How Rank Math SEO reshaped website optimization

From having a bunch of installed SEO-related plugins that do different things to having only Rank Math SEO and enabling the modules that you actually need, this is the WordPress plugin that reshaped website optimization the moment that it came out of release. Here’s why, what is it, and how it can help you go from starter to pro.

How Rank Math reshaped website optimization in WordPress

Before Rank Math SEO, website optimization was a mess. Web developers had to find and install the best SEO plugins, and the ones that provided the best out-of-the-box experience. Apart from being able to add a focus keyword and get basic analysis and recommendations, we needed extra plugins to handle various other things, including our XML sitemaps and all the custom Schema Markups.

As a web developer, I also had to explain to my clients how to use all of those plugins, and that was a big waste of my time. Creating my own tutorials and how-tos was the best way to handle all the frequently asked questions, but with so many updates and changes, it was hard to keep up and update all my courses. For my clients, using all those plugins was also difficult, and many of them didn’t even have the time to invest in the learning curve.

Then again, it was hard to maintain all those plugins. I had to check every single changelog to see what was new, and various WordPress forums to make sure that the latest versions didn’t caused any common issues. In terms of security, that wasn’t the best option, as the more plugins you have installed, the bigger the chances of getting hacked.

Lastly, none of those plugins could “connect” or “talk” with each other, which made the process even more time-consuming. Sure, there were many other SEO plugins providing helpful features, but none of them were as good as Rank Math SEO, and to be honest, most of them were pretty expensive.

Rank Math fixes all of that, and adds even more goodies that you can use to optimize everything you have on your website with ease. Basically, it’s one of those tools that will save you time and money, and it would help you go deeper when it comes to optimizing your content, without having any knowledge of SEO plugins. If you are a web developer, Rank Math’s knowledge base will take away all the husle of helping your clients learn how to use the plugin.

If you’re looking at using Rank Math SEO in 2024, here’s my complete review of the plugin, using it for more than 3 years now, and having it installed on almost all of my clients.

What is Rank Math SEO?

Simply put, Rank Math SEO is a modern, easy-to-use, yet robust SEO plugin that you can install on your WordPress website and to your content faster and easier than ever before. It gives you an analysis score on every page, article, category, and tag, recommendations for improving your content, an AI tool that you can use with 1 click, and modules that you can activate or deactivate based on your needs.

It has a free version that includes the most important features and options, and three premium plans that you can choose from – and no, you won’t have to spend a fortune to enjoy all the pro features. Actually, Rank Math is one of the cheapest SEO plugins around, and if you’re looking for a personal license, you’re going to get an unlimited number of personal websites in which you can install the Pro version.

With Rank Math, you can optimize your pages and posts simply by adding focus keywords (one or multiple) and looking at what the plugin is recommending. If you get any red notices, there’s a description that explains the issue, such as “The keyword isn’t included in the title”, and fixing it is as simple as adding the keyword to the title. It also analyzes your website and provides an SEO score with recommendations on how to improve the overall ranking of your website.

You can also connect your Google account on Rank Math SEO, which gives you more insights into statistics, including the best-performed keywords – and those losing positions in search results – and the overall traffic each keyword gets.

Rank Math SEO also provides the “Instant Indexing for Google” plugin, which connects Google (Bing support is already available without any extra plugin) and sends them your newest articles, pages, and changes immediately for instant indexing.

Which types of websites are supported?

Basically, you can install Rank Math SEO on any type of website, including blogs, e-commerce stores, portfolios, podcast websites, business websites, and so on. If you are an advanced user looking at using complex and custom schema types, you can do that too, but more on that in a bit.

If you’re new to the world of SEO optimization, Rank Math SEO will automate things for you, so you don’t have to worry about any technical stuff. Furthermore, it’s easy to use thanks to the comprehensive guides and how-tos provided by the plugin’s team, and there’s always a way to find out more information about a recommendation or a notice (usually by clicking on the (?) icon).

How much does Rank Math SEO Pro cost?

Rank Math SEO is pretty affordable, starting at $4.92 / month, billed annually (ex VAT) for the Pro version, which includes installation and use of the premium features in an unlimited number of personal websites. It gives the option to track over 1,000 keywords, access to the powerful Schema Generator, free content AI trail (4.0k credits), and 24/7 support. Unfortunately, the plan renews at $7.99 per month + taxes after the first year.

For businesses and agencies looking for even more, the Business plan costs $20.99 / month, billed annually (ex VAT), and it supports up to 200 client websites, lets you track over 20,000 keywords, and gives you 12.0k credits for its AI tool. Last but not least, the Agency plan costs $49.99 per month (also billed annually), supports 750 client websites, and tracks up to 70,000 keywords.

Apart from those features, the Pro version also comes with all the premium modules, including advanced Google Analytics 4 integration, a keyword tracker, a list with the tracked keywords, content AI trial using credits, an index status, a Schema Generator, and much more.

Note: The pricing may change, so make sure to visit the official website to check the latest pricing changes. And you never know, you may find a good new offer waiting for you.

Can I migrate to Rank Math without losing my current optimizations?

When you first install and activate Rank Math SEO, one of the first steps that the plugin’s installation wizard will put you through is to retrieve everything from Yoast SEO, All In One SEO, SEOPress, and others. You can skip this option and move to the next steps if you just created your website or never had another SEO plugin installed, otherwise, everything will be imported.

Everything is automated, which means there’s nothing to worry about. Rank Math SEO will automatically import all your settings and keywords that you’ve previously added to your pages using another SEO plugin. Although it depends on the number of content you have optimized with the previews plugin, it usually takes less than a minute for the import to complete.

You can also import all your redirects if you’re using a Redirections plugin, but if you don’t see the installation wizard recognize it, then you should probably contact the team for more information. Rank Math has its own redirections system, which works perfectly, handles everything automatically, and it’s easy to configure and edit all your redirections from one page.

Rank Math SEO (Free) Review: The best features for SEO optimization

The free version of Rank Math SEO has plenty of useful features and tools to look for, including the 1 click import from Yoast, AIO, SEOPress, and redirection plugins. There is an advanced SEO analysis tool, you can run 30+ detailed SEO tests, and check the analysis score that Rank Math SEO gives you for every page, post, category, tag, and custom template that you have.

Using the SEO Analyzer

The “SEO Analyzer” is a simple tool found inside your WordPress dashboard by going on Rank Math –> SEO Analyzer. The tool will scan your website and provide an analysis score, insights on your website’s SEO state, and recommendations to fix all common issues. For example, you may see that your front page is missing an H1 heading, your title is bigger than it should be, images missing alt attributes, canonical tags are not found, and more.

You also get the “Competitor Analyzer” tab, from which you can insert another’s website URL and check their current SEO, by running the same SEO analysis. That’s a great way to quickly compare your website and content to your competitors, completely free.

Creating powerful XML Sitemaps

XML Sitemaps are still crucial when it comes to having your website’s content get indexed as fast as possible. They help search engines and other online services to understand the structure of your content, find information they need faster, and index all your new content with ease. XML Sitemaps are also important when you include lots of videos on your content, or you’re focusing on submitting your website to Google News.

Rank Math gives you the option to automatically create a powerful sitemap that will notify search engines about your new and updated content, and instead of looking weird, they even styled it for the human eye – which is a much-appreciated bonus for us developers. You get more sitemaps and options in the Pro version, but more on that later.

Image optimization, bulk editing, and auto-redirections

Rank Math SEO provides a great way to keep all the titles, descriptions, and alt attributes of your images optimized for search engines. That’s great when you have a plethora of images that haven’t been optimized and they may be missing important information that eventually is crucial for their ranking. And no, don’t worry, it won’t break your already-optimized images.

When running an SEO analysis with Rank Math SEO, you may find that lots of your articles do not include a focus keyword, or the focus keyword does not appear on the title. You can quickly fix those articles by bulk editing them, and saving the changes once you are done. I found that some of my very oldest articles had a couple of SEO issues, and the plugin made it easy for me to go and change them within seconds.

Believe it or not, with the free version you also get smart and automatic post redirects, which is a crucial feature for every website. With this, you put an end to all of your website’s 404-page errors. Every time you change the permalink of a page or post, Rank Math SEO will automatically create a redirection that points to the newer URL and automatically redirects the visitors.

It also notifies search engines with 301, 302, 307, 410, and 451 types of redirections, depending on the change. Oh, and you also get an advanced 404 Monitor, which is available in the free version.

Optimizing for Social Media with the Preview Snippet Editor

Looking at optimizing your posts and pages for social media? Just head over to Rank Math’s “Preview Snippet Editor” to check how your page/article/category/tag is being (or will be) on Google, Facebook, and X (Twitter). You can adjust the title, description, and feature image and have another for social media and another for search engines.

If you have a website that contains lots of videos or GIF images, then you can set a default icon that’s either for videos or GIF images, and the plugin will automatically include it above your feature images when they’re shared on social media. That’s a great option for such types of websites who want their audiences to know that this is a video or GIF.

Pre-made Schema Types

Last but not least, you can change the Schema type in any of your pages and posts, or add more depending on the content that you have. For example, there are multiple different Schema types that you can add extra to your articles, including:

As seen in the video example above, I have created a Product Schema type using Rank Math SEO, which I have inserted as a shortcode into my review for the Shure MV7 Microphone (it’s there if you want to see it demo). Rank Math then automatically displayed the review with all its cons and pros, a title and description, and the feature image. Now I have been playing around with CSS to stylize it even more, but you expect some basic solid default styling.

Here’s the CSS code to style your Review Block as I did, and maybe adjust it based on your needs and personal preferences:

/* Rank Math - Review Snippet */ 

#rank-math-rich-snippet-wrapper {
	padding: 20px;
	background-color: #f9f9f9;
	border-radius: 8px;
	color: #000000;
}
#rank-math-rich-snippet-wrapper h5.rank-math-title {
	  font-weight: 600;
}
.rank-math-review-image img {
	border-radius: 8px;
	box-shadow: 0px 0px 20px 0px #00000020;
}

Note: You can change the colors and font-weight by changing the bold numbers.

Making sure that you have included all the important Schema types in your content is crucial for a top-notch SEO optimization strategy. Keep in mind that you should only add an extra Schema type when necessary, otherwise, you may see your rankings and all your hard work go to waste.

Rank Math SEO (Pro) Review: Go beyond optimization with extra features and AI-based tools

With Rank Math’s cheapest prices that won’t break your bank, it’s easy even for new bloggers to immediately upgrade to the Pro version and get the most out of their website optimization. Content creators looking to expand their blogs into businesses and working full-time or selling their work in the near future, should also probably go with the Pro version as they start their project.

Custom Schema types & Automatic Video Detection

While the free version will be enough for personal blogs and people not looking to go beyond the basic optimization and SEO features, the Pro version is the perfect solution for everyone else.

First things first, it comes with 6 extra pre-defined Schema templates and automatic video detection for Video Schema, which will save you tons of time if you have hundreds or thousands of published posts and pages that include videos (even from YouTube, Dailymotion, and other similar platforms).

But apart from the pre-defined Schema types and the automatic video detection, you can create your own custom Schema types, or even copy your competitor’s Schema code and customize it based on your needs.

Support for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads

If you’re an e-commerce owner, run a business that sells products or services online, or even looking at selling your handcrafted products, then you’ll probably go with either WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. Both of those plugins are supported in the Pro version of Rank Math SEO, and the plugin makes it easy to optimize them all.

Like pages and posts, Rank Math SEO will show its analysis score, but this time at the end of the page and not in the top right corner, as WooCommerce ironically still lacks support for the Gutenberg editor.

Integration with Google News and Trends

With the Rank Math SEO Pro version, Google Trends are already integrated into your statistics page, and it’s easier than ever to submit your blog to Google News. I’ve successfully submitted more than 100 of my clients’ blogs, all of them running with Rank Math SEO Pro.

Just activate the “News Sitemap” module, paste the news sitemap URL on Search Console and Webmaster Tools, and submit your blog to Google News using the Google Publisher Center page.

Local SEO for businesses

When it comes to local SEO, businesses should absolutely focus on providing the best and most updated information about their brand and products or services. With Rank Math SEO Pro, optimizing your website for local results is easier than ever, and you can provide useful information to Google and Bing about your business hours, contact details, and more.

Again, head over to Rank Math’s modules page, and this time enable the “Local SEO” module. Then click on “Settings” and simply fill in all the information, and Rank Math will do the rest. If you’re focusing on multiple locations, the premium version also supports that option.

Using Rank Math’s AI to write better blog posts

One of Rank Math’s newest features is its AI integration, which makes effortlessly create SEO-optimized content with 1 click, without ever leaving your WordPress website. Unlike other SEO tools that are based on artificial intelligence, with Rank Math you get 40+ high-converting templates and tools, which will save you lots of time when using the tool.

Write SEO articles in 1-click, using Rank Math’s AI for WordPress.

You can also make adjustments to the AI tool, including selecting a default country, tone, audience, and post types you want to support.

Note: It’s crucial for every content creator and website owner who uses AI to generate content to carefully read Google’s Search guidance about AI-generated content.

Using Rank Math’s official website as a knowledge base for my clients

If you’re a web developer/designer, spending a good amount of time helping your clients learn how to use various tools is probably something that we all share. Thanks to the crazy helpful documentation and blog posts that Rank Math has created, instead of writing and creating screenshots with arrows that point out where every option is, you can just send a link with one of their guides.

Most of their tutorials include videos, which are important for most of my clients who prefer watching a video rather than reading or seeing the pictures. For others, screenshots and detailed guides are crucial, as they have no time to watch a video or listen to someone talking.

Helpful links:

• Online SEO Analyzer: Although the tool comes built-in with the plugin, you can also use it through the official website.
• Knowledge Base Articles: Your one-stop when it comes to Rank Math SEO (both free and premium versions) tutorials, tips, and tricks.
• Blog: In their blog, Rank Math provides useful information on how to optimize your website and use different Schema types, it keeps you updated on the latest Google changes, provides tutorials and recommendations for WordPress, and more.
• Meta Tag Analyzer: This easy-to-use tool gives you the option to just paste a URL and easily check your website’s meta tags. It will also help you find out if there are any errors in your meta tags.

Use Rank Math’s videos and article guides to help your clients learn more about how to use the plugin and optimize their content with ease.

Conclusion: Should you migrate to Rank Math SEO?

Well, the short answer is yes, it’s worth migrating to Rank Math SEO. But if you feel that you’re not missing anything with your current SEO plugin, then, by all means, keep things as they are.

But if you’re looking at expanding your SEO options and features, decreasing the number of installed plugins, and working through a modern and robust interface, then Rank Math SEO may be exactly what you were looking for.