Score any blog title or SEO headline 0-100 against 8 proven criteria. Iterate until you hit an A.
Get an instant grade (A, B, C, D, F) based on 8 proven headline criteria.
Score updates as you type. Iterate quickly until you hit an A grade.
Flags words proven to drive clicks: free, easy, ultimate, proven, secret, and 50+ more.
Checks both word count (6-13 sweet spot) and character length (50-60 for SEO titles).
Identifies positive, negative, or neutral tone — neutral headlines underperform.
Tells you exactly what to add or remove to improve the score.
David Ogilvy famously said "On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy." Sixty years later, on Google's SERP, that ratio is even more extreme — your title tag is the only thing 95% of searchers will ever see.
A page ranking position 5 with a great headline often gets more clicks than position 2 with a weak one. CTR is a ranking signal, so a better headline can pull a page upward in the results — without changing a single backlink. This is the highest-leverage SEO change you can make.
The catch: a brilliant headline on a page Google has never indexed is worth zero. Many sites obsess over titles for pages that never appear in search results at all. After polishing your headline, confirm the page is actually in Google's index using IndexFlow's Bulk Index Checker.
For SEO page titles: 50-60 characters. Anything longer gets truncated in Google's SERP with an ellipsis. For blog post headlines (the H1 visible on the page), 6-13 words performs best — long enough to be specific, short enough to scan. This tool checks both.
Headlines with specific numbers (e.g. "7 Ways", "in 2026", "Top 10") consistently outperform generic ones in CTR studies. Numbers signal a clear, scannable structure ("this list will be exactly 7 items long") and create a curiosity gap. Years like 2026 also boost recency signals for both readers and search engines.
Power words trigger action (free, easy, instant, simple, proven, guide). Emotional words trigger feeling (amazing, ultimate, surprising, secret, essential). Both have decades of copywriting research showing they boost CTR by 10-30%. The tool flags which ones you're missing and suggests options.
Aim for B+ (75+) on most headlines. An A-grade headline (90+) is great, but forcing one can make it sound clickbaity. Be especially careful with emotional words on professional/B2B content where over-the-top language hurts credibility. Use the score as a guide, not a hard rule.
No — headlines drive CTR, but they only matter if your page is actually in Google's index and ranking somewhere on the first few pages. Many sites have brilliant headlines on pages Google has never crawled. After optimizing your headline, verify the page is indexed using bulk index check tools.