There are multiple WordPress SEO plugins in the market today. Rank Math and Yoast are the two most popular plugins used to boost the rankings and visibility of website content. If you are looking for a WordPress SEO plugin for your business, you need to compare Rank Math vs. Yoast to determine the best option.
While Yoast has been available since WordPress began, Rank Math is a rapidly growing newcomer. So which one is better? Here’s a comparison of both plugins.
What is Rank Math?
Rank Math started in New Delhi, India, and officially launched in 2018. However, before the launch, the SEO plugin was already in development for years by an established WordPress development team in MyThemeShop.
Despite being a newcomer in the market, this plugin has tremendously grown. Rank Math exploded from zero to more than 500,000 active installations in two years. Although All In One SEO is ranked as the second-most popular WordPress SEO plugin after Yoast, Rank Math has a more successful momentum.
This growth is currently due to its wide range of free features. Users can choose to use the free version or the premium one.
What is Yoast SEO?
Yoast SEO launched in 2010. Created by Joost de Valk, this plugin is the most popular WordPress SEO plugin. Initially, Joost created multiple small WordPress SEO plugins before merging them into one super plugin.
Initially, the plugin was known as WordPress SEO, which explains why it’s still quite popular. Currently, it’s the top WordPress SEO plugin with over 200 million downloads. Additionally, Yoast now includes tutorials on utilizing search engine optimization and tailored SEO plugins for News SEO, Video SEO, and eCommerce.
Rank Math vs. Yoast SEO: Getting Started
Fortunately, both Rank Math and Yoast SEO are simple to set up. The onboarding process for both plugins is pretty direct and user-friendly. Therefore, your choice in this category depends on your preference. Let’s look at how the two stack up against each other.
Rank Math
Once you launch Rank Math, you get a setup wizard that’s easy to use and configure. There are easy guides to follow if you need to add your company information or integrations with other tools like Google Analytics. Additionally, the platform allows you to run a diagnostics test to confirm if you have any compatibility issues before you start using the plugin.
In this setup wizard, you’ll get a chance to configure the following:
- Basic schema information
- XML Sitemap
- Google Analytics and Google Search Console integrations
- Basic settings
With the configuration wizard, you can get customized experiences whether you are a basic or advanced user. In addition, you can link your free Rank Math account to get more features on the plugin; however, this is not mandatory. Switching from easy to advanced mode is possible, depending on your needs.
The advanced option provides more steps, such as redirection, role manager, 404 error monitoring, and more detailed schema markup settings.
Yoast SEO
Just like with Rank Math, Yoast SEO offers a setup wizard to help you with configuration. However, you have to launch this directly from the WordPress dashboard. Fortunately, Yoast SEO has an integrated demo video that you can follow if you are new to WordPress. This is quite useful because it guides you through the features and your plugin’s functionality.
The setup wizard guides users through important settings such as:
- SEO title templates
- Site indexing
- Search engine appearance
- Basic sitewide schema data
Additionally, you can use the configuration wizard to disable some features like XML sitemaps, readability analysis, admin bar menu, and text-link counter. On the “Features” tab, you can view all the capabilities and turn off what you don’t need. This onboarding process is easy to follow and ideal for new users.
Rank Math vs. Yoast SEO: User Interface
Rank Math and Yoast SEO have different user interfaces. The interface is important because it determines how easy it is to set up optimization for day-to-day actions. Let’s compare the two plugins.
Rank Math
If you are using Rank Math, it fully integrates with the block editor; therefore, you won’t need to use the meta box option. To access the Rank Math settings, click on its icon on the toolbar. Once you open this, the toolbar is divided into four options:
- General: You can set a focus keyword, edit a snippet and view the analysis.
- Schema: This allows you to set up structured data or schema markup.
- Advanced: You can use this to configure meta information, like adding a no-index tag.
- Social: This allows you to set up graph information for Twitter and Facebook.
Additionally, Rank Math has a separate Analytics dashboard that you can use to track Search Console reports for the free version, website traffic statistics, and keyword rankings if you are using the premium version.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is also easy to use and offers more options. You can edit using the WordPress meta box or the sidebar. You get a meta box for both the WordPress block and classic editor to set up your SEO information. However, the Yoast SEO sidebar is only available when using the block editor. You can select the approach that works for you.
From the sidebar, you can preview content and see how it will appear on Twitter, Google, or Facebook. Additionally, you can toggle between desktop and mobile previews to view how your content looks.
Rank Math vs. Yoast SEO: Features
When you compare Rank Math vs. Yoast SEO features, you can determine which plugin fits your website. Overall, Rank Math has more features, especially on the free versions. However, this does not mean that it’s better than Yoast SEO. In this section, we’ll look at these features from both plugins to help you make an informed decision.
Rank Math
On the Rank Math website, there are 90 listed features. Although this plugin has more features, are they useful for your website? Let’s take a closer look at the capabilities you get.
Free Features
Rank Math comes with these free features:
- Focus keyword analysis: you can enter one or more focus keywords to determine whether your content is optimized.
- Meta descriptions and SEO titles: You can use these features to create templates to add to your content or adjust SEO descriptions.
- Add social descriptions: This allows you to add images and text for social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
- Schema: This feature allows you to add schema markup and control the schema markup for specific content.
- Search Console: You can connect your website to Google Search Console to get analytics from your WordPress dashboard.
- Image SEO: This feature helps you to set title and alt tags and improve image SEO.
- Local SEO optimization: Local businesses can use this feature to boost their website rankings.
- Internal linking: You’ll receive suggestions from Rank Math on the content you should link.
- 404 monitor: This feature monitors any 404 errors and redirects them to other pages.
- Link counter: You can count the number of external and internal links.
- Google Analytics: This feature makes it easy to include a tracking code and view analytics information.
- XML sitemap: You can customize your own XML sitemap.
- Basic WooCommerce SEO: This feature allows you to set product descriptions and shop titles.
- Redirection manager: Set up and manage hundreds of redirects with just a few clicks. Export and import redirects and set individual redirects as 301 or 302 redirects.
Premium Features
Once you pay for the premium version, you get these features:
- Google Trends integration: Rank Math integrates well with Google Tracking tools. This lets you get your website’s index status and other ranking data. You can then access this data on your WordPress admin page.
- Google Video SEO sitemap: This video sitemap feature helps get your videos indexed quickly in just a few clicks. You can also submit compatible videos to several search engines.
- Google News SEO sitemap: If you have a news site, the news sitemap feature creates a Google-compatible news sitemap so you can submit it in just a few seconds.
- Multiple locations for local SEO: You can use this feature to boost the visibility of your website in more locations.
- More schema types: Access over 20 pre-defined schema types.
- Keyword rank tracking: Track the search engine rankings and keyword performance over the past 12 months.
Yoast SEO
If you compare Yoast SEO and Rank Math, the former has a more limited features list for the free version. Yoast SEO charges for some features that Rank Math offers for free. However, users can access the additional core features by getting a premium plan.
Free Features
- XML sitemap: This feature comes in handy if you need to create a customizable XML sitemap.
- Breadcrumbs: On WordPress, breadcrumbs are navigational links that appear at the top of a page or post.
- SEO titles: Add SEO titles and descriptions for individual pieces of content.
- Keyword analysis: Enter one focus keyword to see how optimized the content is.
- Schema: Add sitewide and content schema for all your website content.
- Social media descriptions: Set descriptions for images and text on social media platforms.
- Search Console: Verify your website using Search Console.
- Basic WooCommerce SEO: Set the titles and descriptions for products and shop pages.
- Link counter: This feature counts the number of internal links in your content.
Premium Features
Yoast SEO premium plan comes with these features:
- Redirect manager: You can create and manage 301 and 302 redirects.
- Multiple keyword analysis: This feature allows you to analyze your content using multiple focus keywords.
- Internal link suggestions: Suggestions on which content to link.
- Related keyphrases: You can get related keyphrases using data from SEMrush.
- Internal linking blocks: Include a block that automatically has relevant links.
Furthermore, there are other paid add-ons that you can get for specific types of SEO. You’ll need to pay for Local SEO that supports multiple locations and video SEO to get your website videos listed. Additionally, you’ll need news SEO to optimize your website for Google News and WooCommerce SEO to access more features, such as a cleaner XML sitemap and social media graph information.
Rank Math vs. Yoast SEO: Keywords
For your SEO strategy to succeed, you must pay attention to the keywords. Fortunately, both Yoast SEO and Rank Math have features that support keyword analysis to help you create optimized content. To get results, you’ll need to add the target keywords, and the plugin will analyze if the content is well-optimized or if you need to adjust.
If you compare the two, your choice depends on the type of interface you prefer. The difference between the two plugins is that Rank Math will let you analyze several keywords for free, but you can only analyze one keyword with Yoast SEO free version. Let’s take a closer look at how the two plugins stack up.
Rank Math
Rank Math is more convenient if you want to use the free version. With this plan, you can analyze five focus keywords at a time. Besides the in-depth keyword assessment, Rank Math gives users a ranking. Once you enter your target keywords, you get a score from 0-100. If you get a score above 80, this shows that your keyword usage is good.
In addition, it provides a readability score to help you see how many times you’ve used a specific keyword. It can also suggest and prompt you to add the focus keyword to the SEO title. The suggestions also include on-page SEO to help you improve your content readability.
Yoast SEO
If you are using the free version, Yoast SEO allows you to only analyze one keyword for every piece of content. You can analyze more keywords if you pay for the premium version. As mentioned, the user interface allows users to either access features on the meta box in a classic editor or a sidebar for a block editor.
This plugin works just like Rank Math if you need keyword analysis. You’ll enter the target keywords, and Yoast SEO will give you a score. In addition, the plugin also compares your website content to some suggestions to help you improve your content.
However, unlike Rank Math, Yoast SEO does not have a numeric rating. From the analysis, you’ll get three options; green if the analysis is good, yellow to represent okay, and red for bad. To ensure that your content is done well, you should pay attention to your readability score. Once you pay for the premium package, you can assess more words in multiple languages, single and plural forms.
Rank Math vs. Yoast SEO: Pricing
If you are new to these plugins, you can get them both for free on WordPress. However, you must pay to access some premium and advanced features. Let’s compare the pricing.
Rank Math
Rank Math was free until November 2020, when the developer officially launched the Pro version. This addition did not affect the existing features on the free version; it only added more advanced capabilities. Today, Rank Math offers free, Pro, Business, and Agency plans.
Here’s what you get with the premium versions.
Pro
This version is perfect for bloggers, solopreneurs, and individuals. Rank Math charges $59 per year to use this plan. Users can access features such as free 15 content AI credits, a powerful schema generator, track 500 keywords, unlimited personal websites, free SEO courses and
24/7 support.
Business
This plan is ideal for freelancers, agencies, and business owners. At $199 per year, users get 125 content AI credits, support for 100 client websites, and the ability to track 10,000 keywords.
Agency
This is a premium plan for agency owners with high volume. Users pay $499 annually and access features such as tracking 50,000 keywords, free 600 content AI credits, support for 500 client websites, and the other features from the lower plans.
Yoast SEO
You can pay for the premium plan or buy the plugin subscriptions with this plugin. Here’s a breakdown of the pricing plans.
Free plugin
With the free version, you can start ranking your content in search engines. Users can also use it to handle the site’s technical SEO. This version also gives you access to 5 free academy courses.
Premium plugin
The premium version costs $99 per year. Once you pay for this, you’ll be among the first users to get new tools and features. This plan helps you optimize the site, get previews before sharing content to Facebook and Twitter, and avoid dead links in your WordPress site. You can also get link and content quality suggestions as you write. In addition, this premium version gives you full access to the Yoast SEO Academy.
Plugin subscription
Once you pay for the subscription, you get all online SEO training courses, 5 Yoast plugins, 24/7 support, and a full year of updates. The subscription goes for $229 per year.
Rank Math vs. Yoast SEO: Which is the Best WordPress SEO Plugin?
Yoast SEO is one of the most successful WordPress plugins in the market. However, Rank Math has tremendously grown since its launch, making it a worthy competitor for Yoast SEO. Both plugins have a good range of features that you can use to boost your website rankings. You just need to pick one that aligns with your needs.
If you want a plugin that allows you to analyze more keywords without paying, Rank Math is the best choice. They have a more detailed rating system. Rank Math also offers more free features than Yoast SEO, requiring users to pay for add-ons. Overall, it’s more affordable because everything is included in one pricing package; Yoast SEO separates premium packages and add-ons.
On the other hand, Yoast SEO is more user-friendly. It offers more editing options; you can use the sidebar or meta box. It’s also easy to set up if you are a new user. It’s also more established in the market; therefore, you can use these factors to make an informed decision.
