WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, so I often hear questions about how to position sites that run on it. I recently described how to use in practice Yoast plugins . Today I will focus on its most serious competitor, the Rank Math SEO plugin.
Site indexing
For starters, you need to check if the site indexes. You don’t need a plugin for this step yet – you’ll do it in the WordPress dashboard. Go to Settings > Reading > Search Engine Visibility. The option should be unchecked.
If you don’t already have the Rank Math plugin installed, you will do it very simply and quickly. Select the Plugins > Add New section in the side menu. Search for Rank Math plugin, install it and activate it. After installation, you will activate and deactivate plugins in the Installed Plugins section.
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Google Search Console and sitemap
Google Search Console allows you to measure your site’s visibility, so it’s a good idea to add your positioned site to it. This can be done in two ways: by placing a verification tag in the section of the page or just by using plugins. In Rank Math SEO, all you have to do is select the section in the side menu: Rank Math > Main Settings > Webmaster Tools, and then paste the verification code.
The next step is to save the changes and verify them in your Google Search Console account.
Site map (sitemap)
Once a site is added to GSC, it’s time to generate the site map, or sitemap. This is an .xml file that lists all the sub-pages on your site. To generate a sitemap in Rank Math, go to Rank Math -> Site Map Settings:
In Rank Math, the site map will be like this: https://twojadomena.pl/sitemap_index.xml. Then it remains to add this link to Google Search Console.
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Parent pages
It is worth remembering the parent pages that are needed for proper internal linking. I wrote more about parent pages and URLs in an article about Yoast SEO for WordPress .
Meta title and meta description optimization
Meta tags are an important part of SEO optimization. It is worth starting with meta title – The title should be about 70 characters with spaces. It is best to include the phrase for which you are positioning the sub-page and the name of the company.
It is also worth setting the meta description . Meta description can be longer than the title: has up to 160 characters with spaces. It does not directly affect the position of the page, but well-written (remember the CTA!), it will encourage people to click the link, and this will already increase visibility.
In the Rank Matha plugin on WordPress, you can easily set a unique title and description for each sub-page. On the subpage, simply select the Rank Math icon on the right and click Edit Snippet. A box will appear on the screen where you enter the meta description and meta title:
You can also use global settings – variables will help you define meta titles for newly created subpages. See how to do it using the category example:
Subpages and internal linking
Creating new pages is easy in WordPress: choose from the Pages side menu > Add New. Remember that there can be only 1 H1 header on each subpage (in addition, it should be unique for each subpage). It is a good idea to include H2 headings (preferably with key phrases) in the content. The amount of content is best determined by tools such as Surfer SEO. You will find out how much content your competitors have and what key phrases they use.
It is also good to introduce internal linking. Links to matching categories and products are worth including in blog articles. You can also create small boxes on the parent pages linking to the subpages.
With Rank Math, WordPress is much easier to position. Optimization takes time, but I’ve covered the basics above – if you implement them, you’ll see results in your site’s visibility.
