So far so good. I mentioned in my first post about testing WordPress Blocks that I’d be installing and reviewing WordPress SEO Plugin – Rank Math (I can finally close that tab). So here goes.
As I mentioned so far so good. I actually stopped the installation process to get this post going. Here’s what I’ve found so far.
Sections in this document
- Setting up the plugin
- Using the plugin in a post
- Review conclusion
Setting up the plugin
Before I can report on my Rank Math review, I have to first create and connect an account using your email address to the Rank Math website before you can get started. I didn’t particularly like being forced to do this but it wasn’t that bad. I may be wrong though. I actually didn’t “skip” the installation and find out for sure but that’s the direction I was pushed in. Any not-so-experienced WordPress user may be forcefully compelled to do so. Leave a comment if I am incorrect!
After that setup, and after my site was connected to Rank Math, I was taken to a page where I can select a drop down of what my blog is about; choose my “Google Image” and choose my “Social Media Image.”
The Google image will be the image Google will use for your website in the search results (if they choose to) and the Social Media Image will be the default image that is used if your site is shared on social media sites, or in an MMS text message.
I quickly jumped into Canva and created a logo and social media image that I have to say I am totally pleased with. I have to admit it’s a great fit. See below (testing the inset image function in WP Blocks while I’m here):
Not too bad right? (inserting the image was easy) Now back to the SEO Plugin review.
All images are in and it’s time to Save and Continue. Note there is a button also indicating I can skip this step. It may just be that I don’t have to connect the site to Rank Math. We’ll soon see.
Oh boy. Rank Math is making me work. I can do all this later and would love to but in order to continue with the helpful set up wizard I might as well set this up now – going into Google Webmaster Tools to connect to the search console to I can see search stats in my WordPress dashboard – not too bad.
On second though I’m not going to connect the plugin with GSC because it’s not needed at this time and I don’t have time to read all that the plugin has access to within my account. I’m going to skip this step.
Create an XML sitemap, include images in sitemaps, includes posts, pages and categories in sitemaps – yes, yes, yes and yes. Next.
The “SEO Tweaks” setup tab – I selected off, off, and off. I don’t need any pages noindex’d at this time, nor do I need links opening in a new window. Next!
Apparently I’m done, but I can click a button for advanced settings. I can set up a 404 monitor and redirects. I do dead link monitoring on my own, and I write redirects in .htaccess. I won’t need this plugin to help me, and nor should anyone else rely on a plugin to do so but to each his/her own. Next.
The last set up section involves Schema markup. I kept it “on” and selected Article for the rest of the settings. I am done.
The above was a review of the initial setup. Now I’m going to save this draft and let the new settings kick in for this article, and report on using the plugin within the Post or Page pages. Stay tuned.
Using the plugin in a post
OK the plugin options loaded after saving the post, navigating to Posts, and loading the edit page again.
The Rank Math feature is displayed at the top right of the Post Edit page, and easily accessible.
It allows you to enter your focus keyword(s) into a text box and it gives you statistics about your page in relation to that set of focus keywords, and your general optimization score.
So far out of 6 optimization checks I have 3 in green, and 3 red Xs. Let’s try to get that score up.
While trying to improve the SEO “score” of this document, I found there were 100 more points to check for Rank Math. I definitely won’t convey all of them to you because that can probably be done at their website but I will say I’m going to look through them all and provide a final synopsis on my findings.
OK the other sections of importance can or do not need to be all checked for green checkmarks. With Rank Math you can spend all day making sure your content is up to their standards on SEO but there are times you can skip some of them.
Here’s a couple suggestions you can skip from time to time:
- No outbound links were found.
- We couldn’t find any internal links in your content.
- Keyword Density…
- Your title doesn’t contain a positive or a negative sentiment word.
- Use Table of Content to break-down your text.
Sometimes you just have to write Au Naturel.
Review conclusion
My conclusion? I’m going to give Rank Math a go on this website, but there’s only one real way to test an SEO plugin against another one and that is by uninstalling your current SEO plugin and installing another one.
If the other one is Rank Math then you’re going to have to make sure to go through all your posts/pages and try to get those nice looking green checkmarks.
From there if you see a ranking or traffic boost – or decline – you may (I stress may) be able to determine which plugin is better.
I can say it may all boil down to preference but in the meantime this remains to be seen.