Rank Math SEO Plugin Easy Setup Guide For Beginners In 2020.

If you are looking for a complete Rank Math SEO Plugin Setup Guide For Beginners then you come to the right place.

Rank Math SEO Plugin is the #1 Free Alternative for Yoast SEO Premium Plugin. There are plenty of reasons behind this statement.

But as this is not a comparison post so leave that topic and let me walk you through The Rank Math SEO Plugins Setting Step-By-Step.

#Step 1: Installing & Activating Rank Math SEO Plugin

Before setting up anything we have to install & activate the Rank Math SEO plugin. Follow the steps to install the Rank Math SEO Plugin Properly.

Step 1: Log in to your WordPress dashboard and hover over to “Plugins” at the left panel

Step 2: Now Select “Add New”.

Step 3: Now at the right side top you will be able to see the “Search Plugins” option simply type on that box Rank Math and wait it will show you the Rank Math.

Step 4: Now click on “Install”

Step 5: Once it is completely installed then click on “Activate”.

We’ve successfully installed and activated the Rank Math SEO Plugin.

Once activated, you will get a Rank Math SEO option under installed plugins. Simply click on “Setup Wizard”.

#Step 2: Connect Free Account

Now Rank Math will give you an option to connect a free account and it’s necessary to use the plugin so simply click on “Activate Rank Math”.

Now it will ask you to log in. As you don’t have an account yet so simply click on “Register Now” > “Use Email Address“

Now enter your “Name & Email Address” and click on “Register”. now you will be registered, it will show you a warning that you are going to activate Rank Math on your site.

Simply click on OK.

Once you click on OK, you will get the “Rank Math Start Wizard”.

Now simply click on “Start Wizard”.

Now you will be taken through the 5 steps Rank Math SEO Plugin Basic Setup Process.

#Step 3: Basic Settings For Rank Math SEO Plugin

Your Website – Website Name

On this screen, you will see 3 different options. Let me walk you through one-by-one.

Select The Type Of Your Site

Under this option, you have to select the type of your blog. As we’re setting this up for our blog so we will select “Personal Blog”.

Logo For Google

Under this option, choose any image or your logo that you want to show on Google.

Default Social Share Image

This option simply gives you an option to set up a default image for social sharing.

It means if you forget to add social sharing image on any of your posts or pages, This image will be used as a featured image.

So once you select the image, simply click on “Save & Continue”.

Google Search Console

This option enables you to connect your with Rank Math SEO plugin to check the Crawl errors, Keyword statistics, etc. directly in your WordPress dashboard.

To enable this feature and connect your site, just click on “Get Authorization Code”.

Now it will ask you to sign in to your Google account so make sure to sign-in to the same account that you have used to verify your domain ownership.

Once you will be logged in, it will ask your permission to allow Rank Math Plugin to collect some data from your Google account.

Click on “Allow”.

Once done, it will show you the authorization code. Simply copy it and close the pop-up windows.

After pasting the code, you will have to click on the “Authorize” button.

After completing the authorization process, your verified sites will now start appearing under the “Search Console Profile” drop-down menu.

So simply select your current site, where you are installing the Rank Math and click on “Save or Continue”.

Sitemaps

This option will help you to generate the sitemap for your blog or site.

Just uncheck the “Categories” option under Public Taxonomies to prevent duplicate or thin content issues.

Apart from that, leave all the other options as it was before.

Sitemap ON, Include Images ON, Post & Pages ON and then simply click on “Save & Continue”.

SEO Tweaks

Under this option, simply leave all the default options as it is.

Noindex Empty Category and Tag Archives: ON

To prevent empty categories & tag archives from getting indexed in Google or any search engines, leave this option ON.

It will protect your site from Duplicate & Thin Content issues.

Nofollow External Links: OFF

Leave this option OFF, because we don’t want to add rel=”nofollow” to every outbound link.

Open External Links in New Tab/Window: ON

Leave this option ON so if you link out to any external site and your visitors will click on that link, it will simply open up their site in a new tab.

It will help you to retain your visitors on your site.

Now you will get a message that comes up to you “Your Site Is Ready“.

Once you get this option, now you will be able to see “Return to the dashboard, Proceed to Help Page, & Setup Advanced Options”. simply click on the “Setup Advanced Options”.

Setup Advanced Options

Setting up Advanced options in Rank Math SEO Plugin is very easy. Let me walk you through this procedure as well.

404 Monitor

404 error is one of the most know errors of a site or a blog.

It usually appears when someone visits any of your pages or post but that post or page has been removed or deleted.

404 errors can drastically impact your SEO and to tackle this issue turn on this option.

This option will help you to monitor all the 404 pages of your site so you can recreate the pages/posts or simply redirect those pages/posts to any relevant pages/posts.

Redirections

This option enables auto-redirection means it will simply redirect all those pages/posts (throwing 404 error) to any relevant page/post.

Leave it OFF because it’s not a good practice to redirect any posts/pages to any random pages on my site.

Schema Markup

This option helps you to add Schema on your site and posts. Switch it ON and select the “Schema Type for Your Posts & Pages”.

Once you are done with these settings, Simply click on “Save & Continue”.

Now you will be redirected to Rank Math SEO Plugin Dashboard for some additional settings.

Once we’re done with the basic settings, now we can move further to set up the Advanced Settings of Rank Math WordPress SEO Plugins.

Simply hover over “Rank Math” on the left panel and click on “General Settings”.

#Step 4: General Settings

Under the General Settings of Rank Math SEO Plugin, you will find 9 different options. Let me walk you through each one of them.

Links

This option is related to the links of your site. Select all the options as shown below.

1. Strip Category Base – OFF

If you turn it on, It will strip the category from the URLs. So leave it as it is for better navigation on your site.

2. Redirect Attachments – OFF

This option needs to be off to include your images on the sitemap for Image SEO.

3. Remove Stopwords from Permalinks – ON/OFF (Your Choice)

This option will remove the stop words such as A, An, The, etc. from the auto-generated URLs.

You can turn it ON if you like but as we edit our URLs manually before publishing our posts so it’s an optional feature for us.

4. Nofollow External Links – OFF

It’s not a good idea to add the nofollow attribute to every Outbound Link.

Because it shows to Google that you don’t want to share the Link Juice or Page Rank with anyone and you want to keep it for your self.

So don’t use rel=”nofollow” if the site you’re linking to is authoritative.

This post published by RebootOnline.com confirms that Outbound Link is a Ranking Signal.

Here’s what Matt Cutts said:

5. Nofollow Image File Links – ON/OFF (Your Choice)

This option adds the nofollow attribute to the external images. This totally depends upon you whether you want to turn it on or not.

6. Open External Links in New Tab/Window

Must enable this option while setting up the Rank Math Plugin. This option adds “target=_blank” to the outbound links.

This helps us to increase the dwell time and doesn’t let our visitors leave our site.

Images

Under this option, you will find all the settings related to Image SEO.

1. Add missing ALT attributes – ON

So you should always add ALT Text in your image.

In case, you forget to add ALT text to your image and if this option if ON then it will automatically add the ALT Text on that image for you.

2. ALT attribute format – %title%

Turning ON the previous version is good but wait…

How do the Rank Math Plugin will understand that what should be inserted as an ALT Text on the image?

You need to specify that here. Simply select “Post Title” from the dropdown list.

It simply means that the plugin will add the Post Title as the ALT attribute of any image in which you forgot to add the ALT Text.

3. Add missing TITLE attributes – ON

Title Attribute is nothing to do with SEO.

But it provides additional information to the users whenever they hover over any HTML element where we’ve added the Title Attribute.

It increases CTR. So not directly but indirectly it influences the SEO.

Breadcrumbs

We use this setting on the site that has lots of pages & posts for better navigation and to enhance how our users find their way around our site.

1. Enable breadcrumbs function – ON

Doesn’t matter you’ve lots of pages or not, we recommend to keep it ON.

2. Separator Character

Select any character that you want to use as a separator appears between different items.

3. Show Homepage Link – ON

Keep this option ON as it helps to enhance the Breadcrumb functionalities

4. Other Options – Leave Other Options As It Is

there are several other options available under the Breadcrumbs option of Rank Math SEO Plugin but you don’t have to do anything else.

Leave all the default settings as it is.

Webmaster Tools

Webmaster tools such as Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, etc. want t=you to verify your site.

They give you several options to verify our site and one of the most famous options is pasting an HTML Tag between <head> & </head>.

So this option helps you to add those HTML Tags without editing your themes.

Simply Sign Up for the third party Webmasters Tools and get their verification codes and paste those codes here to verify your domain ownership.

Edit robots.txt

We use robots.txt file to allow or disallow any search engine crawlers from crawling & indexing our site.

If you do not have custom robots.txt then copy the code we’ve shared below and paste it in the box and click on “Save Changes”.

If you’re a WordPress user then you can use this robots.txt code. Simply replace your sitemap URL with “https://your-sitemap-url.com/”

User-agent: *

Disallow: /wp-admin/ 
Disallow: /cgi-bin/ 
Disallow: /comments/feed/ 
Disallow: /trackback/ 
Disallow: /index.php 
Disallow: /xmlrpc.php 

Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php 

Sitemap: https://your-sitemap-url.com/

Note: Use it with caution because the wrong use of this can prevent your site from Crawling & Indexing.

Edit .htaccess

“DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES HERE”

I repeat do not make any changes here if you don’t know what are you doing. It can break your site.

Others

1. Usage Tracking – ON/OFF (Your Choice)

This option has nothing to do with SEO but it will help the MyThemeShop team to improve the plugin if they find any issue by collecting non-sensitive diagnostic data and usage information.

2. Show SEO Score – OFF

This option simply starts showing the score that well you’ve Optimized Your Content For SEO.

It doesn’t look good so we prefer to keep it OFF.

Leave the other two options (RSS Before Content & RSS After Content) as it is.

404 Monitor

The 404 monitor lets you see the URLs where visitors and search engine crawlers run into 404 not found errors on your site.

You can leave all the default option as it is.

Search Console

If you have connected and authorized the Rank Math with your Search Console then you don’t need to do anything just leave everything as itis.

And if you haven’t connected your search console then follow the step given in the Google Search Console option above.

#Step 5: Title & Meta

This option is related to the SEO Titles & Meta Options of all your pages & posts.

1. Robots Meta

Leave all the boxes unchecked as it is. You can also change this option for individual posts, pages, taxonomies, etc.

2. Local SEO – Person/Organization (Choose Yourself)

This option helps you or your business site with Local SEO.

Select “Person” if the site represents any individual person and Choose “Organisation” if the site represents any business or organization.

Enter your or your business name under the “Name” option, Upload the “Logo” & Enter the homepage URL.

Enter your Email, Phone & Address. Select the About Page & Contact Page.

3. Social Meta

Enter the relevant Social Media Page or Profile URLs, Secret Key, etc. to their respective field.

4. Homepage

Leave everything as it is.

5. Post Formats Archive

As we’re going to mark it as No Index so Google or any Search engine crawler will not index it.

So leave all the default options as it is and if you’ve changed it before then change it as we are going to show you below.

Format Archive Titles – %term% %sep% %sitename%

Format Archive Descriptions – %term_description%

Format Archives Robots Meta – We will use “Custom” settings.

• Format Archives Robots Meta – Tick “No Index & No Archive” Boxes.
• Format Archives Advanced Robots Meta – Tick all the boxes and add the value i) -1, ii) -1 & iii) Large

6. Author

If you want to show author archives so enable this option.

It will help your visitors to read posts of any specific author on your blog by clicking on their names.

But if you disable this option, in that case when your visitors will click on any author’s name, they will be redirected to the homepage of your site.

• Archive – Enabled
• Author Base – Author
• Author Robots Meta – Default
• Rest Of The Options – Leave The Default Settings

7. Misc Pages

Just change those options that we’re going to show you and leave the other options as it is.

• Date Archives – Disabled
• Noindex Search Results – ON
• Noindex Paginated Pages – ON
• Noindex Archive Subpages – ON
• Noindex Password Protected Pages – ON

8. Posts

This option automatically generates Meta Title, Meta Description, etc. for your pages/posts. It helps you with several other things related to single post types.

But for better On-Page SEO we always prefer to use customized Title instead of automatically generated titles by this plugin.

But you can set it up as we have shown below.

• Single Post Title – %title% %sep% %sitename%
• Single Post Description – %excerpt%
• Schema Type – Choose Whatever Suits Your Site. For us, It’s “Article Schema”
• Headline – %seo_title%
• Description – %seo_description%
• Article Type – Blog Post
• Post Robots Meta – Default
• Link Suggestion Titles – Titles
• Primary Taxonomy – Categories
• Add SEO Meta Box – ON
• Bulk Editing – Enabled
• Custom Fields – Leave The Field Black

9. Pages

This option helps you with the SEO Options for the Single Pages of your site.

• Single Page Title – %title% %sep% %sitename%
• Single Page Description – %excerpt%
• Schema Type – Choose Whatever Suits Your Site. For us, It’s “Article Schema”
• Headline – %seo_title%
• Description – %seo_description%
• Article Type – Article
• Page Robots Meta – Default
• Link Suggestion Titles – Titles
• Add SEO Meta Box – ON
• Bulk Editing – Enabled
• Custom Fields – Leave The Field Black

10. Attachments

This option helps you with the SEO Options for the Media Attachments of your site.

• Single Media Title – %title% %sep% %sitename%
• Single Media Description – %excerpt%
• Schema Type – Choose Whatever Suits Your Site. For us, It’s “Article Schema”
• Headline – %seo_title%
• Description – %seo_description%
• Article Type – Article
• Media Robots Meta – Default
• Bulk Editing – Enabled

11. Categories

This option helps you with the SEO Options for the category pages.

• Category Archive Titles – %term% %sep% %sitename%
• Category Archive Descriptions – %term_description%
• Category Archives Robots Meta – Default
• Add SEO Meta Box – ON
• Remove Snippet Data – OFF

12. Tags

• Tags Archive Titles – %term% %sep% %sitename%
• Tags Archive Descriptions – %term_description%
• Tags Archives Robots Meta – Default
• Add SEO Meta Box – ON
• Remove Snippet Data – OFF

#Step 6: Sitemap Settings

This option enables you to change the XML sitemap settings of your site.

1. General Settings

• Links Per Sitemap – 1000
• Images in Sitemap – ON
• Include Featured Images – ON
• Exclude Posts – Leave it blank
• Exclude terms – Leave it blank
• Ping Search Engines – ON

2. Posts

• Include in Sitemap – ON
• Image Custom Fields – Leave it blank

3. Pages

• Include in Sitemap – ON
• Image Custom Fields – Leave it blank

4. Media, Categories, Tags – OFF

Leave all these options as it is. We’ve to keep this option OFF to prevent Thin Content & Duplicate Content issues.

#Step 7: Role Manager

This option enables you to grant access to users with specific roles in your site to change or modify the Rank Math SEO Plugin Settings.

You can select it as per your needs and requirements or you can follow our settings.

#Step 8: 404 Monitor

You don’t have to set anything here as this option helps you to find 404 pages on your site.

This is an important option to improve User Experience of your site by finding & removing 404 error pages/posts from your site.

#Step 9: Redirection

This option helps you to redirect any link of your site to any other link on your site. You can use this to redirect 404 error pages/posts to any relevant pages/posts.

Simply click on Add New and enter the Source URL & Destination URL and click on the Add redirection.

Other Settings

You can leave all the other settings as it is. If in case you want more help then you can check the Help option in the left panel of your WordPress dashboard under Rank Math.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here we’ve covered some frequently asked questions related to Rank Math WordPress SEO Plugin.

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Rohit Singh

I am Rohit Singh. I am a Blogger, Digital Marketer & Founder of ProBloggingWorld and other blogs. Read More

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