There are seemingly endless WordPress SEO plugins out there, all promising to boost the visibility of your content. Two at the top of the recommendations list are Yoast SEO and Rank Math. Yoast SEO has remained at the top of the class pretty much since the creation of WordPress, but a new challenger, Rank Math, might just topple its crown.
Both popular plugins have something to offer those looking to boost their SEO. Here’s a review of what both products have to offer those looking to improve their search engine optimization.

Yoast SEO: Original WordPress SEO

Yoast SEO was called WordPress SEO when it first launched in 2010, which might explain why it has dominated the SEO plugin charts for so long. Creator Joost de Valk cultivated his obsession with WordPress by creating multiple small SEO plugins for WordPress that eventually merged into one super plugin. Yoast SEO is considered the most popular plugins of all time. Now, Yoast has employees all over the world and makes $12 million a year in revenue.
Considered the godfather of SEO, Yoast has now expanded to include tutorials on making the most of search engine optimization, as well as offering tailored SEO plugins for eCommerce, Video SEO, and News SEO.

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Rank Math

Rank Math was first created in 2018 and started in New Delhi, India. Since its launch, it has exploded into popularity, with over 500,000 users downloading Rank Math in less than two years. Although it’s not currently listed as the most popular second choice WordPress SEO plugin (All In One SEO currently sits behind Yoast SEO), its sudden rise to fame makes it inarguably the second most successful SEO plugin of 2020.
Why has it been so successful? Rank Math has a pretty impressive free features list so far unrivaled by other SEO plugins. There is a Premium version available but for many, the free version is all they need.
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Features

Now, let’s get into the more hands-on section of our Rank Math vs Yoast SEO comparison, starting with a look at each plugin‘s features.

Rank Math

Free Features:

• Set SEO titles/meta descriptions – create templates that automatically apply to content and manually adjust SEO titles/descriptions for individual pieces of content.
• Set social media descriptions – control text and images for Facebook and Twitter.
• Focus keyword analysis (supports multiple keywords) – enter one or more focus keywords and see how optimized your content is for those keywords.
• XML Sitemap – create a more customizable XML sitemap than the default WordPress sitemap feature allows.
• Structured data/schema – set up sitewide schema markup and also control the schema markup for individual pieces of content.
• Search Console – connect your site to Google Search Console to automatically submit sitemaps and view Search Console analytics inside your WordPress dashboard.
• Local SEO and Knowledge Graph – optimize your site for local SEO (only one location for free)
• Image SEO – improve image SEO and automatically set alt and title tags.
• Internal Link suggestions – Rank Math will suggest other content on your site to link to while you’re working in the editor.
• Breadcrumbs – add breadcrumbs to your site.
• Link Counter – count the number of internal and external links in your content.
• Redirections – create and manage 301 and 302 redirects.
• 404 Monitor – monitor your site for 404 errors. You could then redirect common 404 errors to other pages on your site.
• Google Analytics – add the tracking code and view information.
• Basic WooCommerce SEO – set product/shop titles/descriptions.

Premium Features:

• Keyword rank tracking – track your site’s search engine rankings and keyword performance over the past 12 months (pretty unique)
• Google Trends integration
• Google Video SEO sitemap
• Google News SEO sitemap
• Multiple locations for local SEO
• More pre-defined schema types (20+)
• Google AdSense earning history
• Automatically watermark social media images

One nice thing about Rank Math is that all of these features are modular – so you can easily disable any features that you aren’t planning to use.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO has a more limited feature list in its free version, but the Yoast SEO team does offer multiple pro add-ons that you can use to extend the core features. However, as we mentioned above, you will see that Yoast SEO charges for several features that Rank Math gives you for free, such as a redirect manager, multiple keyword analysis, and internal link suggestions.
Basic Features:

• Set SEO titles/meta descriptions – create templates that automatically apply to content and manually adjust SEO titles/descriptions for individual pieces of content.
• XML Sitemap – create a more customizable XML sitemap than the detailed WordPress feature allows.
• Focus keyword analysis (only one keyword) – enter one focus keyword and see how optimized your content is for that keyword.
• Sitewide schema – add sitewide schema markup.
• Content schema type – set a custom schema type for individual pieces of content (you can also set a sitewide default).
• Search Console – verify your site with Search Console.
• Set social media descriptions – control text and images for Facebook and Twitter.
• Basic WooCommerce SEO – e.g. set the titles/descriptions for products and shop pages.
• Cornerstone content – mark important pages as “Cornerstone” to help optimize them and get more internal links to them.
• Breadcrumbs – add breadcrumbs to your site.
• Link Counter – count the number of internal links in your content.

Core Premium Features:

• Redirect Manager – create and manage 301 and 302 redirects.
• Internal link suggestions – Yoast SEO will suggest other content on your site to link to.
• Internal link blocks – add a block that automatically includes relevant links instead of manually adding them.
• Multiple focus keywords – analyze your content for multiple focus keywords.
• Related keyphrases – generate related keyphrases based on data from SEMrush.

Yoast SEO also offers other paid add-ons for specific types of SEO. These give you features that are also mostly only available in the premium version of Rank Math, though Rank Math does include some local SEO features in its free version:

• Local SEO – adds structured data for local businesses/Knowledge Graph, enhances your contact page, and supports multiple physical locations.
• Video SEO – get your videos listed in Google Videos and add other video SEO enhancements.
• News SEO – optimize your site for Google News, ping Google when you publish a post, create an XML News sitemap, and more.
• WooCommerce SEO (Advanced) – get access to more WooCommerce SEO features such as social media graph information, a cleaner XML sitemap, and more.

Rank Math vs Yoast SEO — Setup Process

Both Rank Math and Yoast SEO do a good job of onboarding you with important settings. Both are just generally pretty user-friendly, as well.

Rank Math

When you first launch Rank Math, it opens a setup wizard to help you configure the important basic features. You can also optionally link your free Rank Math account to unlock some features. You don’t have to do this to use the plugin, but you do need to connect a free account to unlock all the features.
Overall, the wizard is quite well done and offers customized experiences for basic vs advanced users:
In the setup wizard, you’ll configure:

• Basic schema information
• Google Analytics and Google Search Console integrations, if you want to use them.
• XML sitemap.
• Other basic settings, such as whether to noindex empty category and tag archives.Once you go through the setup wizard, it also gives you a choice to set up advanced options which will unlock some additional steps for things like:
  • Role manager (to control which WordPress roles can access Rank Math).
  • 404 error monitoring.
  • Redirection.
  • More detailed schema markup settings, e.g. setting default schema types for different post types.

  After finishing the setup wizard, it will also launch you into the module manager which lists every single feature and lets you:

  • Enable/disable each module.
  • Configure all the modules that you’ve enabled.If you’re in Easy Mode, you won’t see all of the modules. You need to enable Advanced Mode to see every single module.

Yoast SEO

Like Rank Math, Yoast SEO includes a configuration wizard to help you quickly get up and running, though you’ll need to launch it from the WordPress toolbar.
This wizard also does a great job of taking you through all the important settings such as:

• Basic sitewide schema data
• Whether or not to index your site
• SEO title templatesThe Yoast SEO dashboard also includes some tips/suggestions and will flag any potential issues with your site:
  Like Rank Math, Yoast SEO also uses a modular approach that lets you disable features you don’t want to use. You can view the features in the Features tab and use the toggle to turn off specific features:

  User Interface

When we compared the setup process above, you already got a look at some of the user interface. Next, we’ll take a look at what the user interface is like for day-to-day actions, e.g. setting up the optimization for an individual post or page.

Rank Math

If you’re using the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg
Another unique part of Rank Math is its Analytics interface. Depending on whether you have the free or pro version, you’ll be able to track:

• Search Console reports (e.g. search impressions and keyword positions). Free.
• Keyword rankings/performance. Paid.
• Traffic statistics from Google Analytics. Paid. Rank Math will also match these to each piece of content’s SEO score.

), Rank Math fully integrates into the block editor. That is, you won’t use the “meta box” approach that you get with the Classic editor.
You can open the Rank Math settings by clicking on its icon on the Toolbar. The settings sidebar is divided into four tabs:

• General – edit the snippet details, set a focus keyword, and view analysis.
• Advanced – configure robots meta information, such as adding a noindex tag.
• Schema – set up schema markup/structured data.
• Social – set up social graph information for Facebook and Twitter.
  

  Yoast SEO

  Yoast SEO gives you two ways to set up your SEO information while working in the editor for an individual piece of content:

  1. You get a meta box underneath the editor, which appears in both the block editor and the classic editor. This is the “old” way of configuring Yoast SEO.
  2. If you’re using the block editor, you’ll get a new Yoast SEO option in the editor sidebar.

  You can choose the approach that works for you, which is nice if you prefer the meta box approach (since Rank Math doesn’t give you a meta box in the block editor).
  If you use the sidebar in the block editor, you’ll get access to all of the options in one column:
  You can expand each section to view more information. For example, if you’ve enabled the schema markup settings, you can set an individual piece of content’s schema type from the Schema section.
  You can also click on the “preview” options to view your snippet information in a popup:
  The other option is to use the meta box, which appears below the editor and divides its settings into four columns:

  • SEO – set titles/descriptions, view keyword analysis, and control advanced settings such as robots tags and canonical links.
  • Readability – view the readability analysis tips.
  • Schema – choose a schema type for this piece of content.
  • Social – set up open graph information for Facebook and Twitter.
    

    Keyword Analysis

    Both Rank Math and Yoast SEO support keyword analysis while you’re creating content

    Rank Math

    Even with the free version, Rank Math lets you analyze up to five focus keywords at a time. All you do is enter the keyword(s) that you want to target and Rank Math will:

    1. Give you a score from 0-100. along with some color-coding. If you score above 80, you’ll get the “green”, which is good.
    2. List specific tips and whether or not you’ve met them. For example, is your focus keyword in the SEO title? How many times did you use it in the content?

    Rank Math’s list of suggestions includes both on-page SEO as well as other factors such as title/content readability:
    You can toggle between different keywords by clicking on them in the list. For example, if you select a different focus keyword, the analysis will change to focus on that specific keyword.

    Yoast SEO

    With the free version at WordPress.org, Yoast SEO only lets you analyze a single keyword for each piece of content. If you upgrade to the premium version, however, you’ll be able to analyze multiple keywords.
    Again, as we showed you in the user interface sections, you can access the analysis tips in either the sidebar of the block editor or the meta box underneath either editor.
    The analysis works pretty much the same as Rank Math – you enter your keyword(s) and then Yoast SEO gives you a score and also compares your content to its list of specific suggestions.
    Yoast SEO’s score is less specific, though. There’s no numeric rating and there are only three options:
    Yoast SEO also separates its readability analysis into its own score, also with its same scoring system. The readability analysis can be a little quirky as the score weighting sometimes feels arbitrary.
    For example, it’s possible to jump from red to green just by changing a single letter in your content. In general, you should pay more attention to the specific readability tips than your actual score.
    . That is, you can add the keyword(s) that you’re targeting and the plugin will analyze your content to tell you how well-optimized it is and if you need to make any changes.

    Pricing

    Both Rank Math and Yoast SEO are available for free at WordPress.org. Then, both developers also sell premium versions with more features.
    This is a big change for Rank Math as, for a long time, it only came in a free version. However, the developer launched the Pro version of the plugin in November 2020. It adds new features and doesn’t affect any of the existing features that were already available for free.
    Overall, Rank Math’s premium version is more affordable than Yoast SEO for three reasons:

    • Rank Math’s top-level prices are lower than Yoast SEO (though that might change).
    • Rank Math’s premium plan supports unlimited websites, while Yoast SEO doesn’t offer an unlimited license.
    • Rank Math only has a single premium plan with all the features, while Yoast SEO has multiple premium extensions. For example, if you want to add Local SEO support, that’s a separate purchase.Currently, Rank Math offers two plans for its premium version:
      • Pro – $59 – use it on unlimited personal websites and track up to 1,000 keywords.
      • Business – $199 – use it on unlimited personal and client websites and track up to 20,000 keywords.

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Yoast SEO

There are two types of premium offerings for Yoast SEO.
First off, there’s the core premium plugin, which gets you access to features like multiple keyword analysis, internal link suggestions, and more. The core premium offering costs $89 for use on a single site – you can also get discounts for multi-site licenses:

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