Rank Math: Constructing Better SEO Results

Are you an SEO or content writer? If so, you know that creating high-quality content is essential for ranking in major search engines like Google. But how do you create quality content that search engines will want to rank higher? One of the best tools is the Rank Math SEO plugin for WordPress. This plugin allows you to use its powerful features to create better content and improve SEO results.

This Rank Math article takes a look at what Rank Math is, what it can do for you, and how you can get started using it to create better content. So if you’re looking to boost your website’s rank in search engines, read on to get a head start.

What is Rank Math?

The race for the best WordPress SEO plugin is on. Competition is fierce, and the plugin market is saturated with great choices. However, one plugin has been gaining a lot of traction against tough competitors – Rank Math. So what is Rank Math?

Rank Math is a plugin to enhance your content from an SEO perspective to improve search engine rank positions, aka SERPs. It adds many features Yoast SEO doesn’t, like wide support for schema.org markup and integrations with Google services to bring data into your WordPress dashboard.

Overall, Rank Math is a relatively new plugin for SEO that has gained much momentum against formidable competitors like Yoast SEO and AIOSEO.

If you’re looking to rank your content in search engine results pages (SERPs), then Rank Math is an SEO plugin you should consider.

What you can do with Rank Math

Rank Math’s primary function is to help optimize your WordPress site for better search engine ranking. However, it can also track your website’s traffic data by integrating with your Google Analytics and Google Search Console account. Rank Math can also add structured data to your posts and pages, track your 404 pages, and handle all content redirection.

Rank Math provides an easy 0-100 scoring system to help you make decisions about your website’s SEO strategies. Overall, Rank Math is a sophisticated plugin that is easy to use and can help you optimize your website for better search engine ranking, traffic analysis, and overall optimization. Here is a list of what Rank Math offers. We’ll dig into each in a bit.

Key Features of Rank Math SEO

Once you understand how Rank Math works, optimizing your website for better results is easy. There are a ton of useful features that you can turn on and use right after you configure Rank Math. Here are some of the best features Rank Math offers.

Immediately upon entering the dashboard, you are greeted by lots of options. Each feature is enabled via the toggle switch on each “card.” There is an Easy Mode and Advanced Mode. The easy mode eliminates 7 of the features which are considered advanced. Here are the features you’ll find, separated by mode.

Easy Mode Features

1. Amp – enables Rank Math to work with accelerated mobile pages
2. Analytics (pro feature) – connects Rank Math to Google Search Console
3. Content AI (pro feature) – purchasable credits that allow for AI suggestions and content analysis
4. Instant Indexing – Microsoft’s initiative to offer immediate content indexation
5. Link Counter – allows you to monitor internal and external links inside WordPress
6. Local SEO (pro feature) – offers optimization options for local SEO ranking factors
7. News Sitemap (pro feature) – create a news sitemap for news-specific content
8. Podcast – allows your podcasts to be discoverable in Google & Apple podcasts, and others
9. Schema (pro feature) – enables structured data to be added to posts resulting in rich search results
10. SEO Analysis – ranks your website based on more than 70 different ranking factors
11. Sitemap – enables XML sitemaps for search engines to crawl your content
12. Video Sitemap (pro feature) – a sitemap specific to a website’s video content
13. Google Web Stories – create web stories using schema markup and meta tags
14. WooCommerce SEO (pro feature) – support for product-specific SEO and markup

Advanced Mode Features

(everything in Easy Mode plus the following)

1. 404 Monitor – allows you to actively monitor 404 pages and traffic that triggers a 404 page
2. ACF Support – support for the use of advanced custom fields from an SEO perspective
3. bbPress (pro feature) – enable SEO meta tags and more for WordPress forums
4. BuddyPress – enable SEO meta tags to make forums SEO friendly
5. Image SEO (pro feature) – automate the task of adding alt and title tags to your images
6. Redirections (pro feature) – redirect content that no longer exists to other content with status codes
7. Role Manager – controls access to Rank Math settings based on user role

As you can see, many powerful features come with the free version, and an additional 10 are offered when you upgrade to Rank Math Pro. Is Pro worth it? Yes, it is worth upgrading, considering the low price and that it enables you to use the plugin across unlimited personal websites. More on pricing in a bit.

Rank Math Free Features

As mentioned, there are many incredible free features with Rank Math. Let’s reiterate what those are.

Rank Math Free Features

1. Amp – enables Rank Math to work with accelerated mobile pages
2. Instant Indexing – Microsoft’s initiative to offer immediate content indexation
3. Link Counter – allows you to monitor internal and external links inside WordPress
4. Podcast – allows your podcasts to be discoverable in Google & Apple podcasts, and others
5. SEO Analysis – ranks your website based on more than 70 different ranking factors
6. Sitemap – enables XML sitemaps for search engines to crawl your content
7. Google Web Stories – create web stories using schema markup and meta tags
8. 404 Monitor – allows you to actively monitor 404 pages and traffic that triggers a 404 page
9. ACF Support – support for the use of advanced custom fields from an SEO perspective
10. BuddyPress – enable SEO meta tags to make forums SEO friendly
11. Role Manager – controls access to Rank Math settings based on user role

Rank Math Pro Features

As dynamic as the free version tools are, the pro version offers an additional 10 powerful and some premium features like redirection and schema support. You can acquire those separately via other WordPress plugins, but they are essential, and it’s typically better to have more functionality with fewer plugins to ensure your site speed remains. Here is the list of tools added when you upgrade to Rank Math Pro.

Rank Math Pro Features

1. Analytics (pro feature) – connects Rank Math to Google Search Console
2. Content AI (pro feature) – purchasable credits that allow for AI suggestions and content analysis
3. Local SEO (pro feature) – offers optimization options for local SEO ranking factors
4. News Sitemap (pro feature) – create a news sitemap for news-specific content
5. Schema (pro feature) – enables structured data to be added to posts resulting in rich search results
6. Video Sitemap (pro feature) – a sitemap specific to a website’s video content
7. WooCommerce SEO (pro feature) – support for product-specific SEO and markup
8. bbPress (pro feature) – enable SEO meta tags and more for WordPress forums
9. Image SEO (pro feature) – automate the task of adding alt tags and title text to your images
10. Redirections (pro feature) – redirect content that no longer exists to other content with status codes

Rank Math Free vs Pro Benefits

The free version will work well for many smaller websites and starter sites that don’t need some of the advanced features offered in the pro version. But suppose you require a feature the pro version offers. It will be worth spending the money to ensure you get a well-supported premium plugin that provides functionality across multiple critical website areas.

Using Rank Math

Search engine optimization is about positioning your website to rank high in search engine results pages (SERPs). Rank Math is an effective tool for helping to grow the SEO value of a website and the position of your website in relation to other websites in your category or niche.

By understanding which SEO strategies are most effective for your site and business, you can make better-informed decisions about improving rankings. And by adding and removing functionality with a simple toggle switch, you’ll be in control of all elements of search engine optimization, those you want and those you don’t.

Rank Math is fairly straightforward to set up and configure, with ease of setup ranking above Yoast and equal to AIO SEO. Let’s walk through the Rank Math setup process.

Installing Rank Math SEO

Rank Math offers an installation wizard that can completely walk you through the process in minutes. The installation and setup can also be done manually if you prefer to go that route. Here are the nine steps to install and configure Rank Math for success.

Step 1: Install the plugin

Installing a WordPress plugin is best accomplished using the Add Plugins feature within the WordPress dashboard. You can manually upload the files and folder using a File Manager within your web host or via FTP, but those are more difficult and time-consuming. Once you have uploaded the plugin, you’ll activate it and be ready to connect your free Rank Math account.

Note: You must install both Rank Math Free and Rank Math Pro. You will not be able to install Rank Math Pro without having the free version. The free version is available from the WordPress plugins dashboard. The Pro version will need to be downloaded and uploaded into WordPress.

Step 2: Connect your free account

Next, you’ll start the configuration process using the setup wizard, with the first step is connecting to a free Rank Math account. If you have not established an account with Rank Math, you will be asked to do this while connecting.

You can sign up using Google, Facebook, or your WordPress.com account. Or you can sign up using your email and by creating a password.

Rank Math Setup – The Wizard

Rank Math has a setup wizard similar to Yoast or All-In-One SEO to make it easier for novice users to get all the pieces in place with less hassle and time spent trying to figure out how it works. The wizard walks you through 5 stages.

Step 3: Follow the setup wizard

Following the setup wizard is essential in getting your website on the right track. This wizard helps you to set up Rank Math effectively and customize it to your liking. You can start with the Easy, Advanced, or Custom setup mode. The Custom mode is only available if you have a Pro plan or higher.

Once you’ve selected the mode, you’ll start the Wizard. It is best to run the wizard in Easy mode, as you can always access the advanced modules and features from the Rank Math dashboard at a later point.

Step 4: Compatibility check

Rank Math will run a compatibility check to ensure it does not conflict with any plugins. Plugin conflict is a difficult issue to solve, so ensuring no conflicts from the outset is critical.

Step 4: Import SEO settings (optional)

You can import those settings directly into Rank Math to save time if you’ve been using a different SEO plugin. You can choose from nine different settings, only importing those most critical to retain.

Once you’ve selected the settings you want, hit the Start Import button to initiate the import of the data and settings.

Step 5: Add your website details

The next step in the setup process is to add your website details. Several fields are available to be filled out to help Rank Math continue with the setup. You’ll be asked what type of website this is. A personal blog, news site, small business website, etc., are the most obvious choice, but there are several others.

You’ll also be asked what the website name is, the alternative name, the organization or person’s name, a logo for Google that is 112×112 pixels, and a default social share image with a recommended size of 1200 x 630 pixels. You can skip some of these or skip the step entirely. You can access these settings from the various options within General settings.

Step 6: Connect to Google services

The next step will ask you to connect to Google services, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Adsense (pro version). You can skip this step and set these up later from the General settings or connect them now. If you choose to connect, you’ll need to log in to your Google account and provide access to these services to allow the data into Rank Math.

Step 7: Set up sitemaps

Setting up XML sitemaps is critical in ensuring your website ranks well on search engines. Doing this will give search engines guidance on where to find the website pages and posts and when new content is published.

You’ll be able to create and customize your main sitemap, handling posts and pages, your news sitemap, handling any news-specific content, and your video sitemap for any video content your site will produce.

Step 8. SEO tweaks

The last step in the setup wizard is to decide how you might want to automate certain content types or information architecture WordPress institutes for websites created on the platform. You’ll be applying global meta across all content with these settings.

Empty categories and tags archives should be noindex as a best practice, as you don’t want to server blank pages or thin content to Google nor eat up your crawl budget.

You can also automatically add a “rel=nofollow” tag to all external links, but depending on your use case, that is not something you would likely want to apply globally. We recommend leaving this off and handling external links individually within the content.

The last setting is to determine if you want external links to open in a new tab or window as a global rule for your website. This is a best practice so users who click on external links in your content don’t leave your website.

So for most websites, the settings will be as follow:

• Category & Tag Archives – On
• Nofollow External Links – Off
• Open External Links in New Tab/Window – On

Step 9. Set up additional modules

The last step in completing your initial setup is to set up any additional modules you want for your website. As mentioned, you can toggle certain features on and off from the main dashboard. Select the additional modules that come with the version you want to use, and they will be added to the left-hand menu for you to configure further.

Rank Math Dislikes

Rank Math is fantastic, and the team behind it has seemingly thought of everything needed for a powerful and capable SEO plugin. However, there is no perfect plugin, and a few things could be improved in Rank Math.

The Content AI tool is just okay and sometimes suggests things that don’t make sense or are not possible. AI technology is getting stronger every day, so we would assume this feature will get better as the technology does.

The SEO Analysis that is accessible via the left-hand menu is not great. It provides good information related to some settings and global meta, but it only analyzes the homepage. You can’t input any deeper page and have that analyzed. This is a big miss with a feature that would be a game-changer.

Rank Math SEO Plugin Pricing

If you’ve decided to purchase Rank Math, the plugin is available in two versions – Free and Paid. Within the paid version, there are two additional levels above Pro, Business, which adds support for 200 client websites and 200 free AI credits (normally cost $49 for 225 credits), and the ability to track 20,000 keywords.

You can also opt for the Agency plan, which supports up to 750 client websites and provides 750 AI credits and the ability to track 75,000 keywords.

The Rank Math plugin comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee and a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there is no risk in onboarding Rank Math and testing out the full functionality of this WordPress plugin.

Rank Math vs Other SEO Plugins

When comparing Rank Math with other SEO plugins, most people want to know how it performs compared to Yoast and All-In-One SEO. There are many more complete WordPress SEO plugins to power a website, but these three are the most popular SEO plugins.

Let’s discuss the main differences that would help you choose Rank Math over one of the alternatives.

Comparison #1: Rank Math vs Yoast SEO

Rank Math and Yoast SEO are two of the most popular and widely-used SEO plugins. Both offer a free plugin with various features and capabilities, but choosing the right plugin is essential.

Rank Math and Yoast offer incredible features to power your site’s SEO practices. They both provide an SEO score for content and support multiple focus keywords, as well as other features to support WordPress SEO best practices, but we have to give Rank Math the win regarding overall value. Here’s why.

While both plugins are free, Rank Math offers more features and capabilities for a lower cost.

1. Yoast SEO costs $99/year compared to Rank Math, which costs $59/year.
2. The Yoast SEO plugin offers WooCommerce SEO support, but you need to pay an additional $79/year. Rank Math includes this with your Rank Math Pro purchase.
3. Yoast SEO offers news SEO support, but you need to pay an additional $79/year. Rank Math includes this with your Rank Math Pro purchase.
4. The Yoast SEO plugin offers support for video SEO, but you need to pay $79/year. Rank Math includes support for video SEO when you purchase the Rank Math Pro version.
5. Yoast SEO offers support for local SEO, but you need to pay $79/year. Rank Math includes support for local SEO when you purchase the Rank Math Pro version.

Additionally, Rank Math provides a keyword rank tracker, support for tracking internal links, Google Stories, SEO for forums, and more across unlimited personal websites.

Both SEO plugins come with one year of free updates and support. Essentially, you will pay $59 for Rank Math Pro and be able to use it across multiple websites or pay $415 for Yoast SEO on a single website with fewer features.

Comparison #2: Rank Math vs All-In-One SEO Pack

When compared to All-In-One SEO (AIOSEO), Rank Math stacks up nicely but doesn’t blow AIOSEO away on overall value as it does with Yoast SEO.

Rank Math wins because a single purchase can be used on multiple websites, whereas a single purchase of AIOSEO will only work for a single website. You need to upgrade from the Basic plan ($49.60/year) to the Plus plan ($99.60/year) to get SEO support for two additional websites.

Additionally, the following features are only available with the AIOSEO Pro plan, which costs $199.60/year but that Rank Math offers for less.

• Priority support
• News sitemap
• Video sitemap
• Redirection manager
• 404 error tracking
• Internal link assistant

These are fantastic features, but not at that price point. The Basic plan does have a few features we like and would like Rank Math to include. Microsoft Clarity lets you see how users interact with your website through heatmap tracking and session recordings. It comes with a headline analyzer tool and unlimited keywords.

These premium features save you money if you were going to add them by other plugins or web services, but even applying those costs doesn’t reach the $199.60/year asking price for the Pro version. Rank Math is simply a better deal and provides a complete solution.

Rank Math General Settings

Every feature and function of Rank Math is controlled via the left-hand menu, and most settings are applied via the General Settings tab. Multiple adjustable core features are available, including controlling breadcrumbs, Google Analytics and Google Search Console integration and controls, editing capabilities of your robots.txt file, and the .htaccess file.

Most settings applied here are applied globally across the entire WordPress website. The free SEO plugin uses this same panel, albeit the options will be reduced as some features are only enabled with Rank Math Pro.

For more detailed information on how to set up Rank Math for your website, please refer to our Rank Math SEO setup guide.

Read Next: 5 Best Free SEO Tools for Business Use in 2023

Final Thoughts on Rank Math

Reading this Rank Math SEO plugin review, it’s clear why we are so high on this popular SEO plugin. Whether this is your first foray with an SEO plugin or you want to change from another SEO plugin, Rank Math will not disappoint.

Don’t mistake; we think very highly of other SEO plugins, but after using many of them, Rank Math is our preferred SEO tool to improve everything from SEO title tags to implementing complex schema markup.

Check out our blog FAQs for more information on how Rank Math’s powerful SEO plugin can help your business. And let us know in the comments if we missed something important in this Rank Math SEO review. Cheers!