In our previous blog post, we introduced some of the reasons why your website isn’t generating the kind of traffic and business you were hoping for.
This is primarily down to how optimized your website is for SEO, which for many can be a daunting subject—which is why we also have written this article on the Importance of SEO as a helpful guide—but it is made a whole lot easier by adding an SEO plugin to your WordPress website.
Helping you make the right decisions
At KartHost, we are always searching and testing the best plugins currently available to ensure that your website is up to the task of adding real value to your business and your customers. For that reason, these are the plugins that we use in all of our packages.
However, we also want to help educate by sharing this information with you in our blog. Plus, in most cases, the plugins that we recommend have free (entry-level) versions so you can test them out on your own site, even if we aren’t already helping you with it.
As part of the EZWP Complete and (soon to be released) EZWP Membership packages, we offer a choice of two hugely powerful pro plugins—each with a free version—which are SEOPress and Rank Math.
We have already written in detail about some of the hugely beneficial features SEOPress has which you can find here, and in this article, we will be diving into the functionality and benefits of choosing Rank Math.
Remove the guesswork from SEO
Getting your website set up with an SEO plugin is generally quite straightforward, especially thanks to set up wizards whose purpose is to do exactly that.
But sometimes, when you are presented with a long list of checkboxes for how you want to configure the base settings of a plugin, it’s hard to know which are the right settings to choose. This is especially true when you are already struggling to even wrap your head around the many details of SEO.
Fortunately, Rank Math’s setup is a cut above the rest!
By default, the plugin will recommend and check the settings that are designed to optimize your website for performing better in SEO. That means that from the first moment you start using the plugin, your website is already on track to help drive more traffic towards your business.
So not only are you set up correctly but you get set up faster too.
As well as being easy to set up, properly, RankMath has a very active Facebook group that can provide you with quick answers to your queries. This group is somewhat of a treasure chest of information added from other users and the developers themselves for how to optimize your website and its content even better.
Integrations to make life simpler
We all like it when systems that we use play nicely with each other, and that is why integrations are so important when it comes to plugins.
When it comes to SEO, with the complexity and sheer volume of data available to you, it is even more important that the integrations offer real functional benefits. Fortunately, this is another one of the places where Rank Math shines!
Make modifications easily
Now, this is a very important starting point as Elementor is a real favorite of ours because of its intuitive block-based editor that makes editing and building content on your website so much easier.
What this integration means is that while you are building your website with Elementor, you can now see, in real-time, how the changes you are making to your site affect its SEO and even get optimization suggestions.
Keep in touch with trends
As you may already know, ‘trends’ are what drive a lot of search history and people’s behavior generally online. When it comes to search and content, trends are hugely important in helping you be more visible to the right people.
Google Trends—as the name suggests—is a hugely valuable and popular tool that allows you to find search trends relating to different keywords by region, country, and time. This is especially useful when you want to discover event-triggered spikes in keyword search numbers that can be very beneficial when planning content and determining when to publish it.
With the Rank Math plugin, the Google Trends console is integrated into your dashboard which makes it even easier to use, and with it being so visible, you won’t ‘forget’ to use it!
Determine exactly how you appear in search results
Another powerful tool from the search engine giant which can offer real benefits to your website’s SEO is the Google Search Console, which is also fully integrated into the plugin.
With this tool, you can monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot how your site appears in Google search results. And when you add any new content, you can notify Google so that they can re-index your website!
It will also allow you to see how often your site appears on Google, and what search queries lead to your site. Plus the crucial statistics for how many people actually click through.
This is hugely valuable data that can help you see if your content is serving your audience correctly, and it allows you to have quantifiable feedback on what content has been a success to help influence your planning for the future.
You will also be alerted if Google detects indexing, spam, or other issues on your site so you can ensure it is always performing optimally.
Now, just to clarify. This doesn’t mean that you can tell Google to bump your site up the rankings. But it does mean that when people do find your website on Google, you can choose exactly what information they will see so you can encourage them to click through.
In other words, you can make your website look as appealing as possible!
The all-in-one plugin
One of the real benefits of Rank Math is that all of the features are contained within a single plugin. That means no additional costs and total functionality, all in one place.
Another perk is that it keeps all of the functionality within one space which makes the plugin easy to navigate and means you are less likely to forget about some of the powerful features it offers.
As we mentioned at the beginning, with the EZWP Complete and Membership packages, you will have a choice between Rank Math and SEOPress.
Now, one of the main differences between the two plugins is in the advanced features of keyword tracking and backlinks. Both of these features are included as an Insights add-on to SEOPress which you can learn more about here.
It is important to note that this is an additional paid service, and in many ways, the benefits are certainly worth the cost—That’s why we specifically discuss them in the section titled “The benefit of insight.”
Rank Math is a little different in that it does not offer a feature to track and monitor your backlinks, however, it does include keyword tracking in the pro plugin. That means that at no additional cost (with our EZWP Complete/Membership plan) you will still have keyword tracking.
This is not the case with SEOPress because it isn’t a feature in the pro version of the plugin.
The best plugin for your needs
Now that we have explored all of the benefits and features of both the Rank Math and SEOPress plugins, it’s time to make a decision on which plugin best suits your needs, so here is a quick summary.
Rank Math is an incredibly powerful plugin, even in its basic (free) form it offers the most complete list of features. But we are talking about the pro packages here because that is what you will be getting with either of our amazing EZWP packages.
Rank Math especially benefits from integrations with some of the powerful Google tools which means that you will have full access to the tools, and their benefits, all from within your dashboard. This makes working with them that little bit easier because you don’t need to learn multiple systems. And while Rank Math may be missing out on the backlink features, the fact that it includes keyword tracking in the pro version is a HUGE plus!
So, why then would you choose SEOPress?
We have to say that the design and layout of the SEOPress plugin are some of the easiest to understand that we have ever seen. This means that you can get up and running in no time with a lot of confidence that you can access all of the features, and with no real knowledge necessary.
In this way, you can think of SEOPress as a bit more of a “beginner-friendly” plugin. This is why it doesn’t come loaded with advanced keyword and backlink tracking tools. But, these tools are always available for you, whenever you are ready for them, for a relatively low annual fee with your active SEOPress Pro subscription. [affiliate link]
So the choice is yours!
Either way, with our EZWP Complete and (soon to be released) EZWP Membership packages and one of these phenomenally powerful plugins, you are well on your way to making the big SEO gains your business is looking for.
