Installing a plugin doesn’t and can’t instantly or magically lead to improved search engine rankings. Rank Math, like any other SEO plugin or software, is – at the end of the day – simply software. Its effectiveness depends on how well you use it. If anyone tells you that installing a plugin is going to lead to improved rankings overnight, they are lying and have another agenda/are just trying to sell you something.
Ranking on search engines like Google depends on so much more than just on on-page optimization. You could have the “perfect” content, and still, struggle to make it to the top 10 results in SERPs (search engine results pages).
Here are just a few of the most notable factors (of the ones that people are aware of) that Google considers when evaluating websites:
1 Website Performance
Page speed has been crafted as one of the leading SEO ranking factors for years. Fast loading pages will improve your audience experience of the web.
You can use Google’s mobile testing tool to see how your site stacks up with regards to speed.
Related: Learn more about how to optimize & speed up your WordPress website.
2 Is Your Website Secure?
In August of 2014, Google officially announced that websites secured with HTTPS (an SSL certificate) took precedence over websites that weren’t – i.e ones using HTTP.
HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) works in the same way as standard HTTP, except for one minor yet important difference. All of the data sent through a webpage using HTTPS has an additional layer of security. HTTPS works with another protocol, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), to safely transport data (which is really the key difference).
HTTPS gives websites extra protection because the data being submitted to and from the server is encrypted—meaning nobody has the ability to steal, hack, or view private data.
Another reason it’s important is that – according to a study – 28% of internet users check this and 84% of shoppers abandon a purchase if data was being sent over an insecure connection.
3 Backlinks & Website/Domain “Authority”
Another factor that affects rankings is the domain name. You need to be careful while selecting a domain name. When it comes to ranking, it is widely accepted that the authority of a website’s domain which mainly depends on the number of backlinks (inbound links from other websites) is a known ranking factor.
Although there is an increasing number of people that tend to advocate that links don’t matter – data & various studies still show a strong correlation between the number of links and rankings.
Links are another important factor that affects your rankings. There are three types of links: Inbound Links, Outbound Links, Internal Links.
- Inbound Links: Inbound Links also known as backlinks are those links that help to determine how authoritative your content is. Your motive is to get as many highly authoritative sites to link back to you. This also means you want to have very few inbound links from low-quality domains.
- Outbound Links: You will want to showcase that you are creating good quality content for your visitors. That involves using outbound links by linking to relevant, authoritative sites in your niche.
- Internal Links: Linking to your own content can help bind pages together for both Google and your audience, thereby making each page more valuable. If you have an authoritative page and link to another page on your site, that helps your audience find the other page and also passes on some authority. Doing so helps to boost the rankings of your other page too.
4 Content Quality
For SEO original content is always the best way to improve rankings. Also, the content needs to be optimized thoroughly. You need to take care of your keywords, your title, description, etc of your content and write content in a way that is easily understood by your audience.
The content that is optimized has a higher chance of ranking in the search engines as compared to the content that is not optimized.
Creating good content is important if you want to drive immense traffic to your website. These are some of the tips that will cut through all of the noise and make sure your content comes out on top every time.
4.1 Write Compelling Headlines
You will be surprised to know that around 80% of your audience will read your headline and then decide whether they will read your content further or not. Hence writing strong headlines is of the utmost importance when it comes to creating good content.
4.2 Provide Solutions to Your Audience
Your content should focus on providing answers to your audience’s problems. When your audience invests time in reading your content that expects nothing but an answer so that they can gain knowledge. Hence it is advisory to make your content audience-driven.
4.3 Create Engaging Content
Your content should be provoking and engaging so that the audience reads it till the end. You can write a promising introduction, make use of stories as people love stories, good images, and videos to make your overall content engaging.
4.4 Structure Your Content
Nobody loves to read blocks and blocks of text. It is simply boring! Hence it is important that you structure your content properly so that it develops an interest in your audience.
5 Technical/On-Page SEO
Technical SEO contributes to a great extent to improve the rankings of your site. The factors that fall under technical SEO are:
- Add keyword phrases in page titles.
- Use header tags to show content hierarchy starting with your title at H1 and then use H2 or H3 for subheadings.
- Create a good meta description that both entices readers and also includes your keyword phrase. Keep them short and catchy.
- Make use of keyword phrases in image Alt Tags to show how those images are relevant to the main content.
- Use schema markup in order to inform Google what kind of content you are producing.
While optimizing the content of your pages to rank for certain keywords is by no means what it was 5, let alone 3 years ago – they still matter. After all, they bridge the gap between what people are looking for and the information/content your website serves. Even among the trillions of searches Google processes, a significant percentage of searches done by users are ones that have never been seen before.
Your primary goal in order to rank on search engines is to drive organic traffic from the search engines and keywords you aim to rank for (which influences the content you produce), etc. all ultimately determine the traffic you’re able to drive to your websites.
For example: If you own a bakery shop then you might want to rank for “best cakes” but if you are not careful then you might end up attracting traffic that is interested in chocolates. Is this still suitable to your business?
The two main reasons why keywords are still important are:
- Keywords give us an idea as to who your audience is and what they want or what are they looking for, allowing you to meet their needs efficiently.
- Using the proper keyword will get more search engine traffic and increase your rankings on the search engines.
In order to create content that ranks well organically and drives the audience to your site, you need to understand the needs of that audience— the language they use and the type of content they seek. You can do this by interacting with your audience, making good use of forums and community groups, and doing your own keyword research.
It is necessary that you create original content and develop your content with original ideas. Original content is successful in the long run. Creating your own content also helps to attract more audience and ultimately drive traffic to your website.
Summary – So, How Does an SEO Plugin Actually Help?
A WordPress SEO plugin – particularly Rank Math – offers a whole range of features all of which are incredibly helpful if not vital when it comes to the success of your websites.
How to Track Your Performance PRO
Without tracking your performance, you can’t know what’s working & what the next step is to improve. Thankfully, with the help of Rank Math PRO, you can easily keep track of your performance:
Built-in Rank Tracking
You can make use of the Rank Tracker feature available in Rank Math PRO that enables you to track your keyword performance. By using this feature you can easily determine which keywords are performing well and those that need more attention.
Know Your Top 5 Winning & Losing Posts
Another great Rank Math PRO feature is the ability to know both your top 5 winning and top 5 losing posts. With this feature, it’s extremely easy to see (at a glance) how content is performing on your website. Which need attention because they’re not doing well and which are performing well…
Website Analytics
You can check the performance of each post with the help of Site Analytics in Rank Math PRO that will help you to direct your SEO efforts towards the important posts on your website.
Rank Math PRO makes it very easy to track your performance and ultimately improve your rankings.
Why is Rank Math a Game Changer?
Rank Math is designed to help each and every website owner finally get access to the SEO tools they need and drive more traffic to their website.
Here are some of Rank Math’s most notable features – but this really just scratches the surface in terms of what it’s capable of:
- Setup Wizard: The setup Wizard of Rank Math is easy to follow and sets up SEO for WordPress without any hassle.
- Google Schema Markup or Rich Snippets Integrated: The configuration of Google Schema Markup is made extremely simple with the help of Rank Math.
- Google Search Console Integration: Rank Math saves a lot of your time as it can integrate the Google Search Console inside your WordPress.
- Google Keyword Ranking: You can now track your keyword ranking in Google with the help of the Rank Math plugin.
- LSI Keyword Tool Integrated: Rank Math’s integrated LSI keyword tool gives you multiple keyword variations of your focus keyword, which helps you to bring in more traffic to your posts.
- Advanced SEO Analysis Tool: Rank Math can perform an SEO audit of your website with just one single click.
- Elementor SEO: Everything related to SEO for Elementor can be configured in the visual editor with the help of Rank Math.
- Image SEO – Rank Math provides a solution to add ALT & Title tags on the go, you can optimize images easily now.
- XML Sitemap – The Rank Math plugin comes with a fast-loading Sitemap feature that works with different post types, including the custom ones, and provides deep control.