Headline Analyzer

How the score works

The score is a sum of six weighted checks, not a judgment call. Every point is traceable to a rule you can see in the breakdown above, which means every point is also recoverable — the breakdown tells you exactly where the missing ones went. The six components and their weights:

The grade bands sit on top of the total: 80 and above is excellent, 60–79 good, 40–59 fair, below 40 poor. A plain statement with no number and no charged vocabulary tops out around 50 even at perfect length — the model is built to push you toward a format, not just a trim.

The word-balance model, explained

Word balance is the largest single component at 25 points, and it is the one borrowed most directly from the approach CoSchedule made famous: classify every word in the headline into four buckets, then grade the mix rather than any single word. This tool uses the same four buckets with visible targets.

• Common words — the, your, how, ways — are the connective tissue. The target is at least 20% of the headline, because a title with none of them reads like a keyword string, not a sentence. The analyzer knows 61 of them.
• Uncommon words — everything specific to your topic — carry the substance. At least 10% keeps the headline about something.
• Emotional words — effortless, embarrassing, painful, surprising — are what make a reader feel the stakes. The list here holds 124 of them, and 10% of the headline is enough.
• Power words — proven, step-by-step, complete, blueprint — signal concrete, credible value. One is required for the balance points; a second maxes the separate power component. The list holds 79.

The reason balance beats stuffing: each bucket has a target, not a bonus-per-word. Adding a fourth power word earns nothing, but it costs you — the headline starts to sound like it is selling knives on late-night television.

What headlines scoring 80-plus share

High scorers are not clever; they are structural. Almost every 80-plus headline does four things: leads with a number, holds 40–60 characters, carries one power word and one emotional word, and takes the list or how-to form. The five rewrites below were scored by this exact tool — paste any of them into the box above to verify the numbers.

Notice the pattern: none of the rewrites needed a better idea, only the same five levers pulled in order. Also notice what the rewrites do not do — none of them promises anything the article cannot deliver. A number you cannot back with that many actual items is not a headline technique; it is a refund request.

Why 40–60 characters wins in search results

Google truncates title links at roughly 600 pixels of width — around 60 characters in most fonts. Go past that and the end of your headline becomes an ellipsis, which is usually where the payoff lived. Worse, since its 2021 title rewrite update Google replaces titles it considers too long or stuffed with its own generated alternative, so an overlong headline does not just get clipped — it can get overwritten by a machine with no stake in your click-through rate.

The floor matters too. Under 40 characters you are leaving promise on the table: short titles tend to be labels (“Email Marketing Tips”) rather than claims, and labels give a searcher no reason to pick you over the result above or below. The 6–12 word band tracks the same logic from the readability side — enough words to make a specific promise, few enough that the promise survives a skim.

The honest limits of a rule-based score

This analyzer counts what can be counted. It cannot tell whether the headline is true, whether it matches the article behind it, whether it fits your brand voice, or whether eleven competitors published the same promise last month. It can be gamed — string together number, power word, emotional word and you will score high with a headline no human would respect — and its word lists are English-only, so it undervalues headlines in other languages and technical vocabularies it has never met.

Use it the way an editor uses a checklist: as a floor, not a verdict. A headline that scores 60 and tells the truth will beat a 98 that overpromises, because the click is not the finish line — the read is. Score the version you can stand behind, then let the history panel above settle which of your honest candidates is structurally strongest.