Want to decide between Rank Math vs Yoast SEO, then this is the right guide. Both the tools offer different search engine optimization for your WordPress site. If you’re interested in WordPress SEO and how to optimize your WordPress website, you need an SEO plugin to help you out. Let’s decide which one is better in our Rank Math vs Yoast comparison.
Yoast is the bigger name and has been in the market since the beginning of WordPress. However, while Yoast SEO can fulfill all your needs, it doesn’t mean that it’s the only great tool. There are some other great options available such as Rank Math.
Rank Math is newer compared to Yoast SEO, but it’s growing at a great rate. So, which one should you choose for your WordPress website SEO optimization. Read our Rank Math vs Yoast SEO comparison till the end.
It’s not about a winner and loser, it’s about the highlights of each plugin. We will compare all the features and functionalities of the tools so you can decide which one is perfect for you.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Feature Comparison
Now let’s get on our comparison of Rank Math SEO vs Yoast SEO. When it comes to the number of features available, Rank Math offers more than Yoast SEO, especially when you compare free versions of both tools.
But if you want to use extra features, the advantage goes to Rank Math.
Rank Math Features:
1. Set SEO Titles/Meta Descriptions: Build templates that are content relevant and manually adjust SEO titles/descriptions for every single piece of content.
2. Set Social Media Descriptions: Add texts and images for Facebook and Twitter.
3. Focus Keyword Analysis: Add one or more primary keywords to see how optimized your content is for the keywords.
4. XML Sitemap: Build a customizable XML sitemap instead of the default WordPress sitemap feature allows.
5. Search Console: Connect your website to the Google Search Console to submit a sitemap and view Search Console analytics in your WordPress dashboard.
6. Local SEO and Knowledge Graph: Easily optimize your website for local SEO (one location for free)
7. Image SEO: Boost image SEO efforts and set alt and title tags
8. Internal Link Suggestions: Rank Math will give you suggestions on where you should add internal links to your site.
9. Redirections: Build and seamlessly manage 301 and 302 redirects.
10. Google Analytics: Add Google Analytics tracking code and clearly view information.
Paid Features of Rank Math:
- Integrate Google Trends
- Google News SEO sitemap
- Google Video SEO sitemap
- Keyword rank tracking – track all your rankings and keyword performance over the last year
- Multiple locations for local SEO
- Google AdSense earning history
- Automatically watermark social media images
What makes Rank Math great is that all the features are modular, so you can disable or enable any tool you want in seconds.
Yoast SEO Features:
Yoast SEO has limited features on the free version, but the Yoast SEO team offers pro-add-ons that you can use to your advantage. But, the original point still remains, the free plan offers limited features. Yoast SEO charges for several features that Rank Math provides for free.
1. SEO title/meta descriptions: custom-made templates that can be applied to the content and manually update SEO titles/descriptions for individual pieces of content.
2. XML Sitemap: Build a customizable XML sitemap instead of detailed WordPress features.
3. Focus Keyword Analysis: Add one focus keyword and see how your content is optimized according to that content.
4. Whole Site Schema: Easily add schema markup on the whole website.
5. Search Console: Verify your website with the search console.
6. Content Schema Type – Set a custom schema type for individual pieces of content, or you can also choose a sitewide default schema.
7. Basic WooCommerce SEO: Add the titles and descriptions for products and eCommerce pages.
8. Breadcrumbs: Add breadcrumbs to your site with ease.
9. Link Counter: Verify the number of internal links in your content.
Yoast SEO Premium Features:
- Redirect Manager
- Internal link suggestions
- Multiple focus keywords
- Related keyphrase suggestion
- Local SEO
- Video SEO
- News SEO
- Advanced WooCommerce SEO
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Setup Process
Rank Math and Yoast SEO does a good job of getting you started. And the best part is that both the tools are incredibly user-friendly.
There’s no clear winner for this category, it all comes down to personal preference terms. Let’s break it down:
Rank Math Setup
When you open Rank Math, it opens a setup guide to help you through the process. You can also optionally link your free Rank Math account to add some new features. While most users choose to ignore this plugin, you can connect a free account to access some features.
Overall, the setup guide is easy to understand and follow and it offers customized experiences for basic and advanced users.
The setup wizard will take you through:
- Basic schema information
- Google Analytics and Google Search Console integrations, if you wish to use them.
- XML Sitemap.
- Other basic settings include noindex empty category and tag archives.
Once you go through the setup Wizard, it offers you an option on whether you want to set up advanced features or not. Some of these features include:
- Role manger
- 404 error monitoring
- Redirection
- More detailed schema markup settings, setting default schema types for different post types.
After finishing the setup, you’ll go to the module manager which lists every single feature and allows you to:
- Enable/disable modules
- Configure the modules as per your preference
Yoast SEO Setup
Similar to Rank Math, Yoast SEO includes a configuration wizard to help you get set up as soon as possible. Although, you’ll need to launch it from the WordPress toolbar.
The Wizard takes you through all the important settings:
- Basic sitewide schema data
- Whether or not to index your website
- SEO title templates
The Yoast SEO dashboard includes tips and suggestions and will flag any potential issues with your site.
Similar to Ran Math, Yoast SEO also uses a modular feature that allows users to enable and disable it as per their preference. Users can find the features in the features tab and use the Toggle button to turn on or off the features.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Keyword Analysis
When you compare Rank Math vs Yoast SEO, it’s important to take keyword analysis into consideration. You can add keywords that you want to target and the tool will analyze how well optimized your content is and what changes you need to make to your content. Both the tools make it easier for you to publish SEO-friendly content.
This is another section that doesn’t have a clear winner or loser, it all comes down to personal preference. While comparing Rank Math vs Yoast SEO, you’ll find that Rank Math offers one advantage as it analyzes multiple keywords for free.
Rank Math Keyword Analysis
Even in the free version of Rank Math, you can analyze up to five focus keywords at the same time. All you have to do is add the keyword that you want to target, and Rank Math will:
1. Provide you a score between 1-100 with some kind of color grade. If you score more than 80, your text will get green.
2. Rank Math offers specific tips and you have to meet them. It will let you know your keyword in the SEO title. Or how many times did you use the keywords in the content?
Rank Math’s list of suggestions includes tips for both on-page SEO and other features such as content readability.
You can toggle between keywords by clicking on them. If you want to choose a different focus keyword, the content analysis will be shown for that keyword.
Yoast SEO Keyword Analysis
With the free version of Yoast SEO, you can analyze a single keyword for every piece of content. If you use the premium version, you’ll be able to analyze multiple keywords. You can access the analysis of the keywords in either the sidebar of the block editor or the meta box under the editor.
The analysis section works and looks similar to Rank Math, and you can add the keywords, and Yoast SEO gives you a score. Yoast SEO’s score is less specific compared to Rank Math. There’s no numerical rating and you get only three colors coded:
- Green means the content is good
- Yellow means content is ok
- Red means the content is bad
Yoast SEO gives the content readability its own score with the same scoring system. With a little bit of tweaking, you can change the color code.
Summary – Rank Math vs Yoast SEO
In our Rank Math vs Yoast SEO comparison, one thing’s clear and it’s that both are equally great tools. Either tool you choose will help you optimize your website and your content. It’s more about picking the plugin that best helps you keep up with your SEO goals.
Overall, Rank Math provides you more features if you just want the free version. The things you get on Rank Math for free are chargeable on Yoast SEO. If you think you’ll use the additional features available to you, then using Rank Math may make more sense to you.
Plus, both Yoast SEO and Rank Math are modular so you can enable and disable features as per your preference. So in summation:
- If you want a huge list of features then go for Rank Math. Especially if you plan to use the free version.
- If you’re not going to take advantage of these additional features and you want something to control your SEO titles/descriptions and other basic settings, then you should just choose the one you like to use more.
On our website, we use Rank Math as we love the extra functionalities we get. Whether the paid or the free version, Rank Math provides better list functionality.
Leave a Reply