Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is what makes your website show up in search engine results. If you do it right, the benefits are endless. Today we look at an easy way to setup SEO on your WordPress website. It’s easier than most people will like to let you think.

Let’s dive in.

There are several plugins for setting up SEO on your WordPress website. The two most popular ones are Yoast SEO and Rank Math.

Yoast has got a lot of love due partly to its popularity among WordPress users. It’s also one of the most installed SEO plugins. But I’ve come to love Rank Math more. So today we’ll be using that in this write-up.

Rank Math SEO Plugin

Rank Math is a Search Engine Optimization plugin for WordPress that makes it easy for anyone to optimize their content with built-in suggestions based on widely-accepted best practices. Easily customize important SEO settings, control which pages are indexable, and how you want your website to appear in search with Structured data. (From Rank Math website)

I particularly love Rank Math due to its simplicity of use. It does all the SEO hard work for you. Configure it once and you’re done. You just need to follow the recommendations they provide for each of your website pages and articles.

How To Intall Rank Math SEO Plugin

Rank Math is actually free to use (as of this writing). You can download it from the plugin page of your WordPress dashboard or head over to their website at rankmath.com to download the zip file for manual upload.

Once Rank Math is installed, it automatically brings up the setup wizard. It’s recommended to set it up then and there, but you do have the option to dismiss it (but don’t) 🙄

Once the setup process begins, you will be greeted by the activation screen, which would look like this:

You’ll then be asked to activate your copy of Rank Math. Don’t worry, Rank Math is free like I said earlier. But if you activate your copy, then you have several advantages. Support, better keyword suggestions, and other features work best if Rank Math is connected to your account.

If you have skipped the activation wizard once, then you can head into Dashboard > Help section and use the activation button there to activate Rank Math. No biggy. (I told you not to skip 😤)

You can create a new account, or sign in with an existing account with Facebook or Google. Once you log in, you will be automatically taken to your website’s dashboard, where you will see that Rank Math is activated. Easy peasy.

Setting Up Rank Math

I’ll recommend you select the Easy option when getting started. But if you’re like me, and like to go the DYI way, then choose Advanced.

Either option is fine by the way. To get started faster though, the Easy option will speed things up a bit.

Setup Google Search Console

The most important step is to setup GSC. If you don’t know what Google Search Console is, here is a brief introduction.

Google Search Console is a set of tools created for webmasters or website owners. Once a website is connected with Google Search Console, website owners can access information about how Google is viewing, fetching, and indexing their website. It helps them set up their websites in a way that Google can understand all the content on the website, including structured data. Inside the Search Console, website owners can see their current index status, crawl status, and any issues that Google might be facing with their website. The Search Console also holds information about all the keywords that your website is ranking for, and it is the most accurate data as it comes directly from Google.

Here is how the configuration page for Google Search Console looks like.

Setting up Google Search Console with Rank Math is a 3 step process:

Once you’re done setting up your Search Console account, tap on Get Authentication Code, then select which website you want to connect to Rank Math like this:

Once you’ve completed it, your page should look something like this:

Once you complete the above step, you’re all set. The rest are more advanced and can be configured later on.

Was this simple? Did you have any challenges. I bet you didn’t 😅

But if you did, do let me know in the comments below. Always here to help.