How to Use Rank Math SEO for WordPress (Ultimate Guide)

Are you struggling to get your WordPress site noticed by search engines? You’re not alone. Getting your content to rank can feel like an uphill battle, especially when you’re juggling content creation, site management, and all the other tasks that come with running a website.

That’s where Rank Math SEO comes in.

Rank Math SEO is one of the most powerful SEO plugins for WordPress. It’s designed to simplify search engine optimization for everyone, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been optimizing sites for years.

With over 3 million active installations and a near-perfect rating, it’s become the go-to choice for bloggers, businesses, and developers looking to enhance their search rankings.

Below, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Rank Math, from installation and setup, to optimizing your content, and using advanced features. By the end of this guide, you’ll have the tools you need to improve your site’s search engine visibility and drive more organic traffic.

What is Rank Math SEO?

Rank Math SEO is a comprehensive WordPress SEO plugin that helps you optimize your website for search engines, such as Google. It analyzes your content, suggests improvements, and automates many of the technical SEO tasks that would otherwise eat up hours of your time.

There are two versions of the plugin available, a feature-rich free version and a premium version with advanced capabilities. Even the free version is packed with tools that rival premium offerings from other SEO plugins, which is one reason it’s gained such a massive following.

Here’s what makes Rank Math SEO stand out:

• AI-powered content optimization that helps you write better, more SEO-friendly content
• Built-in Google Search Console and Analytics integration so you can track performance without leaving WordPress
• Advanced schema markup with 20+ schema types in the free version to help your content appear in rich snippets
• 404 error monitoring and redirect management to fix broken links
• Unlimited keyword optimization for posts and pages
• (New) AI Search Traffic Tracker that monitors traffic from AI search engines like Gemini and ChatGPT

The plugin is lightweight and won’t slow down your site, which is crucial since site speed is a ranking factor. Plus, if you’re currently using another SEO plugin like Yoast or All in One SEO, Rank Math SEO makes switching painless with its one-click import feature.

How to Install and Configure Rank Math SEO

Getting Rank Math SEO up and running is straightforward. Let’s walk through the installation process step by step.

First, log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins > Add New. Then, search for Rank Math SEO. Click the Install Now button. Once installation is complete, the button will change to Activate. Click it to activate the plugin on your site.

After activation, you’ll automatically be redirected to the Rank Math setup wizard. Alternatively, if you accidentally close this page or want to return to it later, you can access it by going to Rank Math SEO > Dashboard > Setup Wizard.

Setting Up Rank Math SEO

The setup wizard makes configuration incredibly easy, even if you’ve never used an SEO plugin before. Rank Math walks you through every important setting, and you can always change these later from the plugin settings.

Let’s go through each step of the setup process.

Connect Your Rank Math SEO Account

The first screen you’ll see asks if you want to connect your Rank Math account. Connecting isn’t mandatory, but it unlocks helpful features like keyword suggestions and the ability to use the SEO Analyzer tool.

If you don’t have a Rank Math account yet, you can create one for free. Just click the Connect Your Account button and follow the prompts to sign up. Once you’ve connected (or skipped this step), click Start Setup Wizard to begin configuring your site.

Choose Your Setup Mode

Rank Math SEO offers two setup modes: Easy and Advanced.

The Easy mode covers the essential settings and gets you up and running quickly. The Advanced mode includes additional configuration options for things like role management, 404 monitoring, and schema markup.

For this guide, we’ll walk through the Advanced setup so you can see all the available options. You can always access these settings later if you start with Easy mode.

Import Settings from Other SEO Plugins

If you’re switching from another SEO plugin, this step is a lifesaver. Rank Math SEO can import all your settings and metadata from Yoast SEO, All in One SEO, SEOPress, and several other popular plugins. This means you won’t lose any of your existing SEO work when you make the switch.

If Rank Math SEO detects another SEO plugin on your site, it’ll show you the option to import its data. Simply click Start Import and wait for the process to complete. This can take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on how much content you have.

Once the import is finished, click Continue to move to the next step. If you don’t have another SEO plugin installed, you can skip this step.

Configure Your Site Information

This section asks for basic information about your website. The details you provide here help Rank Math SEO generate structured data that search engines use to understand your site better.

Here’s what you’ll need to fill out:

• Your Website: Choose the option that best describes your site. Your selection affects the type of schema markup Rank Math will use.
• Business Type (if applicable): If you selected a business option, you’ll see a dropdown with dozens of business categories. If nothing fits perfectly, choose Organization.
• Website Name: Enter your site’s name exactly as you want it to appear in search results.
• Website Alternate Name (optional): If you have a shorter version of your site name or an acronym, you can add it here.
• Person/Organization Name: Enter the name of the person or company behind the website.
• Logo for Google: Upload your logo or a profile picture if it’s a personal site. Google may display this in their Knowledge Graph.
• Default Social Share Image: This is the fallback image that appears when someone shares your content on Facebook or other social platforms if a post doesn’t have a featured image.

After filling out these fields, click Save and Continue.

Connect to Google Services

Rank Math SEO can connect directly to Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and even AdSense to bring all your important data into your WordPress dashboard. Click the Connect Google Services button to begin the authorization process.

A pop-up window will open asking you to sign in to your Google account. Choose the account you use for Search Console and Analytics. Then, you’ll need to grant permissions. These permissions allow Rank Math SEO to fetch your data and display it within WordPress.

Check the boxes, then click Continue to grant the permissions and return to the setup wizard. Once connected, you’ll see several configuration options.

For Search Console, select your website from the dropdown menu. Pro users can also select their target country. You’ll also see an option to enable the Index Status tab, which shows you which pages Google has indexed and which ones it hasn’t.

For Analytics, choose your Google Analytics Account, Property, and View from the dropdown menus.

If you haven’t set up Analytics yet, Rank Math SEO can create a Google Analytics 4 property for you automatically.

If you’re using AdSense and have a Pro license, you can select your AdSense account to track revenue data alongside your SEO metrics.

Below that, you can enable Email Reports. This lets you enable monthly SEO reports delivered straight to your inbox. These reports include traffic changes, keyword rankings, and other important metrics. Once you’re finished, click Save and Continue.

Configure Your Sitemap

Sitemaps help search engines discover and crawl your content more efficiently. Rank Math SEO includes a powerful sitemap generator that creates XML sitemaps automatically.

Here’s what you’ll see on the Sitemap page:

• Sitemaps: This toggle enables or disables the sitemap feature. Make sure you leave this setting on.
• Include Images: This option adds your images to the sitemap, which helps them rank in image search.
• Public Post Types: Select which content types should appear in your sitemap. Posts and Pages are selected by default. If you’re using custom post types (like WooCommerce Products), you’ll see them here too.
• Public Taxonomies: Choose which category and tag archives to include. Generally, you’ll want to include Categories, but you can leave Tags off if they’re not well-organized on your site.
• News Sitemap (Pro only): If you run a news site, you can enable this to create a Google News-compliant sitemap. This helps your articles appear in Google News and Google Discover.
• Video Sitemap (Pro only): Enable this if you regularly publish video content. It helps your videos show up in video search results.

Once you’ve made your selections, click Save and Continue.

Adjust SEO Optimization Settings

This section lets you configure some important on-page SEO settings that affect how Rank Math SEO handles your content.

Here are the main settings to customize here:

• Noindex Empty Category and Tag Archives. When enabled, this prevents empty category and tag pages from being indexed by search engines. Empty pages don’t provide value to visitors and can waste your crawl budget. Keep this turned on.
• Nofollow External Links. This setting automatically adds the nofollow attribute to all external links on your site, which tells search engines not to pass PageRank to those links.
• Open External Links in New Tab/Window. When enabled, external links will open in a new browser tab instead of navigating away from your site. This keeps visitors on your site longer.

After making your choices, click Save and Continue. And you’ve now finished the basic setup of your site!

If you selected Easy mode, you’re all done and can click Return to Dashboard. If not, then let’s continue to the advanced optimization settings.

Advanced Configuration

The advanced settings give you even more control over how Rank Math SEO works on your site. Let’s walk through each section.

Role Manager

If multiple people manage your WordPress site, the Role Manager lets you control who can access which Rank Math SEO features.

By default, only administrators have access to all Rank Math SEO settings. Authors can only access on-page optimization tools like the SEO score and meta box.

To enable the Role Manager, toggle it on. You’ll then see a detailed list of capabilities for each WordPress role like, Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber, and more.

For each user role, check the boxes next to the features they should be able to access. For example, you might want Editors to manage redirects but not change global SEO settings.

After configuring the permissions, click Save and Continue.

404 Monitoring and Redirects

Broken links hurt your SEO and frustrate visitors. Rank Math SEO includes tools to monitor 404 errors and create redirects to fix them.

Both features are enabled by default. If you’re already using another plugin for these tasks, you can disable them here, but we recommend using Rank Math’s built-in tools since they’re integrated directly with the rest of the plugin.

Leave both options enabled and click Save and Continue.

Schema Markup

Schema markup is code that helps search engines understand your content better. It can lead to rich snippets in search results. These are things like star ratings, recipe cards, FAQ boxes, and more.

Rank Math SEO makes adding schema incredibly easy. On this page, you’ll set the default schema type for different content types.

For Posts, the default is the Article schema, which works for most blog posts.

For Pages, you can choose from options like Event, Music, Product, and more, depending on the page’s purpose.

If you have custom post types, you’ll see them listed here too. For example, if you’re running a recipe site, you might set a custom Recipe post type to use Recipe schema by default.

Note: These are just defaults. You can change the schema type for individual posts and pages later from the Rank Math meta box.

Once you’ve configured your defaults, click Save and Continue. Then, you’ll be taken to the main Rank Math SEO dashboard.

Understanding the Rank Math SEO Dashboard

Your Rank Math dashboard gives you an overview of your site’s SEO health at a glance. To access it, go to Rank Math SEO > General in your WordPress admin.

The dashboard shows useful information like:

• A summary of any SEO issues on your site
• Links to important Rank Math features
• Quick access to setup tools and modules

Key Rank Math SEO Settings

Now that Rank Math is installed, let’s explore the most important settings you should know about.

Enabling and Disabling Modules

Rank Math uses a modular system that lets you turn features on and off based on your needs. This keeps the plugin lightweight and prevents it from running unnecessary code. You should see the modules in the main plugin dashboard.

Here you’ll see modules for:

• SEO Analysis
• Sitemap
• 404 Monitor
• Redirections
• Schema Markup
• LLMS Text (Sitemap for AI tools)
• Local SEO
• WooCommerce SEO
• And more

Toggle any module on or off using the switch beneath it. Make sure you only enable the features you actually need.

General Rank Math SEO Settings

You can get to the general settings by going to Rank Math SEO > General Settings.

There’s a lot of small settings you can tweak. Feel free to go through the tabs to make any changes you’d like. Here’s a look at what you can do:

• Links: This section controls how Rank Math handles links on your site.
• Strip Category Base: Enabling this shortens your category URLs by removing /category/ from the path.
• Redirect Attachments: Forces image attachment pages to redirect to the post they’re attached to.
• Nofollow External Links: You can configure domain-specific nofollow rules here if you enabled this earlier.
• Open External Links in New Tab: Makes external links open in a new browser tab.
• Breadcrumbs: If you want to display breadcrumb navigation on your site, configure it here. You’ll see options for the separator character, home link, and archive format.
• Images: If you enabled the Images module, you can configure automatic ALT and title attributes for your images. This saves time and helps with image SEO.
• Webmaster Tools: Enter verification codes for Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, and other services to verify your site ownership.

Titles & Meta Settings

Next, go to Rank Math SEO > Titles & Meta. Here, you can control how your content appears in search results and on social media.

Here are the main settings you can configure:

• Global Meta: Set default meta robots tags and advanced settings that apply site-wide. The defaults are usually fine for most sites.
• Local SEO: If you run a local business, enter your business details here, including name, address, phone number, and opening hours. This information is used in local schema markup.
• Social Media: Connect your social media profiles. This information appears in your site’s structured data and can help with brand recognition.
• Homepage: Customize the title and meta description for your homepage. By default, Rank Math uses your site name and tagline, but you can write something more compelling.
• Posts: Set the default title structure and meta robots settings for blog posts. You can use variables like %title%, %sitename%, and %sep% to create dynamic titles.
• Pages: Same as posts, but for your pages.
• Categories & Tags: Control how category and tag archives appear in search results.

Sitemap Settings

You can fine-tune your sitemap configuration at Rank Math SEO > Sitemap Settings.

You can exclude specific posts or terms by entering their IDs, control how many links appear per sitemap page, and decide if you want to include images in sitemaps.

The Posts, Pages, Attachments and other tabs let you customize settings for each content type individually.

Optimizing Content with Rank Math SEO

Now, it’s time to start optimizing your content. Rank Math provides powerful tools right inside the WordPress editor to help you create SEO-friendly posts and pages.

When you create or edit a post, you’ll see the Rank Math meta box in the sidebar (or below the editor if you’re using the Classic Editor).

Setting Your Focus Keyword

The first thing you’ll want to do is set your focus keyword. This is the main search term you want this page to rank for.

Go to the Rank Math meta box (on the right-hand side) and find the Focus Keyword field. Type in your target keyword or phrase.

If you have a Rank Math account connected, you’ll see keyword suggestions as you type. These come from Google and can help you find related terms people are actually searching for.

You can also mark important posts as Pillar Content using the checkbox in the Rank Math meta box. Pillar content is your best, most comprehensive articles (and ones you want to rank highest). These are typically detailed guides that cover a topic in-depth.

Important: The focus keyword is only for internal use. Search engines don’t see it or rely on it. Instead, Rank Math uses it to analyze your content and provide suggestions for improvement.

In the free version, you can add up to 5 focus keywords per post. Pro users can add unlimited focus keywords, which is helpful if you’re targeting multiple related terms.

Editing Your Search Appearance

The Search Appearance section shows you a preview of how your post will look in Google’s search results.

You’ll see previews for both desktop and mobile, which is helpful since most searches now happen on phones.

Click Edit Snippet to customize three important elements:

• SEO Title: This is the clickable headline that appears in search results. You can write a custom title or use variables to generate it automatically.
• Slug: This is the URL for your post. Make it short, descriptive, and include your focus keyword if possible. Once you publish, avoid changing the slug since it’ll break any links pointing to your post.
• Meta Description: Write a brief, compelling description of your post. This text appears below your title in search results and should encourage people to click through. Keep your description under 160 characters.

Try to include your focus keyword naturally in the title, slug, and description, but don’t force it. Write for humans first, search engines second.

Understanding the Rank Math SEO Analysis

This is where Rank Math really helps. The plugin analyzes your content and provides a detailed checklist of SEO factors.

First, you’ll see your Basic SEO optimization. It checks that your focus keyword appears in important places like:

• The SEO title
• The meta description
• The URL
• The first 10% of your content
• Throughout your content (without keyword stuffing)

In the Additional section, you’ll see more advanced checks, including:

• Keyword in headings (H2, H3 tags)
• Keyword in image alt text
• Content length
• Presence of external and internal links

Next, you have Title Readability. This analyzes your SEO title for engagement factors.

For example, using numbers in titles (“7 Ways to…”) tends to get more clicks.

Below that, you’ll see Content Readability. This checks if your writing is easy to understand and includes things like:

• Sentence and paragraph length
• Use of transition words
• Use of the passive voice

Each check throughout the analysis is marked with a green light (passed), orange light (needs improvement), or red light (critical issue).

Your goal isn’t necessarily to get all green lights, since some suggestions might not apply to every post. But addressing the red and orange items will generally improve your content’s SEO performance.

Content AI (Pro Feature)

If you have Rank Math Pro, you’ll see a Content AI option that uses artificial intelligence to help you write better content.

Content AI will do things like:

• Suggest NLP (Natural Language Processing) terms related to your topic
• Generate FAQs that people are asking about your keyword
• Write meta descriptions for you
• Provide headline suggestions
• Recommend related keywords

It’s like having an SEO copywriter built into your editor. The AI analyzes top-ranking content for your keyword and suggests ways to make your content more comprehensive and relevant.

They even have a robust Content AI tool, which can also write complete SEO-optimized articles on your behalf. With every plan you’ll get trail credits, however for full access and additional credits, there’s a monthly fee.

Advanced Settings Tab

The Advanced tab in the Rank Math meta box gives you granular control over how this specific post is handled.

You can adjust things like:

• Robots Meta: Control whether search engines should index this post and follow its links. The default settings are usually correct, but you may want to noindex certain types of content, such as tag archives or temporary pages.
• Canonical URL: If you have duplicate content, you can set a canonical URL to tell search engines which version is the “master” copy.
• Redirect: Set up a redirect from this post to another URL. This is useful when you’re consolidating content or permanently moving a page.

Most of the time, you won’t need to change anything on the Advanced tab. The defaults work well for standard posts and pages.

Schema Tab

Schema markup is one of Rank Math’s most powerful features. The Schema tab lets you tell search engines exactly what type of content this is.

The default schema you set earlier will apply, but you can change this to something more specific if needed. For example, if you’re writing a recipe post, you’d change the schema type to Recipe. Then you can fill in recipe-specific details like cooking time, ingredients, instructions, and more.

Rank Math supports 20+ schema types in the free version, including:

• Article (News, Blog)
• Product
• Review
• Recipe
• FAQ
• Event
• Local Business
• And many more

The Pro version adds additional advanced schema types and custom schema builders for even more flexibility.

Social Tab

The Social tab lets you customize how your post appears when shared on Facebook and Twitter. By default, these platforms will use your featured image and SEO title. However, you may want to use different images or text for social sharing. For Facebook, you can set a custom image, title, and description. The same goes for Twitter.

Running an SEO Analysis of Your Site Using Rank Math

Rank Math includes a powerful SEO auditing tool that checks your entire site for common SEO issues.

To run an analysis, go to Rank Math SEO > SEO Analysis and click Start SEO Audit. The tool will check your site against 30 different SEO factors, including:

• Robots.txt configuration
• XML sitemap status
• Canonical URL setup
• Meta tag implementation
• Content checks
• Security settings
• Mobile optimization
• And more

After the scan completes, you’ll see get a general breakdown and percentage score.

Below that, there are more detailed results broken into three categories:

• Passed Tests: Things you’re doing right
• Warnings: Issues that should be addressed but aren’t critical
• Failed Tests: Critical problems that need fixing immediately

For each issue, Rank Math provides a clear explanation of the problem and actionable advice for fixing it. This is super helpful because it surfaces technical SEO problems you might not even know existed.

Managing 404 Errors and Redirects

Broken links are bad for SEO and user experience. Rank Math helps you stay on top of them with its built-in 404 monitor and redirect manager.

To view your 404 errors, go to Rank Math SEO > 404 Monitor. You’ll see a list of all the URLs on your site that returned a 404 error, along with the number of hits to the page and when it was last accessed.

Once you’ve identified broken links, you can fix them with redirects. To do this, go to Rank Math SEO > Redirects and click Add New.

You’ll need to fill in three fields:

• Source URL: The old, broken URL. You can enter either the path (e.g.,/old-post/) or the full URL, including your domain.
• Destination URL: Where you want to send visitors instead. Enter the full URL here to avoid errors.
• Redirect Type: Choose the appropriate HTTP status code. For most situations, you’ll want a 301 redirect.

After setting up the redirect, click Add Redirect and test it by visiting the old URL in your browser.

Using Rank Math SEO Analytics

Another great feature is the Analytics module, which brings data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics right into your WordPress dashboard. To access it, go to Rank Math SEO > Analytics.

Note: Most of the advanced analytics and tracking features are only available on the Pro version. However, the free version provides quick rankings data at a glance.

Here are some of the core analytics data you’ll get access to:

• SEO Performance: A graph showing your site’s impressions, clicks, and average position over time. You can adjust the date range to see trends.
• Keywords: Quickly see which keywords are gaining or losing rankings. This helps you identify what’s working and what needs attention.
• Index Status: Shows which of your pages are indexed by Google and which aren’t. If important pages aren’t indexed, this tells you there’s a problem to fix.
• AI Search Traffic (Pro): A new feature that tracks traffic from AI search engines like Gemini and ChatGPT, helping you understand how AI-powered search affects your visibility.
• Keyword Rankings (Pro): Track specific keywords over time. You can see exactly where your site ranks for your target terms and watch your progress.

Rank Math SEO Free vs. Pro

The free version of Rank Math is incredibly powerful and includes more features than many premium plugins from competitors. But if you’re serious about SEO, Rank Math Pro unlocks some pretty powerful optimization tools.

Here’s what you get with Pro:

• Content AI: AI-powered content optimization that suggests related keywords, generates FAQs, writes meta descriptions, and more.
• Advanced Analytics: Track unlimited keywords, get detailed ranking reports, and see how your content performs over time.
• AI Search Content Tracker: Filter and track traffic received from AI tools.
• Video Sitemaps: Automatically generate video sitemaps and optimize video content for search.
• Multiple Focus Keywords: Add unlimited focus keywords per post instead of being limited to five.
• Google Trends Integration: See trending keywords and search volume data right in the editor.
• Local SEO Features: Advanced schema options for multi-location businesses.
• Advanced Redirections Manager: More powerful redirect management with regex support and scheduled redirects.
• Automated Image SEO: Automatically optimize image file names and attributes (manual optimization on free plan).
• WooCommerce Optimization: Additional schema types and optimization tools specifically for product pages.
• Schema Templates: Create reusable schema templates that can be applied across multiple posts automatically.
• Custom Schema Builder: Build advanced custom schema types beyond the pre-built options.
• Podcast and News Sitemaps: Get your news articles and podcast episodes found by the right sources.
• 24/7 Priority Support: Get help faster when you need it.

Rank Math Pro pricing starts at $8.99/mo (paid yearly) for unlimited personal websites. While, the Business plan is $27.99/mo (paid yearly) for up to 200 sites and 20,000 keywords, and the Agency plan is $64.99/mo (paid yearly) for 750 sites and 75,000 keywords.

Is it worth upgrading? If you’re running a business website, online store, or professional blog where SEO directly impacts your income, the Pro features can provide a significant ROI. For blogs or smaller sites, the free version might be all you need.

Rank Math SEO FAQs

Final Thoughts: Getting Started with Rank Math SEO

Rank Math SEO is one of the most powerful SEO plugins available for WordPress, and it’s designed to make optimization accessible whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced developer.

The free version alone offers more features than many premium plugins from competitors. It includes everything you need to optimize your content, track your rankings, monitor errors, and improve your site’s visibility in search.

If you’re not using an SEO plugin yet, Rank Math is an excellent choice to start with. If you’re currently using Yoast, All in One SEO, or another plugin, Rank Math makes switching painless with its one-click import feature.

The key to getting results with Rank Math isn’t just installing the plugin, but using the insights it provides. Run regular site analyses, fix broken links, optimize your content based on the SEO suggestions, and track your progress over time.

SEO is a long-term game. You won’t see dramatic results overnight, but if you consistently apply Rank Math’s recommendations, you’ll see steady improvement in your search rankings and organic traffic.

Now over to you. Are you currently using Rank Math, or are you thinking about making the switch? What features are most important for your site? Share your thoughts in the comments below.