Keyword density checker
Paste any article or page copy and instantly see how often each word appears and what percentage of your total content it makes up. This helps you confirm your target keyword is present without over-optimising — repeating a phrase too often reads as keyword stuffing, which search engines can penalise.
How it works
The tool lowercases your text, strips punctuation, and splits it into words. It counts each word and divides by the total word count: density = (occurrences ÷ total words) × 100. Results are sorted by frequency and the top 15 terms are shown. With the stop-word filter on, common words like “the”, “and” and “of” are excluded so your meaningful keywords stand out. Any term above 4% density is highlighted as potential over-optimisation.
Example
In a 500-word article where the phrase “running shoes” appears as 5 instances of “running”:
5 ÷ 500 × 100 = 1% density
That sits comfortably inside the natural 0.5–2.5% range for a primary keyword. If the same word appeared 25 times (5%), it would be flagged in red as over-used.
| Total words | Occurrences | Density | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | 5 | 1.0% | Good |
| 500 | 13 | 2.6% | Borderline |
| 500 | 25 | 5.0% | Flagged |
What to look for in the results
Unexpected high-frequency words reveal topics your draft is inadvertently emphasising. If “problem” appears at 3.5% in a product-benefits page, you may be dwelling on negatives more than intended. Swap those uses for outcome language and re-run the checker to confirm the density drops.
Missing target keyword — if the word you are trying to rank for does not appear in the top 15 at all, your page is not signalling that topic to search engines. Weave it in naturally, aiming for 0.5–1.5% density without forcing it.
Thin content — the tool also shows total word count. Pages with fewer than 300 words are often too thin to rank well. The density figures only matter once you have enough content to hold a topic.
Common mistakes and edge cases
- Treating density as a target, not a guardrail. Writing “the best running shoes are the best shoes for running and runners who run” to hit a number hurts readability and ranking equally. Write naturally first, then check.
- Ignoring multi-word phrases. This checker counts individual words, not two-word phrases like “running shoes”. If your target is a two-word phrase, check both words appear at a sensible frequency and close together.
- Stop words skewing the picture. If you turn the stop-word filter off you will see “the” or “and” dominating the chart. Turn it back on to see the meaningful keyword layer clearly.
Everything is analysed locally in your browser — your text is never uploaded.