Rank Math Review - Why Did I Switch from Yoast to RankMath?
Rank Math has developed an optimal foundation for increasing search traffic.
It is in comparison to Yoast:
- Faster
- Easier
- More Intuitive
And it does so without slowing down your page’s load time. It also offers more complex SEO functions.
For instance:
They offer a 100-point page analysis test that examines each page’s requirements in depth:
If you wish to optimise for more than five target keywords per page, Yoast-based SEO solutions charge a subscription.
Furthermore, RankMath provides a 1-click advanced SEO analysis tool that may help you quickly do a site audit:
And the most incredible part?
It is free.
Watch this little video to find out more about Rank Math:
I’ll show you how to properly configure Rank Math and, if required, migrate from Yoast.
How to Transition to Rank Math
In only a few clicks, you can simply move to Rank Math.
They offer a thorough setup wizard that enables you to:
- Migrate from Yoast & other SEO plugins
- Quickly add essential site information
- Optimize all your previous posts
In other words, you might start within the next 10 to 20 minutes.
Step #1: First, backup your website and run a quick audit.
The first step is to back up the current version of your site, which you can do with a free plugin like Updraft.
After you have your backup, utilise a site auditing tool such as:
To do a quick crawl of your site to offer an overview of your current SEO performance.
This enables us to compare our site before and after the transfer to check that everything went smoothly and that no gaps were left.
Keep this information handy since you’ll use it as a baseline to guarantee your Rank Math deployment went as smoothly as possible (better safe than sorry, right?).
Let’s begin with Rank Math…
Step #2: Migrate From Yoast (or other SEO plugins).
Note: If you do not have an SEO Plugin installed you can skip this step.
If your site uses Yoast SEO or another popular SEO plugin, you may easily switch to Rank Math.
This enables you to make the transfer without:
- You have to edit your previous posts.
- Rechecking all of your settings
Rank Math will automatically detect which SEO plugin is installed on your site and recommend removal.
Simply navigate to – Rank Math Dashboard and launch the process.
You should see the following:
Deactivate your SEO (Yoast) Plugin
As you scroll down, you’ll find Rank Math checking your website for compatibility issues. When you click More, you can discover whether any SEO plugins on your website are incompatible.
Import Data from Yoast SEO
In the following step, you can see the Yoast plugin input data that can be loaded into Rank Math.
Wait for the operation to complete after clicking the Start Import button. You may also recalculate your SEO scores at the same time. Please keep in mind that this method will only update the SEO score for posts tagged as N/A.
The progress bar will reflect 100% done when the import is complete. Refer to our detailed explanation for further steps to establishing all SEO criteria available in the Rank Math Setup Wizard.
Step #3: Configure Rank Math
Go to WordPress Dashboard and open RankMath
You should have seen the screen with website information before. Fill out the following necessary site information.
In this post, we’ll walk you through installing Rank Math and customising the essential SEO parameters on your website – the ones critical for maximum SEO performance and that the setup wizard makes exceedingly easy to alter.
See the Video from RankMath for in-depth guidance:
There are a few things that will occur here, so let’s go through them first.
The setup instructions are in the first section. At each phase, Rank Math will ask you some essential questions. Based on your comments, Rank Math will adjust the SEO settings.
- Easy
- Advanced
- Custom Mode (PRO)
You have three options, with the Custom mode available only to Rank Math PRO members. The basic and advanced processes are nearly identical. The advanced option contains extra stages that may be customised with more complex characteristics. We’ll use the Advanced Mode configuration:
Compatibility Check
The next section does a compatibility check. Rank Math does a compatibility check before beginning the setup procedure to guarantee that there are no issues. If there are no difficulties, you will receive the message:
You may view the results of the tests by clicking the More option.
Your Site
You may notify Rank Math about your website using this option. Whether it’s a personal blog, an internet company, a non-profit website, or anything else. Based on your response, Rank Math inserts the appropriate code to your website so that Google understands this about your website. This setting provides just the following options:
Learn More About the Setup Wizard
Rank Math provides some helpful materials to help you understand how to use the setup process to instal Rank Math. Of course, the fact that you’re reading this means that you’re either interested or want to learn more. In any case, we wanted to share that information with you so that you could acquire the right information.
If you click the “click here” link in the first section, you will be led to the most important sections of Rank Math.
The link under the Setup Tutorial tab will lead you to the publications that outline the setup method at the RankMath “How To Page” and you can click on the search box to search the Rank Math Knowledge Base straight from Rank Math.
Analytics
What is not measurable cannot be improved. This is a well-known business axiom. Whether you manage a traditional or online firm, numbers are essential.
That is why RankMath included a sophisticated analytics module in Rank Math that allows you to view your company’s critical data straight from the WordPress admin. They have complete instructions because this function is so good. You may find out more about it here. For the time being, let us investigate our customization possibilities.
First and foremost, here is what you will see when you open the website.
As you can see, a big button in the middle of the page asks you to sign in to Google Services. This is because Rank Math can import large quantities of data from Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and even AdSense.
Before we continue, it is essential to note that RankMath does not read or preserve any of the data that Rank Math obtains. They have no plans to sell your information; it is not in their business plan. Rank Math acts as a middleman, getting information from Google and presenting it to you. More information on processing this data is available on our Rank Math blog, how to link Google Analytics.
Paraphrasing the Benefits of the Analytics Module
Not only can Rank Math’s Analytics module acquire and display GA and GSC data, but it can also automatically verify your website with Google Search Console. If you follow the Google Analytics setup steps, your website will be validated with Google Search Console. The entire procedure is now automated using Rank Math.
Aside from GSC, you can also automatically add the Google Analytics code to your website—no code copying and pasting necessary. You may build a view right within Rank Math if you’ve never used GA before.
Only one more. When you verify your account, Rank Math will automatically submit your sitemaps to Google Search Console—you won’t have to do anything.
When you’ve finished configuring all these options, click the Save and Continue buttons to move on to the next stage.
Sitemap
Sitemaps are indexes that assist search engines in swiftly identifying your website’s pages and content. Sitemaps function similarly to book indexes. Rank Math provides a Google-compliant sitemap generator that automatically builds a sitemap for your website. You won’t need to use another plugin to create your sitemap.
These are the only options accessible in the sitemaps area of Rank Math.
Optimisation
Rank Math will make modest modifications to your website’s SEO settings during the optimisation process that will significantly influence the Website.
Here are all of the options in this category.
Ready
The Ready tab, as you might imagine, has no options and is merely a confirmation page for you to complete the operations up to this point. Here’s how it appears and where the different sections and connections lead. If you use the Easy Setup Mode, you will not see the advanced setup option but the setup completion button.
Despite the fact that this is only a confirmation screen with no options, you may have seen an option called Enable plugin auto-update. This feature is highly recommended. Because Google upgrades its algorithm several times every year, you may be unable to apply the most recent suggestions if you are still using an older version of Rank Math (without updates).
You’ll always get the most recent version and the greatest features with Rank Math’s Auto Update feature.
Step #4: Review the Changes
The last step is evaluating the impact of Rank Math on your site.
Re-crawl your site with the prior above tool, and then compare the results.
Most of these changes seemed small to me, but upon closer scrutiny, they proved irrelevant.
However, keep a watch out for the following modifications:
- Contains Canonical
- Canonical Self Referencing
- Canonicalized
- Canonical Missing
Rank Math has the potential to substantially impact your website.
It is acceptable to erase canonicalization tags from your tag archive sites because they were not indexed. After all, the pages could not have been indexed at all.
If you see any significant changes that you are unclear about, please let us know in the comments so that we can assist you.
RankMath vs Yoast SEO
Overall, RankMath is a competitor that Yoast SEO should take seriously.
The Yoast SEO plugin offers a free plan with several valuable features, but if you want to dig further, you must purchase the Premium Version.
RankMath, on the other hand, offers the same features and more for free. Indeed, RankMath provides access to features not even present in the Yoast Premium Version.
Overall, RankMath is less cost-effective than Yoast for three reasons:
- RankMath’s top-level plans are less expensive than Yoast’s.
- Yoast does not provide an unlimited Personal Websites licence, but RankMath does with its Pro plan, which allows an infinite number of websites as long as they are your sites.
- RankMath offers a single Pro subscription with all features, whereas Yoast provides many. So, if you want to access the same services, you’ll have to make separate payments and spend more.
Rank Math Pricing
Anniversary Mega Sale!!
(Don’t miss out…)
Leading SEO's are Loving Rank Math!
Do not pass up this excellent opportunity to boost your on-page SEO.
4.9 Overall Satisfaction Rating!
Based on 5066 Reviews
My Opinion
I switched all my sites to RankMath Pro and some clients to the Free Version of Rank Math, a great plugin. Although the comparable Yoast cost is far higher since you would need to acquire all of Yoast’s pricey plugins to obtain the same power that Rankmath provides in a single plugin, almost all of which is free.
Even if you pay for Rankmath Pro, it is just $59 per year for ALL features, making it significantly less expensive than Yoast, which requires the purchase of many plugins to do the same duties.
Yoast squandered this opportunity by feeling they were unstoppable and did nothing to improve or compete.
