Keyword density checker: see what your text repeats.

Paste your copy to see the words and phrases you use most, and how often your target keyword appears. Spot over-repetition before readers do. Free, no sign-up, and it runs in your browser.

1, 2 and 3-word phrasesTarget keyword reportLive as you typePrivate by design

80 words. Runs in your browser. Nothing you paste is sent to us.

Target keyword: coffee brewing
Times used
2
Density
5.00%
  • YesIn the first sentence
  • YesIn the first 100 words
Most-used phrases
PhraseCountDensity
coffee67.50%
beans22.50%
brewing22.50%
home22.50%
aeropress11.25%
boil11.25%
brew11.25%
compare11.25%
consistency11.25%
cup11.25%
easier11.25%
every11.25%
flavour11.25%
french11.25%
fresh11.25%
give11.25%
good11.25%
grind11.25%
grinder11.25%
grounds11.25%
looks11.25%
machine11.25%
matters11.25%
morning11.25%
mostly11.25%
Why use it

Check the words, not a magic number.

There's no perfect keyword density. What a density check is good for is showing you what a page is really about, and where it repeats itself.

Catch keyword stuffing

A phrase that dominates the table often reads as forced. Repeating keywords unnaturally is against Google's spam policies, and readers notice it first.

Confirm your focus

If your target keyword never appears, or the top phrases are about something else, the page may not be saying what you meant it to say.

Phrases, not just words

Switch to two and three-word phrases to see the topics you actually cover, such as "content calendar" or "keyword research tool".

How it works

Paste your copy, read the table.

Results update with every keystroke. No button, no upload.

  1. 1

    Paste your text

    Drop in an article, landing page or product description.

  2. 2

    Add a target keyword

    Optional. Get its count, density and whether it appears early.

  3. 3

    Review the phrases

    Switch between one, two and three-word phrases and edit until the copy reads naturally.

Guide

Keyword density, used the right way.

What density measures, why old rules of thumb like "2%" don't hold, and how to use keywords so a page ranks and still reads well.

What is keyword density?

Keyword density is how often a word or phrase appears in a text, as a share of all the words. If a 500-word article uses "coffee grinder" five times, those five two-word phrases make up 10 of the 500 words, a density of 2%.

This checker counts each phrase's words that way: occurrences times words in the phrase, divided by the total word count. Some tools divide by occurrences only, so numbers can differ between tools for multi-word phrases.

What is the ideal keyword density for SEO?

There isn't one. Google has said repeatedly that keyword density is not something it measures as a target, and that writing for a percentage is the wrong approach. Old advice to aim for 1 to 3% dates from early search engines that counted words far more crudely.

Modern search understands synonyms, related terms and meaning. A page about coffee grinders can rank for "best burr grinder" without repeating that exact phrase many times. Use the keyword where it fits naturally, and spend the effort on covering the topic well.

What is keyword stuffing?

Keyword stuffing is filling a page with keywords to manipulate rankings: repeating a phrase out of context, listing cities or keywords in blocks, or hiding keyword-rich text. Google's spam policies name it directly, and it can cause a page to rank lower or be removed from results.

If one phrase dominates your table and the sentences around it sound unnatural when read aloud, rewrite them. Use a pronoun, a synonym, or simply say the thing once.

Where your target keyword should appear

Placement matters more than repetition. These are the places a keyword does the most work, for search engines and for readers deciding whether to stay.

  • The title tag and the page's H1
  • The first sentence or paragraph, so readers know they're in the right place
  • At least one subheading, where it fits the section
  • The URL slug and the meta description
  • Image alt text, only when it describes the image

Why check two and three-word phrases

Most searches are more than one word, and single-word counts are dominated by generic terms. Two and three-word phrases show the actual topics on the page.

Compare those phrases with the questions people search. If the pages ranking for your keyword all cover "grind size" and "burr vs blade", and those phrases never appear in your copy, that's a content gap worth filling.

How to fix over-optimised copy

If a phrase shows up far more than the rest, work through it in this order.

  1. 1Read the paragraph aloud and mark where the phrase sounds forced
  2. 2Replace repeats with pronouns, synonyms or a shorter reference
  3. 3Cut sentences that exist only to include the keyword
  4. 4Add substance instead: examples, steps or data the reader needs
  5. 5Re-run the check and confirm the copy still covers the topic
Your AI SEO agent

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This tool is one check. SEOLadders is an AI SEO agent that runs the whole job on your site, every day.

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It finds what your customers search for, groups it into topic clusters around pillar keywords, and plans the articles that cover them.

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Backlink outreach, drafted

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Tracked on six AI engines

It tracks whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overview and Google AI Mode recommend you, rechecked throughout the week.

A site audit with fix steps

It audits your site and lists what to fix, with steps written for the platform your site runs on. Content Radar spots pages losing clicks.

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Keyword Density Checker, answered.

What it does, what it runs on, and how it fits the platform.

See the full platform →

The percentage of the words in a text taken up by a given keyword or phrase. A two-word phrase used five times in a 500-word article has a density of 2%.

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