# Essel > Essel (essel.ai) is an autonomous AI content engine for SEO and GEO. It runs the full loop without a writer in the seat: keyword and SERP research, on-brand drafting in your trained brand voice, internal-link planning, image generation, quality and formulaic originality review, then scheduled publishing on a cadence to WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and headless CMSs — and automatic submission to search engines for indexing. Every draft is optimized for both classic Google ranking and AI answer engines (AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other GEO/AEO surfaces) so the content stays citable. Essel offers free and paid plans, plus a suite of free SEO tools that need no account. This is the full-text companion to /llms.txt. It inlines the substantive copy for each public surface so answer engines can cite Essel accurately without crawling every page. ## Core pages - [Essel — AI SEO Content Engine at essel.ai](https://essel.ai/): Research, write, review, and publish SEO articles for your business without coordinating every step. - [Pricing](https://essel.ai/pricing): Plans and pricing for the Essel content engine. - [Free SEO Score Audit](https://essel.ai/seo-score): Audit any URL and get an instant, actionable SEO score. - [Free AI Blog Writer](https://essel.ai/blog-writer): Type a topic and get a real, finished article with a cover image in about a minute. No sign-up to start. - [Technical SEO Audit — $10, 100 Pages](https://essel.ai/technical-seo-audit): Agency-grade technical SEO audit for $10 flat: 100 pages crawled, 71 checks, a pasteable fix for every finding, results in minutes. - [SEO Audit Service — Full 100-Page Audit for $10](https://essel.ai/seo-audit-services): Everything an SEO audit service delivers — findings, priorities, rewritten metas, an internal-link plan — from a real 100-page crawl, for $10 flat. - [SEO Audit Cost — Agency Prices vs a $10 Audit](https://essel.ai/seo-audit-cost): What SEO audits cost in 2026: agency, freelancer, and retainer ranges side by side with Essel's $10 flat whole-site audit. - [AI Visibility Checker — Can AI See Your Site?](https://essel.ai/ai-visibility-checker): Check AI-crawler access, answer-ready structure, AI Overview citations, and how AI models describe your brand — with a fix for every gap. - [GEO Audit — Score Your Site for Generative Engines](https://essel.ai/geo-audit): Deterministic GEO and AEO audit: passage citability, answer structure, citable evidence, and AI-crawler access, scored per page and site-wide. - [Free SEO Tools](https://essel.ai/tools): A suite of free, browser-based SEO and content utilities. - [Essel Alternatives & Comparisons](https://essel.ai/alternatives): How Essel compares to other content and SEO tools. - [Head-to-Head Tool Comparisons](https://essel.ai/compare): Neutral comparisons between other SEO and AI content tools, with dated facts. - [Blog](https://essel.ai/blog): Articles on SEO, content strategy, and AI publishing — written with Essel. - [API Documentation](https://essel.ai/docs): Reference for the Essel public API and integrations. ## Product and publishing workflows - [About Essel | The Search Content Engine at essel.ai](https://essel.ai/about): Essel at essel.ai researches, writes, and publishes SEO articles. Learn what the product does, who it serves, and where to find its official information. - [How Essel Works | Research, Write, Review and Publish](https://essel.ai/how-it-works): Follow Essel's SEO content workflow from business context and topic research to a reviewed article, CMS publishing, and performance checks. - [AI SEO Content for Small Marketing Teams | Essel](https://essel.ai/solutions/small-marketing-teams): Keep SEO articles moving without coordinating every handoff. See Essel's research, brand context, review, and CMS publishing workflow for small teams. - [SEO Article Publishing Integrations | Essel](https://essel.ai/integrations): Publish Essel articles to WordPress, Webflow, or Shopify. Compare draft controls, setup requirements, custom-domain hosting, and read-only API delivery. - [AI Blog Writing and WordPress Publishing | Essel](https://essel.ai/integrations/wordpress): Connect Essel to WordPress for researched SEO articles with draft or live delivery. Review setup requirements, media handling, and updates to existing posts. - [AI Blog Writing and Webflow Publishing | Essel](https://essel.ai/integrations/webflow): Send Essel SEO articles to a Webflow CMS collection. Understand field mapping, staged versus live publishing, formatting limits, and article updates. - [AI Blog Articles for Shopify Stores | Essel](https://essel.ai/integrations/shopify): Publish researched Essel articles to your Shopify blog. Check store permissions, hidden versus live delivery, existing-article updates, and content scope. - [Brand Voice and Product Context for AI Articles | Essel](https://essel.ai/features/brand-voice): Give Essel the product facts, writing examples, and boundaries behind your brand. Learn how to review specific claims and avoid generic AI blog content. - [AI Content Review and Publishing Controls | Essel](https://essel.ai/features/editorial-control): Keep editorial control over Essel articles. Understand release settings, CMS drafts, factual review, and the checks to make before enabling automatic publishing. - [SEO Content Refresh and Performance Review | Essel](https://essel.ai/features/content-refresh): Find existing articles worth reviewing using search-performance signals. Understand the difference between detecting content decay, editing, and republishing. - [AI Visibility, Citations and Readiness Explained | Essel](https://essel.ai/ai-visibility-methodology): Understand Essel's AI readiness checks, sampled mentions, citations, and Search Console data. See what each metric means and what it cannot prove. ## Free SEO tools ### Markdown to HTML Converter https://essel.ai/tools/markdown-to-html Paste Markdown (or a .md file's contents) on the left and get production-ready, semantic HTML on the right: instant, private, and free. Nothing is uploaded; conversion happens entirely in your browser. **Why convert Markdown to HTML?** Markdown is fast to write but most CMSs, email tools, and web pages ultimately need HTML. This converter bridges the two so you can draft in Markdown and ship clean, valid markup without hand-coding tags. The output uses semantic elements — real headings, lists, blockquotes, and code blocks — which both browsers and search engines understand. **What's supported** Headings, bold and italic, inline and fenced code blocks, ordered and unordered lists, links, images, blockquotes, horizontal rules, and pipe tables. Raw inline HTML is escaped by default so pasted content can't inject scripts, making the output safe to drop into a page. **Private by design** Every conversion runs locally in your browser. Your content is never sent to a server, logged, or stored — making this safe for unpublished drafts, internal docs, and client work. FAQ: **Q: Is this Markdown to HTML converter free?** A: Yes, this Markdown to HTML converter is completely free. There is no sign-up, no usage limit, and no watermark on the output. **Q: Is my content uploaded anywhere?** A: No, the conversion runs entirely in your browser with JavaScript, so your Markdown never leaves your device. Nothing is uploaded or logged. **Q: Which Markdown features are supported?** A: The converter supports headings, bold and italic, links, images, inline and fenced code, ordered and unordered lists, blockquotes, horizontal rules, and pipe tables. Those cover the common CommonMark and GitHub-Flavored Markdown elements. **Q: Is the generated HTML safe to publish?** A: Yes, the generated HTML is safe to publish. Raw HTML in the input is escaped rather than passed through, so the output stays clean, semantic markup with no script-injection risk. **Q: How do I convert a .md file to HTML?** A: Open the .md file in any text editor, copy its contents, and paste them here. The HTML appears instantly on the right, ready to copy into your page or CMS. No install or command line needed. ### HTML to Markdown Converter https://essel.ai/tools/html-to-markdown Paste HTML and get clean, portable Markdown back instantly. Ideal for migrating web content into docs, READMEs, or any Markdown-based CMS — with all the styling noise stripped away. **From web markup back to clean text** Copying content out of a web page usually drags along nested divs, inline styles, and class soup. This converter reduces HTML to the underlying structure — headings, paragraphs, lists, links, images, code, and tables — and emits tidy Markdown you can paste anywhere. **Great for migrations and documentation** Moving a blog to a static-site generator, turning a help-center article into a README, or archiving a page as plain text all start with the same step: getting clean Markdown out of HTML. This tool does that in one paste, preserving the meaningful structure and dropping the presentational cruft. **Turn a webpage into LLM-ready Markdown** Markdown is the format language models read best, which is why converting a webpage to Markdown has become a standard step in AI workflows: feeding docs to a coding assistant, building a knowledge base, or preparing context for a prompt. View the page's source, copy the HTML, and paste it here for a clean Markdown version with the nav and footer noise stripped away. **Runs locally** Conversion happens in your browser. No HTML is sent to a server, so it's safe for internal pages, gated content, and unpublished drafts. FAQ: **Q: Does it handle messy, real-world HTML?** A: Yes, the converter handles messy, real-world HTML. It parses the document and keeps the structural elements (headings, lists, links, images, code, tables) while discarding wrapper divs, inline styles, and scripts. **Q: Will my formatting be preserved?** A: Semantic formatting carries over: bold, italics, headings, lists, blockquotes, code, and links. Purely visual styling like colors, fonts, and spacing is dropped on purpose, since Markdown describes structure rather than presentation. **Q: Is it private?** A: Yes, the tool is private. Everything runs in your browser, and your HTML is never uploaded or stored. **Q: Is there a limit on input size?** A: No hard limit applies, though very large documents convert fastest when pasted in sections. **Q: Can it convert an HTML table to Markdown?** A: Yes, HTML tables convert to Markdown pipe tables, with header rows preserved. Complex tables with merged cells flatten to the closest simple-table equivalent, since Markdown has no colspan or rowspan. ### Schema Markup Generator https://essel.ai/tools/schema-markup-generator Build valid Schema.org JSON-LD without memorizing the spec. Fill in a short form and copy production-ready structured data for Articles, FAQs, Products, Organizations, and Breadcrumbs. **Why structured data matters** Structured data tells search engines exactly what a page is about — an article, a product, a list of FAQs — in a machine-readable format. That's how pages earn rich results: star ratings, FAQ accordions, breadcrumb trails, and more. JSON-LD is Google's recommended format, and this tool produces it in a copy-paste-ready script block. **Supported types** Article, FAQPage, Product, Organization, and BreadcrumbList — the schema types that most often unlock rich results for content and ecommerce sites. Each type exposes only the fields that matter, so you don't have to read the spec to get valid output. **Validate before you ship** Generated markup follows Schema.org conventions, but always confirm with Google's Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator before publishing — they check eligibility for the specific rich result you're targeting. FAQ: **Q: What is JSON-LD?** A: JSON-LD (JSON for Linking Data) is a lightweight format for embedding structured data in a page. Google recommends it because the markup lives in a single script tag and never changes your visible HTML. **Q: Which schema types can I generate?** A: The generator produces Article, FAQPage, Product, Organization, and BreadcrumbList markup. Those types cover the most common rich-result opportunities for blogs, ecommerce, and business sites. **Q: Will this guarantee rich results in Google?** A: No tool can guarantee rich results, because Google decides based on eligibility, quality, and policy. Valid markup is a prerequisite, not a promise, so test your output in Google's Rich Results Test before relying on it. **Q: Where do I put the generated code?** A: Paste the generated script block into the head, or anywhere in the body, of the page it describes. **Q: How do I generate FAQ schema?** A: Pick the FAQPage type, add each question and its answer, and copy the generated JSON-LD. Google requires the schema text to match the FAQ text visible on the page, so paste your real questions and answers rather than summaries. **Q: How do I add author schema to an article?** A: Generate Article markup and fill in the author fields with the writer's real name and profile URL. Author information is one of the signals search engines and AI answer engines use to judge who is behind content, so point the URL at a genuine author page or profile. ### llms.txt Generator https://essel.ai/tools/llms-txt-generator Create an llms.txt file that gives answer engines a clean map of your site: what you do, and which pages are worth citing. Fill in your summary and links, then copy the result. Everything runs in your browser. **What llms.txt is for** llms.txt is a Markdown file at the root of your domain that tells large language models what your site is and which pages matter. Where robots.txt says what a crawler may fetch, llms.txt says what is worth reading, in a format a model can parse without wading through nav, cookie banners, and footers. The convention comes from llmstxt.org and is read by a growing number of AI tools. **The summary does the heavy lifting** The blockquote under the title is the line most likely to be quoted back when someone asks an assistant what your product does. Lead with what you actually do and who it serves, name the concrete capabilities, and skip the positioning language. A vague summary produces vague citations. **Annotate every link** A bare list of URLs tells a model nothing about which page answers which question. The optional description after each link is what lets an engine pick your pricing page for a pricing question and your docs for an integration question. Sections group related pages so the structure itself carries meaning. **What a real llms.txt example looks like** A working llms.txt opens with an H1 naming the site, a blockquote holding the one-paragraph summary, then H2 sections such as Docs, Products, or Pricing, each a Markdown list of links with a short description after a colon. Sites like Anthropic, Stripe, and Zapier publish theirs at /llms.txt — reading two or three before writing your own is the fastest way to calibrate. The generator on this page emits exactly that llmstxt.org structure, so the output doubles as a template. **Where to place it and how to serve it** Serve the file at the root of your domain — https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt — as plain text or Markdown, the same convention robots.txt follows. Subdirectory locations are not checked. One gotcha our site audits catch constantly: single-page-app hosting that answers every unknown path with the HTML shell, which means /llms.txt returns your app instead of the file and reads as absent to any crawler. After publishing, curl the URL and confirm you get raw Markdown back, not HTML. **It is a hint, not an instruction** llms.txt is a young convention with no guaranteed support, and adoption varies by provider. Treat it as cheap insurance rather than a control surface: it costs one file to publish and may improve how accurately you are described, but it does not restrict how models use your content. For that you need robots.txt rules or authentication. Google has said it does not use llms.txt, so publish it for the AI assistants that do read it, not as a Google ranking lever. **Or generate it from your real site, automatically** Hand-writing the link list means guessing which pages matter. Essel's $10 whole-site audit builds an llms.txt for you from the actual crawl: up to 60 verified, live URLs grouped by section and ordered by how heavily your own site links to them — plus a drift check that flags dead links and missing top pages in any llms.txt you already publish. The free single-page scan at /seo-score is the way in. FAQ: **Q: What is llms.txt?** A: llms.txt is a Markdown file at the root of a domain that describes a site for large language models. It carries a title, a one-paragraph summary, and sections of annotated links to the pages worth reading. The convention is defined at llmstxt.org and is intended to give models clean context instead of rendered HTML. **Q: Where do I put the llms.txt file?** A: Put llms.txt at the root of your domain, so it resolves at https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt. That is the only location tools check, the same convention robots.txt follows. **Q: Is llms.txt the same as robots.txt?** A: No. robots.txt controls which URLs a crawler is permitted to fetch, while llms.txt describes what your site is and which pages are worth citing. They solve different problems and you can publish both. Neither one restricts how a model uses content it has already collected. **Q: Does llms.txt actually help with AI search visibility?** A: Support is not universal and no provider guarantees it, so treat llms.txt as a low-cost hint rather than a ranking lever. The reason to publish one is that it is a single file: if a model does read it, you control the summary it quotes instead of leaving that to whatever it scrapes from your homepage. **Q: What should go in the summary?** A: State what the product does, who it is for, and the specific capabilities that distinguish it. Name platforms, formats, and features explicitly. This paragraph is the most likely thing to be quoted verbatim when someone asks an assistant about you, so concrete beats clever. **Q: What does an llms.txt example look like?** A: A minimal llms.txt is an H1 with the site name, a blockquote holding a one-paragraph summary, and one or more H2 sections (like Docs or Products) containing Markdown links, each with a short description after a colon. The generator on this page produces exactly that structure, so filling in the form gives you a working example for your own site. **Q: What is the difference between llms.txt and llms-full.txt?** A: llms.txt is the curated index — a summary plus annotated links — while llms-full.txt inlines the full content of those pages into one large Markdown document so a model can read everything without following links. Most sites only need llms.txt. Add llms-full.txt when your documentation is the product and you want assistants to answer from the complete text. **Q: Can I generate an llms.txt from my site automatically?** A: Yes. Essel's whole-site audit crawls up to 100 pages and generates an llms.txt from the results: live, verified URLs grouped by section and ordered by internal link weight, so the file reflects what your site actually treats as important. It also flags drift in an existing llms.txt — links that died or top pages it omits. The audit is $10 flat, and the free scan at /seo-score is the starting point. ### Robots.txt Generator https://essel.ai/tools/robots-txt-generator Generate a valid robots.txt in seconds. Choose which crawlers to allow or block, set disallowed paths, add a crawl delay, and point bots to your sitemap — then copy the result. **What robots.txt controls** robots.txt is the first file most crawlers request. It tells well-behaved bots which paths they may crawl, which to skip, and where your sitemap lives. Used correctly it keeps crawl budget on your important pages and out of admin, cart, and search-results URLs. **Built for modern crawlers** Beyond Googlebot and Bingbot, this generator lets you write rules for AI crawlers like GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot — useful if you want to allow or restrict how your content is used by answer engines. **Handle with care** robots.txt is a crawling directive, not a security or privacy control — disallowed URLs can still be indexed if linked elsewhere, and the file is publicly visible. To keep a page out of search results entirely, use a noindex meta tag or proper authentication instead. FAQ: **Q: Where does robots.txt go?** A: robots.txt belongs at the root of your domain, exactly at https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Crawlers only check that location. **Q: Does Disallow remove a page from Google?** A: No, Disallow does not remove a page from Google. It stops crawling, but a blocked URL can still appear in results when other sites link to it. To drop a page from the index, allow crawling and add a noindex tag, or require authentication. **Q: Can I block AI crawlers like GPTBot?** A: Yes, you can block AI crawlers like GPTBot. Add a rule targeting the crawler's user-agent, such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot, with the paths you want to disallow. Compliance depends on the crawler honoring robots.txt. **Q: Should I include my sitemap?** A: Yes, include your sitemap. A Sitemap directive helps search engines discover all your URLs, and you can list more than one. **Q: How do I disallow all crawlers in robots.txt?** A: Two lines block every compliant crawler: "User-agent: *" followed by "Disallow: /". Use it for staging and preview environments, never on a production site you want indexed, and remember pages already in the index need a noindex tag to drop out. **Q: What should a WordPress robots.txt include?** A: A typical WordPress robots.txt disallows /wp-admin/ while allowing /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php, which front-end plugins call, and lists your sitemap URL. Blocking /wp-content/ or /wp-includes/ is outdated advice: it stops Google from loading your CSS and JavaScript, which hurts rendering. ### AI Alt Text Generator https://essel.ai/tools/alt-text-generator Upload an image and a vision model writes the alt text for you: subject first, genuinely descriptive, and sized for the alt attribute. Add a line of page context to match your terminology. **Why alt text is worth automating** Alt text serves three audiences at once: screen-reader users hear it, search engines index images by it, and browsers show it when an image fails to load. Most sites either skip it or stuff keywords into it; both hurt. A vision model describes what is actually in the frame in seconds, which turns the chore into a review step instead of a writing task. **What good alt text looks like** Lead with the subject, describe what matters in context, and stop around 125 characters, the point where some screen readers historically cut off. Skip openers like "image of" (the alt attribute already says it is an image) and skip keyword lists. "Barista pouring latte art in a sunlit cafe" does more for accessibility and image SEO than "coffee, cafe, barista, latte". **When to leave alt text empty** Decorative images, spacers, and purely visual flourishes should carry an empty alt attribute (alt="") so screen readers skip them instead of announcing noise. The rule of thumb: if removing the image loses information, describe it; if nothing is lost, silence it. FAQ: **Q: Is this alt text generator free?** A: Yes, the generator is free with no sign-up. It runs on free-tier AI capacity, so a busy moment can ask you to retry in a minute. Each image is processed for the single request and not stored. **Q: How long should alt text be?** A: Keep alt text under about 125 characters. That length carries a full description while staying comfortable for screen-reader users, and the generator targets it by default. **Q: Does alt text help SEO?** A: Alt text is the main signal search engines use to understand and rank images, and it feeds Google Images traffic. It also keeps pages accessible, which matters for users and for compliance standards like WCAG. **Q: Is my image uploaded or stored?** A: The image is sent to our server once so the vision model can see it, then discarded. Nothing is saved, logged, or used for training. ### URL Slug Generator https://essel.ai/tools/slug-generator Paste a page title and get a clean, URL-safe slug: lowercase, hyphenated, accents folded to plain letters, and filler words stripped. Runs in your browser. **What makes a good URL slug** A good slug is short, lowercase, hyphen-separated, and readable as a phrase: /how-to-write-meta-descriptions beats /post?id=8231 in every result list. Google reads words in URLs as a minor relevance signal, and people read them before clicking, so a slug that states the topic earns trust in the SERP and in shared links. **Hyphens, stop words, and accents** Google treats hyphens as word separators and underscores as word joiners, which is why hyphens are the default here. Dropping stop words (a, the, of) keeps slugs tight without changing meaning. Accented characters get folded to their plain equivalents (café becomes cafe) so the URL survives copy-paste through any system that mangles non-ASCII characters. **Changing a slug on a live page** A slug change is a URL change: every existing link, share, and ranking points at the old address. If the page is already indexed, set a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one before you flip it, or leave a working slug alone. The best time to get a slug right is before publishing, which is what this tool is for. FAQ: **Q: Should slugs use hyphens or underscores?** A: Hyphens. Google documents that it treats a hyphen as a word separator, so how-to-bake reads as three words, while how_to_bake can be read as one token. Every mainstream CMS defaults to hyphens for the same reason. **Q: How long should a URL slug be?** A: Aim for 3 to 6 meaningful words. Slugs carry a small relevance signal and get read by humans in results and shares, so include the primary keyword and cut everything that does not change the meaning, which is what the stop-word option automates. **Q: Should I include dates or numbers in slugs?** A: Avoid dates unless the content is genuinely time-bound, like an event. A slug with /2024/ in it makes the page look stale in 2026 even after you update the content, and changing it later requires a redirect. Numbers that are part of the topic, like a listicle count, are fine. **Q: Is my text sent anywhere?** A: No, nothing is sent anywhere. Slug generation runs entirely in your browser, so titles for unpublished pages stay private. ### Meta Title & Description Generator https://essel.ai/tools/meta-description-generator Craft meta titles and descriptions that fit Google's display limits and earn the click. See a live SERP preview, track character and pixel width, and get instant length feedback. **Length is about pixels, not just characters** Google truncates snippets by pixel width, not a fixed character count — which is why two descriptions of the same length can be cut differently. As a rule of thumb, titles display well up to ~600px (~60 characters) and descriptions up to ~920px (~155 characters). This tool tracks both so you can see exactly where your snippet would be clipped. **Write for the click, not the keyword** A meta description doesn't directly rank a page, but it heavily influences click-through rate from the results. The best descriptions summarize the page accurately, lead with the value, include the primary keyword naturally, and end with a reason to click. **Live SERP preview** As you type, the preview renders how your title, URL, and description would look in Google on desktop. Use it to catch truncation, awkward line breaks, and missed opportunities before you publish. FAQ: **Q: What's the ideal meta description length?** A: A meta description reads best at roughly 120 to 155 characters, about 680 to 920 pixels. That range is long enough to be compelling and short enough to avoid truncation on most desktop results. **Q: Does the meta description affect rankings?** A: Meta descriptions do not affect rankings directly. Google often rewrites them, and they are not a ranking factor. A strong description still lifts click-through rate, which matters for traffic. **Q: Why does Google show a different description than mine?** A: Google may swap your meta description for text from the page when that text better matches the user's query. Writing a clear, relevant description makes the swap less likely. **Q: Should every page have a unique meta description?** A: Yes, every important page should have a unique meta description. Duplicates waste a chance to differentiate snippets and can look spammy. Write a distinct one for each page that matters. **Q: How long should a meta title be?** A: A meta title displays fully at up to roughly 600 pixels, which lands around 50 to 60 characters. Put the primary keyword near the front and the brand name after a separator at the end, since the end is what gets clipped first. ### Readability & Grade Level Checker https://essel.ai/tools/readability-checker Paste your text to instantly score its readability. Get Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid grade level, and word, sentence, and syllable breakdowns — so you can write for your audience, not past them. **Why readability matters for SEO** Content that's easy to read keeps people on the page, earns more shares, and converts better — all signals that correlate with stronger organic performance. Most general audiences read most comfortably at around a 7th–8th grade level; dense, jargon-heavy writing quietly costs you readers. **What the scores mean** Flesch Reading Ease runs 0–100, where higher is easier (60–70 is plain English). Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level estimates the US school grade needed to understand the text. Together they tell you whether your writing matches your audience's reading level. **How to improve a low score** Shorten sentences, prefer common words over jargon, cut filler, break long paragraphs apart, and use the active voice. Re-run the check after editing to confirm the score moved in the right direction. FAQ: **Q: What is a good Flesch Reading Ease score?** A: A good Flesch Reading Ease score for general web content is 60 or higher, which reads as plain English. Scores of 70 to 80 are very accessible, while anything below 50 reads as fairly difficult and suits technical or academic audiences. **Q: How is the grade level calculated?** A: The Flesch-Kincaid formula combines average sentence length with average syllables per word. Longer sentences and more multi-syllable words raise the grade level. **Q: Is my text stored?** A: No, your text is not stored. All analysis runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded or saved. **Q: Should I always aim for the lowest grade level?** A: Aiming for the lowest grade level is not always right. Match your audience instead, since a developer tutorial can run higher than a consumer landing page. The goal is appropriate clarity, not the smallest possible number. **Q: How do I check the reading level of my writing?** A: Paste the text into the checker above and read the Flesch-Kincaid grade level in the results. A score of 8 means a typical 8th grader can follow it, which suits most general audiences. Word processors bury a similar check in settings; here it runs on paste with no setup. ### Keyword Density Checker https://essel.ai/tools/keyword-density-checker Paste your content to see which words and phrases appear most, with frequency counts and density percentages for one-, two-, and three-word terms. Spot stuffing and find the gaps. **What keyword density tells you** Keyword density is the percentage of a page made up of a given term. It's a quick diagnostic: it shows whether your target keyword actually appears in the content, whether you're leaning on it too hard, and which secondary terms you're naturally covering. It is not a ranking factor to optimize toward a magic number — it's a sanity check. **One-, two-, and three-word phrases** Single words rarely tell the full story. This tool also counts two- and three-word phrases (bigrams and trigrams), which surface the actual topics and entities in your writing and help you see whether you're covering a subject thoroughly. **Avoid keyword stuffing** Repeating a keyword unnaturally to push density up reads badly and can trigger spam signals. Modern SEO rewards covering a topic comprehensively with related terms — not hammering one phrase. If a term's density looks unusually high, that's a cue to diversify your language. FAQ: **Q: What is a good keyword density?** A: No official keyword-density target exists. People historically cited 1 to 2 percent, but Google rewards no specific number. Aim for natural usage, and when a topic is covered well, density takes care of itself. **Q: Does keyword density affect rankings?** A: Keyword density is not a direct ranking factor. Treat it as a diagnostic rather than a lever. Use it to confirm your topic is present and to catch over-optimization, never to chase a target percentage. **Q: Are stop words counted?** A: Common stop words such as the, and, of, and to are filtered out of the ranked results so meaningful terms surface. They still count toward the total word count. **Q: Is my content private?** A: Yes, your content stays private. Analysis runs entirely in your browser, and nothing is uploaded. ### Sentence & Paragraph Counter https://essel.ai/tools/sentence-counter Paste your text and get live counts of sentences, words, paragraphs, and characters, plus reading and speaking time estimates. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded. **Why count sentences at all** Sentence count is a fast proxy for pacing. A 600-word section with 12 sentences reads very differently from one with 40, and editors use the ratio (average words per sentence) to spot walls of text before readers hit them. Teachers and students use the same counts to check essay requirements, and writers use reading time to size an article for its slot. **How the counting works** Sentences are split on terminal punctuation (periods, question marks, exclamation points), words on whitespace, and paragraphs on line breaks. Reading time assumes 200 words per minute and speaking time 130, the standard planning figures for silent reading and presentations. Abbreviations like "e.g." can register as sentence breaks, so treat the count as a close estimate rather than a grammar-checked figure. **From counting to quality** Counts describe length; they say nothing about clarity. Once the numbers look right, run the same text through the readability checker to get Flesch scores and a grade level, and through the keyword density checker if the piece targets a search term. FAQ: **Q: How many sentences are in a paragraph?** A: A typical paragraph runs 3 to 5 sentences, enough to state a point, support it, and transition. Web writing trends shorter: 1-to-3-sentence paragraphs are normal on-screen because dense blocks push readers away. There is no grammatical rule; a single-sentence paragraph is valid when the emphasis calls for it. **Q: How many sentences are in an essay?** A: A 500-word essay usually lands between 25 and 40 sentences, assuming an average sentence of 13 to 20 words. Divide your word target by your typical sentence length for a working estimate, then let the argument, not the count, decide the final number. **Q: How long does it take to read 300 words?** A: About 90 seconds of silent reading at the average pace of 200 words per minute, or roughly 2 minutes 20 seconds when read aloud at 130 words per minute. Paste your text above to get the exact estimate for your word count. **Q: How accurate is the sentence count?** A: The counter splits on periods, question marks, and exclamation points, which handles normal prose well. Abbreviations, decimal numbers, and ellipses can add or hide a break, so expect the count to sit within a sentence or two of a hand count on technical text. **Q: Is my text stored?** A: No, your text is not stored. Counting runs entirely in your browser and nothing is uploaded or logged, so drafts and client work stay private. ### H1 & Heading Structure Checker https://essel.ai/tools/heading-structure-analyzer Paste HTML or Markdown to check your H1 and see the full heading outline as a tree. Catches the issues that hurt SEO and accessibility: multiple H1s, skipped levels, and empty headings. **Why heading hierarchy matters** Headings give a page its outline. Search engines use that outline to understand structure and context, and screen readers use it to let people navigate by section. A clean H1 → H2 → H3 hierarchy improves both SEO and accessibility; a broken one confuses both. **Common problems this catches** Multiple H1s on a page, levels skipped (an H2 jumping straight to an H4), empty headings, and headings used purely for visual size rather than structure. The analyzer flags each so you can fix the outline before it costs you. **HTML or Markdown** Paste a full HTML document or Markdown source. The tool extracts every heading, infers the level, and renders an indented tree with inline warnings — a fast way to audit a page's structure without reading the whole DOM. FAQ: **Q: Should a page have only one H1?** A: A page should use one H1 that describes its main topic. HTML5 technically allows more, but a single clear H1 stays the safest and most widely recommended approach for SEO and accessibility. **Q: What's wrong with skipping heading levels?** A: Skipping from H2 to H4 breaks the logical outline and confuses assistive technology. Headings should descend one level at a time (H2 → H3 → H4) and can jump back up freely. **Q: Does it work with Markdown?** A: Yes, the analyzer works with Markdown. Paste either HTML or Markdown, and it detects # headings and h1 to h6 tags alike. **Q: Is my content uploaded?** A: No, your content is not uploaded. The analysis runs locally in your browser. **Q: How long should an H1 tag be?** A: An H1 reads best at 20 to 60 characters: long enough to state the page's topic with the primary keyword, short enough to scan in one glance. Unlike the meta title, Google does not truncate an H1, but a rambling one dilutes the topic signal for readers and search engines alike. ### Open Graph Checker & Preview https://essel.ai/tools/open-graph-preview Enter a URL to check its Open Graph and Twitter Card tags, or fill in the fields yourself. Either way you see the exact link card Facebook, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, and Slack will render, plus copy-ready meta tags to fix what's missing. **Why Open Graph tags matter** When someone shares your URL, social platforms read your Open Graph (og:) and Twitter Card meta tags to build the link card — the title, description, and image people actually see. Without them, your link shows up bare or with whatever the platform guesses, tanking click-through. **Preview before you ship** Fill in your title, description, image URL, and site name, and the tool renders the link card the way major platforms display it. Catch a truncated title or a wrong-aspect-ratio image before it's live, not after it's been shared a hundred times. **Copy-paste meta tags** The tool outputs a complete, correctly-named set of og: and twitter: meta tags ready to drop into your page's head. Use a 1200×630 image for the cleanest card across platforms. FAQ: **Q: What image size should I use for Open Graph?** A: An Open Graph image of 1200×630 pixels, a 1.91:1 ratio, is the safe default. That size renders cleanly as a large card on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Slack, and as a summary image on X/Twitter. **Q: Do I need separate Twitter Card tags?** A: X/Twitter falls back to Open Graph tags, but adding twitter:card and twitter:image gives you explicit control over how the card renders. This tool generates both sets for you. **Q: Why isn't my new image showing when I share?** A: Social platforms cache scraped metadata, so an old image can linger. After updating your tags, run the platform's debugger, such as Facebook's Sharing Debugger, to force a re-scrape. **Q: Where do the tags go?** A: Open Graph tags go in the head of your HTML document, alongside your other meta tags. **Q: How do I validate Twitter cards now that the official validator is gone?** A: X retired its Card Validator's preview in 2022, so the practical check is a tool like this one: enter your URL, confirm twitter:card and twitter:image resolve, and review the rendered card. Posting the link in a private test post is the final confirmation. **Q: How do I check another site's Open Graph tags?** A: Enter any public URL in the checker above and the tool fetches the page and lists every og: and twitter: tag it finds, flagging missing or malformed ones. Viewing source works too, but the checker also renders the resulting card so you see what a share would look like. ### Anchor Text Generator https://essel.ai/tools/anchor-text-suggester Enter your target keyword and get a diverse mix of anchor text ideas — exact-match, partial, branded, natural, and long-tail — balanced to look natural and avoid over-optimization penalties. **Why anchor text variety matters** Anchor text — the clickable words in a link — tells search engines what the destination page is about. But using the exact same keyword-rich anchor everywhere looks manipulative and can trigger over-optimization filters. A natural link profile mixes anchor types, and that variety is what this tool helps you build. **The anchor types it generates** Exact-match (your keyword verbatim), partial-match (keyword plus extra words), branded (your brand name), natural/generic ("learn more", "this guide"), and long-tail variations. A healthy internal-linking strategy leans on partial, branded, and natural anchors, using exact-match sparingly. **Built for internal linking** These suggestions are ideal for linking between your own pages, where you control the anchor text. Vary your anchors so each link reads naturally in context while still reinforcing topical relevance. FAQ: **Q: What's a healthy anchor text ratio?** A: A healthy anchor text profile leans on branded, natural, and partial-match anchors, with exact-match keywords used only occasionally. No exact formula exists, but over-relying on exact-match is the main risk. **Q: What is exact-match anchor text?** A: Exact-match anchor text is a link whose words are your target keyword verbatim, such as linking the phrase "running shoes" to a running-shoes page. The type is powerful but risky in volume, so use it sparingly. **Q: Does this apply to internal or external links?** A: Anchor variety applies to both internal and external links, but it is most actionable for internal links, where you fully control the anchor. With external backlinks you rarely choose the wording. **Q: How do I use the suggestions?** A: Pick anchors that read naturally in the sentence where the link sits, and vary them across your pages instead of repeating one phrase everywhere. ## Comparisons ### Surfer SEO alternative https://essel.ai/alternatives/surfer-seo Surfer combines SERP research, AI writing, content optimization, and AI-search features. Essel focuses on keeping SEO articles moving through research, review, and scheduled publishing. Compare the actual workflow rather than treating Surfer as a manual scorecard. Best for: Teams that want research, AI assistance, and optimization inside their editing workflow. Why teams switch to Essel: - Research, drafting, and release connected to a publishing cadence - Native WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify connectors - Configurable manual review or automatic release - Public plans with article and workspace allowances FAQ: **Q: Is Essel better than Surfer SEO?** A: Essel and Surfer overlap in research, AI writing, and optimization. Essel emphasizes a connected article cadence; Surfer offers an editing and optimization workflow. Test the same topic and destination before deciding which requires less work from your team. **Q: Does Surfer SEO optimize for AI search and LLMs?** A: Surfer advertises SEO and AI-search optimization guidance as well as visibility features. Calling it tracking-only would understate its public offering. Neither product can guarantee that an AI platform will cite an article. **Q: Can Essel replace Surfer SEO for content optimization?** A: Essel includes content checks within its article workflow, but replacing Surfer depends on the research, editing, and reporting tools your team uses. Compare actual output and controls rather than assuming every feature has a direct equivalent. **Q: How do I move from Surfer SEO to Essel?** A: Keep useful keyword research and briefs, supply your business context and writing examples, then test a CMS draft. Confirm the output and publishing controls before moving your ongoing cadence. ### Jasper AI alternative https://essel.ai/alternatives/jasper Jasper supports marketing content, brand guidance, integrations, and GEO capabilities. Essel focuses on SEO articles and scheduled publishing. Choose around the content your team actually needs, not a claim that Jasper stops at a draft. Best for: Marketing teams creating multiple content formats and connecting AI assistance to a broader marketing workflow. Why teams switch to Essel: - SEO article research and drafting in one workflow - Scheduled article release with review controls - Native WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify delivery - Workspace and article allowances visible on the pricing page FAQ: **Q: Can Essel replace Jasper AI completely?** A: Essel replaces an SEO article workflow, not every marketing format Jasper supports. A team producing campaigns, email, and social content may keep Jasper for those jobs while evaluating Essel for its blog. **Q: Does Essel write as well as Jasper?** A: No controlled quality comparison is presented here. Give both tools the same topic and product facts, then compare sources, accuracy, voice, and the editing needed before publication. **Q: How much does Jasper AI cost compared to Essel?** A: Jasper Pro lists $69/month with monthly billing or $59/month billed annually; Business is custom. Essel starts at $69/month on monthly USD billing. Compare seats, article allowances, GEO credits, and required integrations before treating those prices as equivalent. **Q: What can Essel do that Jasper can't?** A: A categorical missing-feature list would be misleading because Jasper supports integrations and GEO workflows. Essel's specific offering is a connected SEO article cadence with research, review controls, and CMS delivery. Verify the same end-to-end requirements in both products. ### Frase alternative https://essel.ai/alternatives/frase Frase combines research, AI writing, SEO and GEO checks, visibility tracking, and autonomous publishing. Essel overlaps with that workflow. Compare destinations, content controls, and plan allowances rather than assuming Frase reserves automation for its top tiers. Best for: Teams seeking research, writing, monitoring, and an agent that can publish when authorized. Why teams switch to Essel: - SEO article cadence with configurable release controls - Native Shopify, WordPress, and Webflow publishing - Business context and writing examples supplied to the workflow - Public article and workspace allowances FAQ: **Q: Is Essel a better alternative to Frase for autonomous SEO?** A: Both products support automated content workflows. Frase Starter already includes autonomous publishing when authorized. Choose based on actual output, review controls, CMS support, and plan allowances rather than a claimed automation gap. **Q: What is Frase.io used for?** A: Frase supports search research, briefs, AI writing, SEO/GEO checks, visibility monitoring, and agent publishing. Its public pricing describes a broader workflow than a research-only tool. **Q: Is Frase's AI Agent the same as Essel's autonomy?** A: The products overlap, but identical behavior is not established. Frase's agent can publish when permitted and uses inputs including visitor questions; Essel connects article research and generation to a configured cadence. Test your required approval and publishing flow in each. **Q: Can I migrate from Frase to Essel?** A: Bring useful research, targets, and writing examples, then configure a destination and test a small cadence. Do not assume account settings or historical content transfer automatically. ### MarketMuse alternative https://essel.ai/alternatives/marketmuse MarketMuse's public plans emphasize content strategy, inventories, briefs, and optimization. Essel connects SEO article research to drafting and publication. Compare the job your team needs done; unverified capabilities are not missing features. Best for: Teams evaluating content strategy, inventory analysis, and prioritization across an existing library. Why teams switch to Essel: - Research, drafting, and scheduled article release connected - Native WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify delivery - Configurable review and CMS draft/live controls - Published monthly and annual pricing FAQ: **Q: Does MarketMuse write content for you?** A: The inspected public pricing page establishes strategy, briefs, inventories, and optimization, but did not establish the full current AI-generation scope. Confirm that with MarketMuse rather than treating an unverified feature as absent. **Q: Is Essel a good MarketMuse alternative for startups?** A: Essel is worth evaluating when a startup needs a connected SEO article and publishing workflow. Compare that job against the inventory and strategy capabilities you use in MarketMuse; this is not a claim of complete feature equivalence. **Q: How much does MarketMuse cost?** A: MarketMuse publicly lists a free plan. Numeric paid prices were not verified in this review. Use its current pricing page or a direct quote for the scope you need. **Q: Is Essel cheaper than MarketMuse?** A: A defensible paid-price comparison needs MarketMuse's current offer and matching allowances. Essel starts at $69/month on monthly USD billing; MarketMuse also lists a free plan. ### Scalenut alternative https://essel.ai/alternatives/scalenut Scalenut offers AI drafting, SEO/GEO optimization, and auto-publishing on eligible plans. Essel connects SEO article creation to a configured cadence. Compare plan limits and CMS requirements rather than assuming Scalenut requires manual publishing. Best for: Teams evaluating guided drafting, SEO/GEO optimization, and WordPress or Shopify auto-publishing on eligible plans. Why teams switch to Essel: - Article research and generation connected to a cadence - Native WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify destinations - Manual review or automatic release settings - Headless delivery through a read-only article API FAQ: **Q: How is Essel different from Scalenut's Cruise Mode?** A: Cruise Mode supports guided drafting, while Scalenut also advertises optimization and auto-publishing features. Essel connects article research and generation to a cadence with configurable review. Test the complete workflow rather than comparing only the drafting interface. **Q: Can Scalenut publish to Webflow?** A: The inspected pricing page lists WordPress and Shopify auto-publishing. Webflow support was not established; check Scalenut's current integrations directly. Essel provides a native Webflow connector with collection-field mapping. **Q: How many articles a month can Essel publish versus Scalenut?** A: Essel's paid plans include 20, 30, or 60 articles per month. Compare those allowances with the Scalenut plan you need and your review capacity. No measured throughput comparison is presented here. **Q: Does Essel produce better SEO output than Scalenut?** A: Both products offer SEO and AI-search content capabilities. This comparison does not establish superior output or ranking performance. Evaluate source accuracy, useful examples, voice, and editing effort using the same brief. ### Outranking.io alternative https://essel.ai/alternatives/outranking Compare Essel with Outranking using current pricing, article controls, and CMS requirements. This public review could not reliably retrieve Outranking's product and pricing content, so uncertain capabilities remain explicitly unverified. Best for: Evaluate fit using a current trial and the requirements your team actually needs; this review cannot establish a reliable feature-based recommendation. Why teams switch to Essel: - A documented research-to-article workflow - Native WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify connectors - Configurable review and release settings - Published article allowances and subscription prices FAQ: **Q: How much does Outranking.io cost?** A: Current pricing was not verified because the pricing page could not be reliably extracted. Check Outranking's official page or contact the provider. No claim that its pricing is unpublished is supported by this review. **Q: Does Outranking publish content automatically?** A: Automatic publishing was not established by the available evidence. Treat it as unverified, not absent, and ask for the exact destination and scheduling workflow if those determine your choice. **Q: Is Essel better than Outranking for AI search visibility?** A: Essel offers readiness and visibility checks, but Outranking's current GEO scope was not verified. No controlled comparison here establishes better citations, traffic, or revenue for either product. **Q: What should I check before switching from Outranking?** A: Compare your current price, included usage, output quality, review effort, and CMS behavior. Run a representative article through the replacement workflow before moving an ongoing schedule. ## Head-to-head comparisons - [Frase vs Surfer SEO](https://essel.ai/compare/frase-vs-surfer-seo): Frase vs Surfer SEO compared on research, optimization, autonomy, publishing, and price. Which fits briefs-first teams, and which fits hands-on editors. - [Jasper vs Copy.ai](https://essel.ai/compare/jasper-vs-copy-ai): Jasper vs Copy.ai in 2026: Jasper stayed a marketing writing platform while Copy.ai became a GTM workflow platform. Pricing, positioning, and which to pick. ## API documentation - [Docs — Authentication](https://essel.ai/docs/authentication) - [Docs — Best Practices](https://essel.ai/docs/best-practices) - [Docs — List Blogs](https://essel.ai/docs/blogs/list) - [Docs — Get a Blog](https://essel.ai/docs/blogs/get) - [Docs — GEO Optimization](https://essel.ai/docs/geo) - [Docs — Errors](https://essel.ai/docs/errors) - [Docs — Connect WordPress](https://essel.ai/docs/integrations/wordpress) - [Docs — Connect Webflow](https://essel.ai/docs/integrations/webflow) - [Docs — Connect Shopify](https://essel.ai/docs/integrations/shopify) - [Docs — Custom Domains](https://essel.ai/docs/integrations/custom-domains) ## Legal - [Privacy Policy](https://essel.ai/privacy): How Essel collects, uses, and protects your data. - [Terms of Service](https://essel.ai/terms): The terms that govern your use of Essel. - [Security](https://essel.ai/security): How Essel safeguards your content and credentials.