After creating a new website, it is necessary to get it ranked. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very important for any website to be ranked in Google. If you are a WordPress user then you must have noticed that most of the work of WordPress is done by plugins. When it comes to WordPress SEO plugins, three main plugins come to mind — Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack and Rank Math. For beginners, it is quite difficult to choose the best plugin to use because SEO plugin is very important for a website.
Yoast SEO has been in use for a very long time and already has more than 5 million active installs. It is a solid foundation for the Yoast SEO plugin that millions of users rely on, which proves that Yoast SEO is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress.
On the other hand, we find Rank Math Plugin with more than 300,000 active installations, which is a bit new in the market, yet with many features, its popularity in the field of SEO is increasing day-by-day. In this article, we’ll compare between two best SEO plugins for WordPress: Yoast SEO and Rank Math. So let’s DIVE IN:
WHY SEO PLUGINS ARE NECESSARY FOR A WORDPRESS WEBSITE?
SEO plugins are really important for every WordPress website or blog. Most websites need to be ranked on Google, for which it is necessary for that website to be SEO optimized. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often the most important factor in building the authority of a website.
SEO plugins help you optimize content for search engines and improve your competition. These plugins also help create required files such as robots.txt, sitemap.xml, etc. The plugin automates your WordPress SEO, helps you optimize your posts and allows you to improve your website’s SEO.
Now; the question may arise that which SEO plugin is best for your WordPress website. Here; we will make a deep discussion of two main SEO plugins — Yoast Vs Rank Math.
YOAST SEO VS RANK MATH: WHICH SEO PLUGIN IS BEST?
As we have mentioned earlier, there is a good competition between Yoast SEO and Rank Math SEO Plugin for WordPress. Here; we are going to compare Yoast SEO and Rank Math.
YOAST SEO WORDPRESS PLUGIN:
Yoast SEO plugin is one of the best WordPress plugins which is being used by more than 5 million people. It helps you optimize your WordPress website for search engines such as Google. Its tester, developers and a dedicated team of SEO experts work regularly to improve the Yoast SEO plugin.
So; basically Yoast SEO is a great choice for a content writer, professional blogger, developer or SEO expert.
KEY FEATURES OF YOAST SEO PLUGIN (FREE):
- SEO analysis
- Readability analysis
- Snippet preview for desktop and mobile devices
- XML sitemaps functionality
- Breadcrumbs implementation
- Canonical URLs to avoid duplicate content
- Target keyword analysis tool
PREMIUM (PAID) FEATURES OF YOAST SEO PLUGIN:
- Social previews
- Article optimization with synonyms and related key-phrases
- Automatic internal linking suggestions
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF YOAST SEO PLUGIN:
Yoast SEO is a very popular WordPress plugin, which provides a lot of flexibility.
Yes! You can set your blog’s meta title, meta description and social media sharing information for each and every post. One of the best things about Yoast SEO plugin is its beginner — friendly features.
Disadvantages of Yoast SEO may include all over advertising and lots of updates and bugs.
RANK MATH SEO PLUGIN:
Rank Math is an another WordPress plugin, which helps optimize your site for search engines. Rank Math plugin’s developers claim that it is an advanced plugin providing the best SEO tools for WordPress.
FEATURES OF RANK MATH SEO PLUGIN:
- You can see your optimization score
- Ability to connect to Google Search Console
- Rich snippet generation
- Social SEO optimization
- 404 error tracking
- Easy redirection (301 and 302)
- Sitemap Management
YOAST VS RANK MATH — SETUP
RANK MATH:
No matter how good any plugin is, if it is not easy to setup, then it makes a big difference in the first impression of the people. The setup and configuration of Rank Math plugin is quite easy and clean in design. Whenever this plugin is installed, a five step setup wizard will be appear. You can create a Rank Math account through your Google, Facebook or email ID. You can also skip this step.
In further step, you have to indicate the site name, Google search console (Google Webmaster) details, sitemap configuration and advance optimization. Once the setting is done, you can choose the option of Advance settings. Rank Math WordPress Plugin automatically detects the SEO plugin that you are currently using. That’s why you can import your old SEO plugin’s data into Rank Math.
Do not remove your old SEO plugin before installing Rank Math, otherwise data recovery will not be possible. After importing, it will also be deactivated automatically.
YOAST SEO:
Yoast SEO plugin provides an 8-step setup wizard where you need to configure basic settings like website management, search engine visibility, etc. Yoast plugin has an embedded video during the installation process, which can be useful for WordPress beginners.
Hence; Rank Math WordPress plugin has more options such as Google Search Console (Google Webmaster), website sitemaps and SEO optimization, which can automate some of your SEO tasks like adding external no-follow to links, adding redirection etc.
YOAST SEO VS RANK MATH — USER INTERFACE
To understand and use of any plugin, it is really important to have a clean user interface, which helps attracts more people. When it comes to user interface, Yoast SEO focuses more on functionality than on showy.
In contrast, Rank Math plugin provides a clean dashboard, you can easily activate and deactivate various features.
YOAST SEO VS RANK MATH — KEWORD ASSIGNMENT
This feature allows you to add keywords, write a meta title and meta description, and target a focus keyword for the content. It is an essential part of SEO tools and without making these settings properly you can’t optimize your blog post.
Both plugins allow you to assign keywords, titles and meta, permalinks so that you can see how your content looks on Google pages. The free version of Yoast SEO plugin allows you to assign a maximum of one keyword to your content. If you want to add multiple keywords to your blog, then you need to buy the premium one.
Rank Math allows you to target up to 5 keywords to optimize your content, but, for this you have to first create an account. Setting up title, meta and permalink works exactly like Yoast and also shows preview (for both mobile and desktop devices) of Google pages. Rank Math shows the score from 0 to 100. Usually, if your score is over 80, it turns green.
Additionally, Rank Math can give you keyword suggestions as soon as you start typing keywords in the “Focus Keyword” box. One of the cool things about Rank Math WordPress plugin is that it will automatically start suggesting individual keywords as well as long tail keywords based on the keyword suggestions from Google whereas Yoast doesn’t contain this feature.
YOAST SEO VS RANK MATH — PRICE
As for the price of these two plugins, Rank Math is completely free at the moment. While Yoast SEO is premium, you will need to purchase the premium version to access some of its premium features.
TAKE AWAY
After reading this article, you have got the detailed comparison of two best WordPress SEO plugins. I hope that you will choose a better plugin for your WordPress website. If you really liked this article, then don’t forget to share it with others. ALL THE BEST!
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