Are you using WordPress plugins to your advantage?
If not… what are you doing?!
WordPress plugins make SEO so much easier. You can spend more time focusing on your business and less time tinkering with keyword research and analytics.
My hands-down favorite plugin for optimizing a WordPress website is Rank Math. The Rank Math WordPress SEO plugin is huge in the WordPress community, with about two million users. It’s described as the “Swiss army knife of WordPress SEO,” and it definitely holds up to that reputation.
I promise I’m not sponsored… I just really love this tool.
What is Rank Math?
Rank Math is an all-in-one SEO plugin for WordPress sites. If you’re not familiar, a plugin is basically a tool you can integrate into your WordPress site builder. These tools significantly expand the functionality of the WordPress site editor, allowing you to turbo-charge your website with extra features to take it to the next level.
Rank Math specifically focuses on the SEO side of web building (although there are other amazing plugins that focus on different areas of web design). It features a huge suite of 90+ SEO tools to help your site rank better in search engines.
If you’ve tried SEO on your own before, you know how involved and complicated of a process it is. And I’m right there with you — anything that can make SEO easier is worth exploring.
With a full-service tool like Rank Math, you don’t have to guess at the right strategies for SEO. This plugin’s extremely user-friendly interface makes it easy to alter your site to make the search engine algorithms happy.
Best of all, the basic version of this plugin is completely free. There are also higher tiers available for marketing agency owners, businesses, and professionals. The Rank Math Pro tier is just under $5 a month, making it very affordable if you want to take the features up a notch. The business version of Rank Math supports 100 clients, while the agency version supports 500.
Why is Rank Math so great?
So why am I shouting my love for Rank Math WordPress SEO plugin from the rooftops? Here are the top three reasons you need this tool in your SEO toolbelt.
It does everything
Rank Math is truly an all-in-one tool. Just head to the home page of the Rank Math website, and you’ll see an in-depth list of 90 features this tool offers. This SEO plugin accounts for every aspect of search engine optimization.
This plugin does:
- Keyword research: Rank Math makes it easy to pinpoint the terms you need to use in your website content to help it rank
- Analytics: The built-in analytics module gives you data straight from Google Search Console
- Schema markup: Rank Math’s Schema Generator tool gives the search engines more information about your website, supporting your rankings in search results.
- Redirection: The plugin’s advanced redirection manager allows you to make your website findable under different URLs
These tools only scratch the surface of what Rank Math can do for you!
I understand if all these features sound a little overwhelming, especially if you’ve never heard of terms like “schema markup.” If you’re just trying to bring in some more traffic to your website, you may not feel like you need a plugin as comprehensive as Rank Math.
But the great thing about Rank Math is that you can make it as small- or large-scale as you want. If you only want to use a few features, you can ignore the others and still have a user-friendly experience.
It’s modular
If you’ve tried other WordPress plugins in the past, you may be familiar with “plugin bloat.” Plugins have a lot of moving parts, and all of them working together at once can slow your site down to a crawl.
It’s not the ’90s! Your site can still load snappily even with this awesome SEO plugin.
One of the biggest reasons I like Rank Math is that it’s modular. You can choose which modules you want to use and which you want to turn off.
Just go to the Rank Math Dashboard to see a list of all the modules in alphabetical order. Then, you can easily toggle the on/off switch for each one, reducing plugin bloat. Boom! Your website is optimized and still speedy!
It offers exceptional integration
Rank Math also integrates very well with the WordPress editor and other popular page builders out there, like Elementor and Cornerstone. If you’re already using either of these page builders, you don’t have to sacrifice them to add Rank Math into your workflow. Other plugins don’t integrate nearly as well as Rank Math.
If you’ve only ever used the built-in WordPress editor, you won’t have too much of a learning curve with Rank Math. You can configure Rank Math in your WordPress dashboard sidebar and maintain access to the platform’s other features.
So how do you use Rank Math?
One of Rank Math’s greatest assets is its usability. This plugin is incredibly user-friendly — you don’t really need any SEO experience to use it well. But I want to take this time to break down how to get started with Rank Math and use it to your greatest advantage.
1. Choose your settings
Start by downloading Rank Math. The setup wizard will automatically open upon launching the plugin.
Rank Math will take you through the steps to install, set up, and run the plugin, including quick guides about its various tools and data. First, you can choose your settings:
- Easy: Best if you don’t want a lot of control over their settings and prefer to let Rank Math do most of the work
- Advanced: Best if you want more control over the SEO features
- Custom mode: Best if you want to implement custom settings in Rank Math
You can change your settings at any time after setting up your plugin.
You’ll also have a chance to provide some basic info about your site for schema markup. Choose the type of website, upload a photo of a logo you want to display in Google, and add a fallback thumbnail that will display when users share your web pages on social media.
2. Link your account
You don’t need an account to use the Rank Math WordPress SEO plugin, but an account is required for certain features.
On the next slide of the setup wizard, you’ll have the chance to connect your Rank Math account with Google Search Console and Google Analytics. I highly recommend this step because you can integrate this data into your Rank Math dashboard, but it’s completely optional.
3. Structure your sitemaps
Next, the setup wizard will take you through a few questions about your sitemap configuration. Sitemaps help search engines index your website content.
You can enable or disable sitemaps in the Rank Math settings, but I recommend keeping this feature turned on to improve your search engine rankings.
On this page, you can also choose whether to include images in sitemaps. I also recommend turning this setting on, as it will help search engines index your images.
4. Optimize and finish the setup
Finally, Rank Math will walk you through a few more SEO tweaks before completing the setup. Each setting has an in-depth description of what it means for your website, so you’ll know what you’re working with.
You’ll have the opportunity to change more advanced settings later on if you want to, but completing the setup wizard positions this plugin well to begin optimizing your site.
Key features in the Rank Math WordPress SEO plugin
I want to highlight a few Rank Math features that I often use in my own sites and my WordPress sites for clients.
Content AI
Rank Math’s new content AI feature helps you write content that ranks well in search engines. This tool gives you AI-generated suggestions for keyword usage, headings, links, and word count.
You can write web content directly in the tool, and it will automatically check off the keywords you’ve used. Your “score” will increase as you implement changes to the content according to the AI-generated tips.
If you’ve struggled to write high-ranking content, this tool is a game changer. You won’t have to guess how often to use keywords and include links!
In my opinion, Rank Math is worth downloading even if you only use the Content AI feature.
Schema builders
If you’re new to SEO, “schema” may be a foreign concept.
What is schema anyway? It’s basically a form of microdata you can add to your website HTML to help it rank better.
Rank Math features several schema markup tools that are easy to use and don’t require any in-depth knowledge of SEO. You’ll basically just need to click a few extra buttons every time you create new content to add schema with this plugin.
Rank Math has specific schema markup tools for:
- Articles
- Products
- Recipes
- Events
- Videos
- Local business pages
- FAQ blocks
- “How To” posts
Local business tools
Does your business cater mostly to a local audience? Rank Math offers a few features just for you!
The plugin has a Local SEO Optimization tool that adds metadata to your website to improve your rankings. Just enter your business information, and Rank Math will help you use the right keywords and ranking factors to boost your visibility in your area.
If you have multiple business locations, you can use the multi-place SEO tool to make sure each location ranks well. And if you ever need to update your business’s contact information, you can use the plugin’s built-in shortcode to update it everywhere at the same time.
Final thoughts
So based on your experience with other WordPress plugins — what do you think? Do you prefer an all-in-one tool like Rank Math or a more popular option like Yoast?
Personally, I think Rank Math’s features are hard to beat. I’ve been using this tool for a while now and love its modularity, integration capabilities, and a boatload of features. Plus, the price makes it really accessible for small businesses.
I know I’m an SEO geek, but I also have a lot of fun playing around with this tool. There’s even a Facebook group where users offer SEO tips and guidance.
You don’t have to be a seasoned SEO expert — the Rank Math WordPress SEO plugin does the work for you!
