

There is no official figure. As a working guide, pages that rank well tend to use their main phrase somewhere between 0.5% and 2.5% of the time. Below that range the page often is not clearly about the subject. Above it, the writing usually shows the strain.

Treat those numbers as a smell test rather than a target. Write the piece for a reader first, then run it through here to catch a phrase you overdid or a phrase you meant to use and never did. The second of those is far more common than the first.

Practical ways to use it

• Before publishing. Paste your draft into the text tab and check that your focus keyword actually appears in the title, the H1 and the opening hundred words.
• Auditing a page that stalled. Run the live URL. A page that never mentions its target phrase in a subheading or an alt attribute is a quick, cheap fix.
• Studying a competitor. Run the page that outranks you and compare which phrases they placed where. The placement matrix makes the difference obvious in a way a word count never does.
• Checking length and readability. Word count, unique words, reading time and a Flesch reading ease score are reported alongside, because density figures mean little without knowing how the piece actually reads.

Counting, density and prominence work for any language that separates words with spaces. The common-word filter and the reading ease score are English-only, so untick the filter when working in another language.