In this blog post we will discuss about Rank Math vs Yoast SEO
You may plan to create a blog using WordPress. But maybe along the way, you will encounter a situation that makes you confused in making choices about using an SEO plugin.
There are many free WordPress SEO plugins that you can use on your WordPress blog. And two of them are Rank Math and Yoast SEO.
Although both of these plugins are great and powerful SEO plugins, let’s see what features are available in each of these plugins. That way, you can be more sure about which WordPress SEO plugin to use for your blog.
So, let’s just start comparing Rank Math SEO vs Yoast SEO.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO : Comparison of Features
1. Content Analysis
Almost every popular WordPress SEO plugin has this feature.
Content analysis is used to create articles that are optimized for the keywords you want for the article.
Generally, content analysis will provide a place where you can place the keywords you want for the article.
After that, content analysis will analyze the content and assess how optimal the content is for the keywords that you have specified.
You will find a number of tasks that you need to do so that the content can be more optimal for the keywords that you have previously determined.
1.1. Content Analysis : Rank Math
In content analysis for the Rank Math SEO plugin, the scoring system in SEO Assessment is used based on a value of 0 to 100.
At the next part, you will find a “Focus Keyword” box.
There, you can define the main keywords for the article.
And in the next section, you will find a number of tasks that you need to do so that the article can be properly optimized according to the keywords that you have previously determined.
In the Rank Math plugin, when you want to generate keywords, you will find a number of keyword recommendations.
You only need to type one or two words and then you will find keyword recommendations that might suit to the article you are about to make.
In determining keywords, you can also specify more than one keyword for the article.
This is useful if you want to optimize articles with a number of keywords.
1.2. Content Analysis : Yoast SEO
The Yoast SEO plugin uses 3 color indicators to evaluate SEO optimization. Red means very bad, Orange means pretty good and Green means Good.
You can also find the Yoast SEO box at the bottom where you write articles.
2. Sitemap Settings
The second feature comparison between Rank Math vs Yoast SEO is the sitemap settings section.
2.1. Sitemap Settings : Rank Math
In the Rank Math plugin, you have a separate place to set the sitemap. You can set your WordPress blog sitemap from Rank Math > Sitemap Settings.
There, you can find the sitemap link for your WordPress blog.
Apart from that, there you can also make exceptions for certain parts of your blog into the sitemap.
In the example image above, you can see I don’t want to include the tags section in the sitemap to avoid duplicate content issues.
So, I disabled the “Include in Sitemap” option on the Tags tab.
The Rank Math SEO plugin also allows you to create HTML sitemap.
You can create an html sitemap by pasting the shortcode generated by the plugin into the page you want. You can also determine which page will be used to place the html sitemap.
2.2. Sitemap Settings : Yoast SEO
The SEO plugin by default will create a sitemap for your WordPress blog.
By default, the sitemap link for your WordPress blog generated by the Yoast SEO plugin is yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml.
If you want to exclude certain sections from the sitemap, you need to disable the “Show…..in search results” option. You can find this option in Yoast SEO > Search Appearance.
3. Webmaster Tools
When you want to submit a sitemap to search engines like Google or Bing, you need to verify domain ownership.
There are several methods you can use to do this, such as placing html code tags in the headings of your blog.
Instead of placing it manually, you can take advantage of the Webmaster Tools feature of the SEO plugin. That way, you don’t need to open any code on your WordPress blog.
3.1. Webmaster Tools : Rank Math
To paste the code from the webmaster tools into the Rank Math plugin, you can do it from the Rank Math > General Settings menu.
Then on the General Settings page, click on the “Webmaster Tools” tab.
In the Webmaster Tools feature of the Rank Math SEO plugin, you can verify domain ownership on several search engines.
The options for placing the verification code in the Rank Math plugin are for Google, Bing, Baidu, Yandex, Pinterest and Norton Safe Web.
3.2. Webmaster Tools : Yoast SEO
You can place the webmaster tools verification code in the Yoast SEO plugin.
To do this, you can find it under Yoast SEO > General. On the General page, click on the “Webmaster Tools” tab.
There, webmaster tools verification options are available such as for Google, Bing, Yandex and Baidu.
4. IndexNow
Even though Google is the most popular search engine in the world, having your blog appear on the Bing search engine also gives you an advantage.
The Bing search engine has a feature called IndexNow. With IndexNow, the Bing search engine will find out and index new articles on your WordPress blog more quickly.
4.1. IndexNow : Rank Math
To take advantage of IndexNow, you will get the Instant Indexing feature in the Rank Math plugin. You can find it in Rank Math > Instant Indexing.
There, you will find 3 tabs such as the Submit URL tab (to submit a new url to Bing), Settings (to generate the IndexNow API key), and History (to see whether the url you submitted was successfully submitted or not).
To make this feature work properly, you need to paste the API key into note-taking applications such as notepad. Then save the note using the <apikey>.txt format.
Finally, please upload the file in the main root of your WordPress blog. If you use a cPanel hosting service, you can upload it at the public_html root.
Meanwhile, if you use the WordPress Managed Hosting service, you can ask your hosting service provider to do it for you.
4.2. IndexNow : Yoast SEO
Unfortunately, you can only use the IndexNow feature if you use Yoast SEO Premium.
5. Analytics
How do you find out your blog’s SEO performance on the Google search engine?
One way to find out how your WordPress blog’s SEO performance is through Google Analytics.
Now let’s take a look at the analytics features in the Rank Math vs Yoast SEO plugin.
5.1. Analytics : Rank Math
With the Rank Math SEO plugin, you can integrate your Google Analytics account into the plugin. After that, you can find your blog’s SEO performance on Rank Math > Analytics.
On the “Dashboard” tab, you can find your blog’s performance on the Google search engine.
Underneath, you can also find the position of your blog keywords in search engines.
You can also monitor your blog’s SEO performance on the Google search engine in more detail at the “Seo Performance” tab.
5.2. Analytics : Yoast SEO
The Yoast SEO plugin does not provide any analytics features connected to Google Search Console or Google Analytics.
You need to use additional plugins to be able to monitor your traffic and SEO performance on the Google search engine.
But for each post, you can track the post’s SEO Performance with the help of Yoast SEO and Wincher integration.
6. Redirection
Another feature that I think you need to pay attention to when choosing an SEO plugin for your WordPress blog is the redirect feature.
This is very important considering that if visitors find your blog’s 404 page too often, it will have a negative impact on your blog’s ranking in search engines. So a better practice is to create automatic redirects to certain pages.
Now let’s see a comparison of Rank Math vs Yoast SEO features in the redirect section.
6.1. Redirection : Rank Math
To access the redirection settings for the Rank Math plugin, you can do this at Rank Math > General Settings. On the General Settings page, click on the “Redirections” tab.
There, you can set up 404 page redirects by selecting the option to redirect to the home page or custom.
In there, you can also turn on the Auto Post Redirect option. It will be useful if you change old post url to new url.
That way, if someone clicks on the old url in a search engine, they’ll be automatically redirected to the new url.
6.2. Redirection : Yoast SEO
The redirect feature in the Yoast SEO plugin is only available if you use Yoast SEO Premium.
So you need additional plugins if you want to set up redirections in Yoast SEO.
7. Create Better Content
You will probably make an incredibly popular article. However, how can you win the competition with other blogs that also create articles that are almost similar to the ones you will create?
In order for you to have better content, you need to analyze your competitors’ content.
Even if you create better content than your competitors, it will not significantly affect your blog’s ranking in search engines.
However, by creating better content, the content you will produce will be richer and provide higher benefits for your readers.
And remember, Google will be more than happy to display the most relevant and highly beneficial search results for its users.
So, as you create better content, readers will stay on your blog longer and your bounce rate generally decreases as well.
So that’s a good indicator for Google to give you a little ranking boost.
So let’s see how Rank Math vs Yoast SEO can help you create better content than your competitors.
7.1. Better Content : Rank Math
To analyze competitors, you can do this with the Content AI feature in Rank Math.
You only need to click on the Content AI icon while on the post creation page, type in keywords, and click the “Research” button to start analyzing.
After the analysis is complete, you will find a number of suggestions that you need to work on.
These suggestions will help you create better content than your competitors’ content that uses the same or similar keywords to yours.
For Rank Math free plugin, you get 5 Content AI usage credits.
That means you can create 5 content better than your competitors. To get more credits, you can upgrade the free version of the plugin or just buy the credits.
7.2. Better Content : Yoast SEO
There is no option for this. You need a third-party plugin or tool like Semrush to analyze competitors.
If using Semrush, you need to subscribe to their package which costs hundreds of dollars.
8. Upgrading
You may want to upgrade this plugin to its paid or pro or premium version.
Of course, the paid versions of these two plugins will give you additional features that are also great for you to incorporate into your WordPress blog.
Now let’s see a comparison of Rank Math vs Yoast SEO in upgrading.
8.1. Upgrading : Rank Math
Rank Math provides 3 upgrade price plans (Pro, Business and Agency). So if you want to use the Rank Math plugin for your blog, the PRO plan is the best choice.
You can use the Rank Math Pro plugin on an unlimited number of blogs. This is a cost-effective solution if you want to use a paid SEO plugin to multiple blog domains.
You will also get 15 AI content credits that allow you to make 15 content better than your competitors. About the price, you only need to pay 59 dollars per year (not including taxes).
For the renew, you don’t need to pay the normal price (129USD) but pay the same as when you bought it the first time (59USD).
To see the comparison clearly, you can watch the video above. That video is provided by Rank Math.
8.2. Upgrading : Yoast SEO
If you want to upgrade the Yoast SEO plugin, only one upgrade price is available.
You need 99USD per year for one domain that will use the Yoast SEO Premium plugin.
But unfortunately, even though you have purchased the premium version of the plugin, you don’t get a number of features.
For example, if you want to create a sitemap for the video content in your blog posts, you will need to purchase an additional plugin to create a video sitemap.
Conclusion of Rank Math vs Yoast SEO in 2024
So which SEO plugin is better for blogs?
Rank Math SEO is an SEO plugin that comes with more complete features compared to Yoast SEO. So it will take a little more time to set up the features you might need on your WordPress blog.
You can also get the Pro version of the plugin with more complete features than Yoast SEO. Rank Math Pro is a cost-effective solution because it can be used on all your blogs without having to buy the plugin again.
While Yoast SEO is a simpler plugin. Even though it’s simple, there are a number of settings that sometimes confuse users, such as settings for how to exclude certain sections from the sitemap.
So overall, both Rank Math and Yoast SEO are equally good plugins.
Now all you have to do is choose whether you prefer to use a plugin with more complete features, or you prefer to use a plugin with fewer features so that the setup can be faster.
