Free Keyword Density Checker
Analyze word frequency, 1/2/3-word phrases and keyword density for SEO. Live highlighting, stop-word filter and over-optimization warnings. No sign-up required.
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Analysis Results
| Keyword / Phrase | Count | Density |
|---|---|---|
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Paste content on the left to see keyword frequency and density analysis. | ||
What Is Keyword Density?
Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears in a piece of content relative to the total word count. It's calculated with a simple formula:
density = (keyword occurrences ÷ total words) × 100
For example, if the phrase "keyword density" appears 10 times in a 1,000-word article, the density is 1%.
What's the ideal keyword density?
There is no single magic number, but the accepted sweet spot is 0.5% to 2.5%:
- Below 0.5% — you may not be signalling the topic strongly enough to Google.
- 0.5%–2.5% — the safe, natural range most well-ranked pages sit in.
- Above 2.5% — starts to look like keyword stuffing and can trigger penalties.
- Above 5% — clearly over-optimised; expect ranking drops or algorithmic demotions.
In practice, most top-ranking pages sit around 1%–1.5% for their primary keyword.
Does Google use keyword density?
Google has publicly said for years that keyword density is not a direct ranking factor. Their algorithms use much more sophisticated signals — semantic relevance, entity recognition, topical depth, natural language processing. Google understands "how to merge PDF files" and "combining PDFs" as related, even if the exact words differ.
But keyword density is still a useful heuristic for writers. It catches two real problems:
- Under-optimisation — you never mention the topic clearly enough.
- Over-optimisation — you repeat the keyword so much it reads unnaturally.
Both can be spotted at a glance with a density checker, then fixed with a rewrite.
Why check 2-word and 3-word phrases?
Single-word analysis is useful but incomplete. Modern SEO is about topical coverage — covering all the concepts related to your main topic. Checking 2-word and 3-word phrases reveals:
- The actual topics you're writing about. A page about "coffee" that never mentions "espresso", "roast level" or "coffee beans" is thin.
- Long-tail keyword opportunities. Phrases like "how to merge PDF" often rank faster than "PDF".
- Semantic entities. Related phrases signal to Google that you cover the topic deeply.
- Over-optimization patterns. Repeated 2-word phrases like "PDF merge, PDF split, PDF compress" reveal lazy writing.
What are stop words?
Stop words are extremely common words — the, a, an, and, or, of, to, in, is, at, for — that appear in nearly every piece of English text. They carry little semantic meaning.
Filtering them out makes keyword analysis far more useful, because you see the actual content words instead of "the the the". Our tool strips 60+ stop words automatically. Toggle it off if you want to see the raw frequency of every word.
Common content mistakes the tool reveals
- Focus keyword too rare. Below 0.5% — you're not clearly targeting the term.
- Focus keyword too frequent. Above 2.5% — over-optimized, reads like spam.
- Unnatural repetition. The same 3 words appearing 30 times is a signal the content is thin.
- Missing semantic variety. Only 20 unique words in 500 words means the article is repetitive.
- Weak topic coverage. If important related phrases don't appear, your topical authority suffers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is keyword density?
(keyword occurrences / total words) × 100. For a 1,000-word article with the keyword appearing 10 times, the density is 1%.What is the ideal keyword density?
Does Google use keyword density as a ranking factor?
Why do I need to check 2-word and 3-word phrases?
What are stop words?
the, and, of, to, a, is. They appear frequently in every piece of content but carry little meaning. Filtering them out makes keyword analysis more accurate.