When it comes to marketing, SEO is crucial. It helps you in driving traffic from search engines such as Google, Bing, and others.
If you have a WordPress website, you can use SEO plugins to help you optimize your site for SEO.
In the WordPress SEO ecosystem, Yoast has long been the market leader. However, there are some new SEO plugins on the market, such as Rank Math.
In this Rank Math review, I’ll show you how to install it and discuss its features after using it for more than a year.
Overview of Features in Rank Math
Clean Dashboard – Rank Math gives a clean dashboard wherein you can easily find and enable the features you want.
Built-In Schema – You can enable structured data support, which adds Schema code to your website, resulting in richer search results, a higher CTR, and more traffic.
Elementor Support – The days of switching from Elementor and block editor to do SEO are long gone. Rank Math allows you to do SEO for Elementor pages directly from the editor.
Image SEO – With Rank Math, you can automate the process of adding Alt and Title tags to your images when you upload them. This helps improve your image rankings even more.
Up to 5 Focus Keywords – Each blog post can have up to 5 focus keywords. Rank Math will provide you with a detailed to-do list for improving your content based on the focus keywords.
404 Monitor & Redirections – It lets you set up redirections for pages that have been moved to a new URL or deleted permanently. You can easily add a 301 or 302 status code that gives a signal to search engines about the same.
Installing the Rank Math SEO Plugin
Rank Math plugin is available in two versions – free and paid. The Rank Math free is available to download from the WordPress plugin directory. You can navigate to Plugins → Add New and search for ‘Rank Math’.
Install and activate the first option that appears. As soon as you activate the plugin, the setup wizard will launch, which will help you in configuring the plugin.
Close the Setup Wizard for the time being because we also need to install the Pro plugin. Get Rank Math Pro and upload the zip file to the plugin page to install it.
Once both the plugin are active, you can launch the setup wizard from the Rank Math dashboard by clicking Setup Wizard at the top.
How To Set Up Rank Math SEO Plugin?
Now that you have the Setup Wizard running on your website, the first step is to create a free account on the Rank Math website.
After you’ve connected the plugin to an account, the next step is to select between an easy and advanced configuration. The only difference between the two is that the advanced option allows you to choose the settings, whereas the easy option configures them automatically based on industry best practices.
In this tutorial, I will select the advanced option and walk you through the settings. To begin the configuration process, click the Start Wizard button.
1. Import Data From Other SEO Plugins
If you have Yoast or any other SEO plugins installed on your website, this option will appear. The Rank Math SEO plugin has made the process of switching from another SEO plugin very easy.
Rank Math will automatically detect which SEO plugin you are using and provide you with the option to select which settings to import.
Choose the settings to import and press the Start Import button. If you use a redirection plugin, you can import its settings and have Rank Math handle it.
2. Select the Type of Website
The second step is to choose the type of website you have. The dropdown menu displays all of the available options. If you select the business type, additional options to choose the type of business will appear.
Whatever option you select, the plugin will configure the structured data for that type of website. After that, upload the logo and a default social share image and click on Save and Continue.
3. Connect Site to Google Services
The third step is to connect Rank Math with Google services like Search Console and Google Analytics. Once connected, you will be able to access information about how your website performs in Google searches directly from the Rank Math dashboard.
If you don’t already have the Search Console account yet, you can create one. The Search Console will help your site get indexed whenever new content is published. When connected to Rank Math, you’ll be able to see the list of keywords that your site is ranking for.
Likewise, if you don’t already have a Google Analytics account, you can create one and link it to Rank Math. You will be able to see data about how your site is performing after linking your Google Analytics account.
Rank Math also allows you to have a self-hosted Analytics JavaScript file, which can help you speed up your WordPress website. You can also enable cookieless tracking to make your website GDPR compliant.
You can also connect to Adsense from the same Google account if you use it on your website.
The final option is Email reports, and if enabled, Rank Math will send you an email with a summary of how your website performs in search.
4. Create a Sitemap
In the fourth step, you’ll find settings for configuring your website’s sitemap. If you’re unfamiliar with sitemap, it’s essentially a blueprint of your website that Google bots use to crawl and fetch content.
Some of the options on this page will be set to ON by default, and I recommend that you leave them that way. If you want you can enable the sitemap for any custom post types that you might have.
5. SEO Tweaks
There isn’t much to configure in this step. Keep the first option enabled to inform search engine bots to ignore empty categories and tags in the sitemap.
The next two options can help you automate the process of adding tags to external links. I recommend that you turn off the nofollow option and manually add it. You can keep the last option enabled to open all external links in a new tab.
Click on Save and Continue to proceed to the next step. We are now finished with the basic settings, and you can proceed to set up the advanced options by clicking the button at the bottom.
6. Role Manager
If you have a multi-author website, the role manager can be used to assign different settings to different user roles.
Turn ON the role manager settings to select and deselect appropriate checkboxes for each user role.
If you are the only user of the website, you can skip this step by turning it off.
7. 404 & Redirections
Rank Math is a plugin that can be used to replace several plugins on your website. You can enable the first option, which will allow Rank Math to monitor broken links on your website.
You can also enable the second option, which allows you to add redirection to broken links without having a negative impact on SEO.
8. Schema Markup
The final but most important option is schema markup. You can increase search engine traffic by adding a schema type to all of your posts. Schema adds meta-data to your website, which results in rich search results.
When you enable the Schema option, you can choose a schema type from a dropdown for posts, pages, and any other custom post types on your website. There are numerous options in the drop-down menu, including a recipe, book, job posting, software application, and many more.
To finish the setup wizard, click Save and Continue, and you’ll be taken to the Rank Math SEO dashboard. You’ll find various modules in the dashboard that you can enable and configure settings for.
Rank Math Pro Review: 5 Outstanding Features
Rank math SEO comes with a lot of features. In this article, we are going to explain 5 outstanding features that make it one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress.
1. Analytics
The best feature of Rank Math SEO in my opinion has to be the built-in analytics and keyword tracking. Rank Math connects with Google services such as Search Console and Google Analytics to provide you with information about how your website performs in Google search in an easy-to-digest format.
It displays all of the keywords for which your website currently ranks, and you can track their position using the built-in rank tracker. Rank Math also shows when a Google algorithm update has occurred in the Analytics, so you can see if your site has been affected.
It also displays your top 5 winning and losing keywords, allowing you to focus your marketing efforts on the right articles.
2. Built-in Schema
Rank Math comes with support for multiple schema types that can help your content stand out by showing rich results in the Google search. This leads to higher CTR which can help in higher rankings.
Rank Math has schema templates for:
- Article
- Recipe
- Product Review
- Restaurant
- Event
- Course
- Book
- Job Posting and many more.
You can set a default schema type for each post type in the settings or add a new one from the meta box in the editor.
The best part about Rank Math schema builder is that you can import a custom schema from any website just by entering the URL. Rank will show you all the different schemas that the URL use and you can add it as a template to your website and make changes as per your preferences.
You can also build a complete custom schema using the builder without the need to know any coding language. It allows you to set the display condition and have it automatically show up on specific pages of your website.
It also allows you to validate the schema on Google with just a single click.
This way, you don’t end up getting error notifications in the search console.
3. Image SEO
Image SEO is a powerful but often ignored traffic generation strategy. Since Google bots are not intelligent enough to understand what an image is about, adding an ALT tag helps them.
Image ALT text is an HTML attribute that is added to the image tag. The image element is used to display images on your website, while the alt text describes them.
Here’s an example of ALT text in the HMTL code:
<img src="img_girl.jpg" alt="Girl in a jacket" width="500" height="600">Rank Math automates image SEO by adding ALT tags to all of the images on your website. It does not make changes to your images on the backend but does it on the fly when a visitor lands on your website.
Aside from ALT tags, it can be used to automate the task of adding captions as well. You can format the names for ALT tags and captions using different variables such as the file name.
4. Advanced Sitemap
Search engines use XML Sitemaps to find and index your website’s pages. Rank Math creates a customizable sitemap automatically by giving you complete control over what is to be included in the sitemap.
Apart from the regular sitemap, it also lets you create advanced sitemaps for news and videos.
If you’re a news publisher, you’re probably aware of the importance of Google News in driving traffic to your website. According to the guidelines set by Google, a website needs to have a news sitemap for it to appear in Google News.
Rank Math allows you to create fully compliant news sitemaps as well as configure extra data for your post.
Similarly, if your website contains videos, you can enable the video sitemap from the Rank Math dashboard.
Rank Math checks for the presence of video content as you create new posts, and if it finds any, it automatically adds the URL to the Video Sitemap.
5. WooCommerce SEO
WooCommerce is a popular plugin that allows you to convert your regular website into an eCommerce website. The goal of an eCommerce website is to drive traffic and generate sales. To achieve such a result, you must optimize your product pages.
Rank Math comes with built-in support for WooCommerce. To enable SEO for WooCommerce, go to the Rank Math dashboard and enable the WooCommerce module. When you enable it, it will automatically apply some preset settings based on industry recommendations.
When you open any product page, the same SEO meta box appears at the bottom, allowing you to enter a focus keyword and optimize the product page.
Rank Math also applies the WooCommerce-specific product schema to each product page.
Documentation and Support
If you ever need help with the Rank Math plugin, you can search the knowledge base article, which contains a lot of in-depth articles covering installation, setup, troubleshooting, and so on.
They also have a support forum where you can ask the team questions about the plugin and get answers.
The support team is extremely responsive and available 24/7. If you purchase the business or agency plan, you will receive priority support from the team.
Rank Math SEO Pricing
Rank Math plugin is available in free as well as paid version. Even though the free plan comes with a lot of feature, Rank Math Pro is where the real deal is.
The pricing plans are simple and are targeted at three different use case.
Rank Math Pro: If you’re a blogger or a solopreneur, this plan is ideal for you. It costs only $59 per year and allows you to install the Pro version on an unlimited number of personal sites.
Rank Math Business: This plan is aimed at agency, freelancer and business owners that offer their service to clients. It costs $199 per year and allows you to install the Pro version on 100 client websites with 10,000 limits on the keywords tracker.
Rank Math Agency: This plan offer features similar to the business plan. It costs $499 per year and bumps up the number of license to 500 client websites and 50,000 tracked keywords.
If you decide to purchase the Pro version, keep in mind that they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. You’ll have plenty of time to test out the plugin and see if it’s right for you.
My Verdict on the Rank Math Review
When it comes to growing traffic from search engines, an SEO plugin play a crucial role. Rank Math can help you with this. It is a feature packed plugin that we ourself use on this website.
It has a modern and user-friendly interface that is easy to understand by beginners and expert alike. You get most up-to-date optimization techniques and it allows you to assign five focus keywords to your content and optimize it for all of them.
Rank Math is constantly adding new features, and based on the roadmap, it is only going to get better.
