SEO Writing Basics: Word Count, Readability and Keyword Density

Published 2026-08-08 · BP Tools

Three questions haunt everyone who writes for the web: How long should this be? Is it readable enough? Am I using my keyword too much or too little? The internet overflows with myths about all three. Here's what actually holds up, with the numbers to aim for and the free tools to measure them.

Word count: cover the topic, then stop

You'll read that Google prefers 2,000-word articles. What search engines actually reward is satisfying the search — and thorough coverage of a competitive topic simply tends to take space. That's correlation, not a quota. The practical method:

1. Search your target phrase and skim the top five results.
2. Note their rough length and, more importantly, the subtopics they all cover.
3. Write the piece that covers those subtopics better — clearer examples, fresher data, an angle they missed. If that takes 900 words, 900 words is the right length; padding to 2,000 makes it worse.

Useful floors and ceilings: under ~300 words, a page struggles to demonstrate any depth; past ~3,000, split the piece unless it's genuinely a definitive guide. Track your drafts with the word counter — it shows words, reading time and keyword density live as you write.

Readability: aim for plain, not dumb

The Flesch Reading Ease score (0–100, higher = easier) remains the most useful single readability number. Most successful web content sits between 60 and 70 — plain English that a competent 13-year-old follows without effort. That's not "dumbing down": it's respect for readers who are skimming on a phone between other things, which is all of them.

The readability checker computes Flesch plus five grade-level formulas and — the actually useful part — lists your hardest sentences. The fix is almost always the same: split long sentences, swap formal words for everyday ones ("use" beats "utilize" every time), and cut throat-clearing openers. Check the piece, fix the five worst sentences, check again. Ten minutes, visibly better writing.

Keyword density: the 2% myth and what to do instead

Old SEO lore said to hit an exact keyword density like 2%. Modern search engines understand synonyms and topics, so chasing a magic number is wasted effort — and stuffing is actively penalized. What still matters:

• Put the target phrase where it counts: the title, the first ~100 words, one or two headings, and naturally through the body.
• Use variations and related terms the way a knowledgeable human would — if you're writing about "merge PDF," words like combine, join and pages appear on their own.
• Watch the density table in the word counter as a ceiling check: if any single phrase crosses ~3%, the writing almost certainly reads repetitively to humans too. The fix is better prose, not a different percentage.

A 15-minute pre-publish checklist

1. Does the piece cover every subtopic the top results cover? (That's your real "word count" test.)
2. Flesch 60+? Hardest sentences rewritten?
3. Title under ~60 characters, meta description under ~160 — count them with the character counter.
4. Keyword in title, intro and one heading; density under 3%.
5. Original throughout? Run the plagiarism checker against your sources — accidental over-borrowing from research notes is the most common honest mistake in content writing.

None of this replaces having something worth saying — but it reliably stops good content from underperforming on technicalities.