Online Word & Character Counter Tool

Our free word counter will automatically count how many words, characters, and paragraphs are in your text. Just type or paste your text below to get started!

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How to Use the Word Counter Tool

  1. Paste or type your text into the text box above.
  2. The word count, character count (with and without spaces), and paragraph count will be shown above and in the sidebar.
  3. It’s that easy!

Word Counter Tool Features

  1. Our word counter is fast, free, and can count tens of thousands of words with ease.
  2. You don’t need to register or sign up for anything.
  3. Unlimited word count, character count, and paragraph counts.
  4. No additional software installation required.
  5. Multiple browser and device support.

Why does word count matter?

Often writers need to write pieces and content with a certain word count restriction. Whether you’re a high school student needing to type out a 1000-word essay or an author trying to write your next 100,000 word novel, word count is important and we hope our tool makes it easier. To use our tool to count your words, simply type or paste your content into our word counter tool above.

There are a lot of reasons why word count is important for writers of all kinds. Even the readers benefit from the proper word count because the length translates directly into how long it will take them to read the writing. Whether you are a part of a publishing company, a solopreneur, freelancer, or a personal blogger, you should take the word count into account.

In this article, we expand on why the word count is important. We will also explain the word count’s significance in academic writing and SEO.

What is the definition of word count?

Before describing what word count is, we first have to define what a word is. A word is a term that means the sum of characters which are separated by spaces and punctuation marks. At present, even emojis are considered characters which constitute a word. When we count the number of words in a document or in some content, we call it a word count.

Word counter tools should be used when a text is restricted to a maximum number of words or characters. Such may be the case in legal proceedings, academic texts, advertising, marketing, and journalism. In addition to this, word count could also be applied for gauging the level of readability.

For example, university professors and college admissions counselors require essays with a word limit. This is why you have to count the words in your piece so that you could reach the limit. In digital marketing and SEO, clients should need a minimum number of words to meet the needs for the search engine rankings. There are several real-life examples that require a word count.

Currently, there are already a lot of word count tools which could determine the number of words in your articles. Most word processors such MS Word also count words. However, different word counting programs give different results because of the differences in text segmentation rule. The Number of Words word counter counts words and characters with the same text segmentation rule as Microsoft products.

Why does word count matter for reader?

Before you begin writing a piece of content or project, the first thing that you have to consider is your audience. Whether you aim to inform, to persuade, or to entertain, you have to make sure that your article will be engaging to readers. Especially in marketing, the length of the material could have a huge factor in determining whether your readers will choose to buy your product. This is where word count enters. Marketing is all about being concise and maximizing value of copy.

Word count is essential to readers since a shorter document leads to dictate higher levels of retention of the article itself. If your article is too long, the reader might get bored and not read it. If the material is too short, then the reader might not get enough details. Hence, the reader needs an article with just the right amount of words to hold the attention of the reader. Sure, the readers could finish an article that is 150 words long, but they might not be able to grasp the idea that you want to convey. Similarly, your reader may be bored if your writing is made up of over 4,000 words.

The attention span of an average reader is about eight seconds. So you should avoid long, flowery sentences and get straight to the point. Some readers would only skim at an article and leave for another article, especially when uninterested with the topic at hand.

Word count rules for novels are entirely different. Most popular novels are greater than 40,000 words. The average length would depend on the genre of the novel. For instance, a romance novel may range from 50,000 to 90,000 words. A science fiction novel, on the other hand, might range from 90,000 to 125,000 words.

Why might there be a word limit for novels? This is because readers have a certain expectation as to the what they are going to read. For readers of fantasy novels, for instance, they will expect a longer word count because they are more than willing to immerse themselves in a new and unknown world. Readers of romance novels, on the other hand, may want a brief beach read, hence a shorter novel with a lower word count.

Overall, since the readers are the audience and potential customers of the article or novel, consideration of length is important.

Why do academic papers have a word limit?

Word count is common in academic papers. Published articles in peer-reviewed journals often post a range for word count expectations. Additionally, most professors require that the written assignments contain a certain number of words, say between 2,500 to 3,000 words. This sometimes causes stress to students, especially those who find writing a challenge. Word counters give the chance to check any section of the text throughout the writing process.

Sometimes, Professors limit word count to give the time needed to grade papers.

Another apparent reason why a word count is necessary for academic papers is for fairness. Limiting an academic paper to a maximum number of words evens out the grading, focusing more on quality of content over length.

In addition to this, you should note that academic papers are straightforward. They do not beat around the bush. By counting the number of your words, you ensure that you are getting straight to the point. This makes your paper concise yet meaty, as an academic paper should.

For academic papers with abstracts, a 125-word paragraph abstract usually suffices. Going overboard may give too much detail and the reader may not choose to read the paper.

Why is word count important for SEO?

Word count also matters a lot of SEO.

More and more people are turning to the internet for information to answer their questions and they want to find thorough commentary in the articles they choose to read. For most website creators, they want their viewers to read the content that they are writing. Google seeks to provide the highest-level of content to their readers and have built their algorithms to understand the quality of the content and they figure that the more words an article has, the better. Setting an article-length minimum and checking it on our word counter will help websites achieve high rankings.

It is recommended that SEO articles are at least 1000 words, but preferably 1500. There have been many studies that suggest the more words in an article, the higher the article will rank in Google.

There is no direct causation of word count and chances of ranking above your competition. However, it is a common knowledge that longer pieces often outshine articles with shorter lengths. This is because people assume that articles with higher word count have more high-quality content since the author has bothered to thoroughly cover the topic. Therefore, a higher word count is likely to correlate with SEO success.

A lot content writers and professors are advocating for substance over increasing the number of words. However, Google’s algorithms have not been able to catch up to the content quality shift quickly enough so having a higher word count in articles is still preferered for SEO. For SEO articles, word count and quality are both important factors for Google and the end reader. Therefore, make sure that you balance these two things.

Within a range of a number of words in your article, you should have discussed all the essential things that you want your reader to know. You should have also included the tips and tricks to make your article more SEO-friendly. These include outbound and internal links, checking the SEO keyword density, and increasing the readability levels. Once you are done, make sure that the word count is not thin. Thin content could end up being flagged and would not rank as highly in search engines.

What is the word count recommended for SEO?

The answer really depends on the nature of your article. If you want to write shorter but highly ranked articles, the average number of words should be 600 to 700 words. However, you could opt for articles which are at least 1,000. Articles less than 300 words are considered to be too thin to perform well on search engines.

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Number of Words - Online Word and Character Count