Paste any text to count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs, check how easy it is to read and see which words you repeat most. Your text stays in your browser.
Readability
Longest sentences
Most used words and phrases
| Word or phrase | Times | Density |
|---|
More than a word count
Word counts matter for essays, ad copy and social posts with hard limits. For web writing, how the words read matters more. Along with the counts, this tool shows:
- Reading and speaking time, based on 238 words a minute for silent reading and 150 for speaking. Handy for blog intros, scripts and presentations.
- Flesch reading ease, a 0 to 100 score built from sentence length and word length. Most web pages do well between 60 and 70.
- Longest sentences, so you can split the ones that make readers start over.
- Most used words and phrases, with their share of the text. Useful for spotting repetition and checking a page covers its topic.
How long should a blog post be?
There is no ideal word count for SEO. Google ranks pages that answer the search well, and some answers take 400 words while others take 3,000. A better approach is to look at the pages already ranking for your keyword, note what they cover, and then cover it more clearly. Our guide on writing a content brief shows how to plan that before you start writing.
Keyword density: what to look for
Keyword density used to be a target. It isn’t any more. Search engines understand synonyms and related phrases, and repeating one keyword sounds odd to readers. Use the table above the other way round: if one word takes up more than 2 or 3 percent of a long piece, read those sentences aloud and vary the wording. If your main topic barely appears, the page may not be as focused as you think.
Making text easier to read
- Split sentences over 25 words, especially ones with several commas.
- Swap long words for short ones when they mean the same thing: “use” for “utilise”, “help” for “facilitate”.
- Keep paragraphs to two or three sentences on the web. Phones make long paragraphs look like walls.
- Use subheadings that tell skimmers what each section says.
Updating older posts with these fixes is one of the easiest SEO wins; see our guide to refreshing old blog posts.
Common questions
Is my text saved or uploaded?
No. All counting happens in your browser. Nothing is sent to our server and nothing is stored once you close the page.
How are words counted?
Any run of letters or numbers counts as a word, including hyphenated words and contractions such as “don’t”. This matches Google Docs and Microsoft Word closely, though the totals can differ by a word or two.
Does the readability score work for other languages?
The Flesch score is designed for English. Word, character and sentence counts work for most languages that use spaces between words.
What is a good Flesch reading ease score?
For general web content, 60 or above. Technical or academic writing often scores lower, which is fine if your readers expect it.