As you already know the Template Sell team is a huge fan of WordPress – we have a huge collection of WordPress themes after all – and if there’s one plugin that every website needs, it’s an SEO plugin.
Unfortunately, a simple search for “SEO” on the official WordPress plugin repository yields 49 pages of results, at the time of writing, with the list growing rapidly. So that’s why, in this post, we’re going to take a look at the WordPress SEO plugin that we use on Template Sell (yes, on this website) – Rank Math.
A Plugin That Doesn’t Cut Back On Functionality To Break The Bank 💸
Although the Rank Math team has announced that they are working on a premium version of their plugin, all of the features that are currently available in the free version of Rank Math truly are free and it has been confirmed that they will remain free.
This is extremely exciting to see because not only are they giving back to the WordPress community by making the tools that sites actually require freely available, but they aren’t trying to monetize simple features like redirections which shouldn’t really be paid features since there are already standalone plugins that can do this and the result of monetizing features like this is that website owners end up installing a number of plugins – inevitably resulting in a buggy, bloated website – that they don’t really need just to achieve something that their SEO plugin can already do.
And perhaps above all, what this means for us is that the premium version is actually going to help us accomplish something greater and something more than just being able to fully use the plugin without unnecessary limitations (which – in case you haven’t already realized – is unfortunately how other SEO plugins are incentivizing users to upgrade to their premium versions).
Of the features that we use on our website, here’s a shortlist of our personal favorites:
- Easy Schema (structured data) configuration for up to 14 types of markup
- Easy, beginner-friendly & fast SEO audits that can identify issues on your site.
- Smart 404 monitoring and redirection support.
- Blog post optimization checklist that encourages better writing style and use of on-page SEO ranking factors that have been proven with thorough case studies.
A Built-In 404 Monitor
Rank Math’s 404 Monitor and improved SEO Meta Box make technical SEO as easy as it could possibly be. One of the many reasons Rank Math makes peoples’ lives easier is that it minimizes the need to install other plugins that only carry out one specific function. A prime example of this is their built-in 404 monitor for WordPress – something that in the past would have required one or more plugins. One to detect the broken links and one to then implement the redirects. Thankfully those days are over.
Once you’ve activated the plugin, it’s easy to use the 404 Monitor to pinpoint URLs where your website’s users run into errors. Even better, this data can be used together with the Redirections module to redirect broken pages and delete content only to maintain the most relevant content on your website. With just one click of the Redirect button on any of the links in the 404 Monitor log, they’ll all just disappear.
This will lead to the page where you can go ahead and create a redirect to direct users (and search engines) who are crawling that URL to some other relevant URL, or the homepage if that is what makes the most sense:
This is something we love because it not only makes sure that we aren’t accidentally serving our own visitors with 404 pages unknowingly but it also makes it extremely easy (and fast) to implement the correct redirect so we can fix it before anyone else notices it.
We really enjoy this, because when making changes to a site it’s very easy to overlook a page that you thought might not have been getting any traffic. Usually, you’d just think it’s fine to delete the page or move it to another URL without even considering the necessity of a redirect, the result of which is that this was hurting your website’s user experience and wasting link equity instead of passing it to the new, relevant page.
Rank Math Is Extremely Easy-to-Use
In our tests of the plugin, not only have we found the interface extremely enjoyable to work with but the plugin is also incredibly lightweight and fast. Although the plugin is free, in contrast to other SEO plugins for WordPress, Rank Math isn’t riddled with annoying ads and CTAs to upgrade to, which keeps the WordPress administrative dashboard free of spam and productive as it should be.
Next, up, we’ll be taking a look at how lightweight and fast the Rank Math plugin is. Before that though, it really has to be restated that it’s so clear that the team has put so much consideration into how the plugin’s settings are laid out and it has only been rapidly improving over time.
Just How Fast is Rank Math?💨
The best way to get an idea of how fast Rank Math really is is by putting it side by side with some of the other most popular SEO plugins out there, like Yoast SEO. The figure above shows that Rank Math not only outperforms Yoast SEO in every performance indicator out there but also provides a much more diverse number of features to give customers the best possible experience. It’s easy to see why so many people are making the shift to Rank Math because it’s undeniably fast, efficient, and easy to integrate.
A Schema.org Implementation that makes sense 📜
It could not be easier to configure custom posts and pages with Rank Math for a wide host of Rich Snippets including
- Book Rich Snippets
- Course Rich Snippets
- Event Rich Snippets
- Local Business Rich Snippets
- Music Rich Snippets
- Person Rich Snippets
- Product Rich Snippets
- Recipe Rich Snippets
- Restaurant Rich Snippets
- Review Rich Snippets
- Service Rich Snippets
- Software/App Rich Snippets
- Video Rich Snippets
Rank Math’s Schema.org markup implementation is more important now than ever to understand your website’s content as voice search has become a central part of Google search as a whole. Now, for the first time ever, you can take full control of your website’s SEO.
Everyone Gets The Help & Attention They Deserve 🆘
Another great reason to choose Rank Math for the future of your SEO needs is the unbelievable support you get from both their customer support and their clear documentation. On top of this, with Rank Math, you also get access to an incredibly supportive Facebook community for SEO, where Rank Math’s community of users can help each other out. This is a pleasant surprise given that most plugin developers do not provide great support, especially in the form of community forums, for their users.
Making The Switch Couldn’t Be Easier! 😲
So, you’re convinced it’s time to make a change to Rank Math, but how do you leave your old SEO plugin behind without losing your data? Rank Math couldn’t have made this transition easier; all you have to do is install and activate the Rank Math WordPress plugin, and then use Rank Math’s one-click migration and setup wizard.
Migration is supported by Yoast SEO, All In One SEO Pack, SEOPress and Schema Pro. The last step will be the easiest of the whole process: leave your old plugin behind by removing it from your workflow.
- Leave the old SEO plugin you were using before active.
- Install and activate the Rank Math WordPress plugin
- Use Rank Math’s one-click migration and setup wizard to start the migration process + let the magic happen! 🚀
- Confirm everything is working smoothly and your data has been migrated successfully
- Remove any other SEO plugins for the best results
The reason we partnered with Rank Math is a big part of our mission to provide the best customer experience to our users.
What’s your favorite WordPress SEO plugin? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Are you still looking for the Rank Math alternatives? You can check the best SEO plugins for WordPress collections as well.
