Should You Use an Online Word Count Tool?

Three great reasons to move beyond your word processor’s built-in functions

Should you use an online word count tool? It’s an extra bit of software. And it can seem redundant, especially when Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Apple Pages offer a built-in function to track numbers of sentences and characters.

Plus, the ready-made word count function in your word processor is not only familiar but also mighty easy to use. You just click on that word count number on your document’s lower left bar or in Tools or Review at the top. Then basic word count statistics pop up including the number of pages, number of words, number of characters (no spaces), number of characters (with spaces), number of paragraphs, and number of lines in your document.

What I found surprised me. Putting aside convenience, I’ve discovered other reasons to use a more robust word count tool. Online word count tools can help me simplify my content, improve its readability, and make it as appealing as possible to search engines with appropriate keywords. At no cost! That’s right … f-r-e-e.

Online tools give me more information about the words in my text: the number of short words (< 3 letters), long words (>7 letters), average word length, average sentence length, and the number of difficult words. I use this valuable information to replace difficult, long words and change sentence length to simplify the content.

Built-in software reported that my blog post ranked at a 5.1 grade reading level on the Flesch-Kincaid scale — that’s a reading level of Grade 5, Month 1. It’s a good score when shooting for a maximum Grade 8 for online writing.

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