RankMath settings is a critical topic in SEO today. There are two kinds of WordPress users. The first installs RankMath, sees the green circle turn green on one article, and assumes they’ve done SEO. The second understands that RankMath is a tool for communicating with Google — and uses it to control exactly how their site gets crawled, indexed, and represented in search results.
This guide is for the second kind.
I’ll walk through the settings that actually matter — not a tour of every checkbox in the plugin, but the specific configurations that make a difference for a WordPress blog targeting organic traffic and AdSense-level quality.
RankMath settings: Before you configure anything: run the setup wizard in Advanced mode
When you first activate RankMath, it offers Easy and Advanced setup modes. Choose Advanced. The Easy mode hides options you’ll need, including schema controls, breadcrumb settings, and the ability to manage robots directives per post type. You can’t fully undo the Easy mode choices without running the wizard again, so get this right upfront.
Connect your Google Search Console account during setup. This pulls keyword and click data directly into your WordPress dashboard — you won’t need to open a separate tab to see which queries are sending you traffic. This is an important consideration when thinking about RankMath settings.
General settings: the foundation
Breadcrumbs
Go to RankMath > General Settings > Breadcrumbs. Enable breadcrumbs and set the separator to “>”. This isn’t just a navigation feature — RankMath adds breadcrumb schema markup automatically, which Google uses to display the category path in your search results. It makes your listings look more organized and can improve click-through rates. This is an important consideration when thinking about RankMath settings.
One important step with SmartMag: go to Appearance > Customize and check whether your theme has its own breadcrumb setting. If it does, disable it and let RankMath handle breadcrumbs. Running two breadcrumb systems generates duplicate schema. This is an important consideration when thinking about RankMath settings.
Links settings
Under General Settings > Links, enable “Redirect attachments to parent post.” Without this, WordPress creates individual pages for every image you upload — and those pages get indexed by Google as thin content. A site with 50 articles and 200 images would have 200 nearly-empty URLs consuming crawl budget. Enabling this redirect sends anyone (or any bot) landing on an image attachment page to the article it came from instead.
Also enable “Strip category base from URLs.” This changes post URLs from /category/seo/keyword-research-guide/ to /seo/keyword-research-guide/ — shorter, cleaner, and gives the category slug a bit more weight in the URL path.
When it comes to RankMath settings, these factors matter significantly.
Titles and meta: what Google shows for your site
Global title format
Under Titles & Meta > Global Meta, set your title separator. A hyphen (-) or pipe (|) both work. The separator appears between your post title and site name in browser tabs and search results. Keep your site name short — if your domain is already recognizable, you don’t need to include it in every title tag.
Post titles
Under Titles & Meta > Posts, set the title format to %title% %sep% %sitename%. This is the default and it’s correct for most blogs. Don’t add the date or category to the title format — those add length without adding keyword value. The title should be your article title plus your brand, nothing else.
When it comes to RankMath settings, these factors matter significantly.
Enable “Show Thumbnail in Search Preview.” This lets you see what your featured image looks like in Google’s mobile preview when editing individual posts — useful for catching when your image is the wrong aspect ratio for social sharing.
Noindex settings for non-content pages
Under Titles & Meta, look for individual sections for each post type and taxonomy. Set the following to noindex:
When it comes to RankMath settings, these factors matter significantly.
- Author archives — if you’re a single-author blog, your author archive is a duplicate of your homepage
- Date archives — pages like /2025/03/ add no value and dilute crawl budget
- Tag archives — unless your tags are highly organized, they’re usually thin pages with random post collections
Keep category archives indexed — those are your topic hubs and they have real SEO value if you write descriptions for them. Add a 200-word description to each of your 6 categories from your WordPress admin.
Sitemap: what you include matters
Go to RankMath > Sitemap. Enable the XML sitemap. Under “Include in Sitemap,” check Posts and Pages. Uncheck Media, Tags, and Authors — those attachment pages and thin archives don’t belong in your sitemap.
Set “Entries Per Page” to 200. The default is often lower, which splits your sitemap across multiple files unnecessarily for a new blog.
Once the sitemap is enabled, copy the sitemap URL — it will be https://seomytics.com/sitemap_index.xml — and submit it to Google Search Console under Sitemaps. This is how you formally tell Google what pages exist on your site and ask it to index them.
Schema: the part most bloggers ignore
Schema markup is structured data that tells search engines what type of content a page contains. Google uses it for rich results — star ratings, FAQ dropdowns, HowTo steps, breadcrumbs in search listings. RankMath handles schema better than most plugins, but the defaults need adjusting.
When it comes to RankMath settings, understanding the fundamentals is just the starting point. Implementing RankMath settings best practices consistently is what separates high-performing content from the rest. Every aspect of RankMath settings covered in this guide builds on proven strategies.
Default schema for posts
Go to RankMath > Titles & Meta > Posts. Under “Schema Type,” set it to “Article.” This applies Article schema to every post by default. You can override this per article — set a how-to post to HowTo schema, a roundup to ItemList — but Article is the right global default.
FAQ schema on individual posts
Any article with a FAQ section should use FAQ schema. In the WordPress editor, add a “FAQ” block (available in the Gutenberg block inserter). RankMath automatically detects this block and adds FAQ schema to the page. The questions and answers then become eligible to appear as expandable dropdowns directly in Google search results — which can dramatically increase visibility for the query.
Keep FAQ answers under 60 words each. Google displays them in a compact format and truncates long answers.
The per-post SEO panel: what to fill in every time
When editing any post, RankMath adds a panel below the editor. Here’s what to fill in for every article:
Focus keyword
Enter the primary keyword for this article — the exact phrase you want this post to rank for. RankMath checks your content against 30+ criteria and gives you a score out of 100. Aim for 80+, but don’t chase 100 by stuffing the keyword awkwardly into sentences where it doesn’t belong. The score is a guide, not a rule.
Add 2–3 secondary keywords in the additional fields. These are related phrases that should appear naturally in your article — variations, synonyms, and subtopic terms.
SEO title
Write a title that’s 55–60 characters. Put your focus keyword within the first three words if possible. The title tag is separate from your H1 heading — they don’t need to be identical. Your H1 can be more conversational while the SEO title is keyword-optimized.
Meta description
150–158 characters. Include the focus keyword once. Write it as a sentence that tells the reader what they’ll get from the article — not a keyword list. Google doesn’t use meta descriptions as a ranking factor, but it often shows them in search results, and a well-written description improves click-through rates.
Pillar content toggle
Turn this on for any article over 2,500 words that serves as the main resource for a topic cluster. Pillar content posts are marked differently in RankMath’s content tracking, and the toggle signals to your internal linking strategy which posts should receive the most links from cluster articles.
RankMath Analytics: what to check weekly
Once Search Console is connected, RankMath > Analytics shows your top keywords, click data, impressions, and which pages are ranking. Check this every week, not for vanity metrics but for two specific signals:
- Keywords ranking in positions 6–15: These are pages nearly on page one. A content update — adding depth, fixing the meta description, improving internal links — often pushes them into the top five.
- Pages with high impressions but low CTR: Your title or meta description isn’t compelling enough for the query. Rewrite the SEO title for that page.
This weekly review takes 10 minutes and consistently surfaces the highest-return optimizations on your site.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use RankMath Free or Pro?
The free version handles everything in this guide. The main Pro upgrades are: optimize for more than 5 keywords per post, advanced schema types (Course, Recipe, Product), and more detailed analytics. For a new blog building toward AdSense, free is sufficient for the first 6 months.
Can I use RankMath and Yoast SEO at the same time?
No. Running two SEO plugins creates conflicts — duplicate meta tags, schema collisions, and sitemap conflicts. Pick one. RankMath’s free tier offers more features than Yoast’s free version, which is why most new SEO blogs choose it.
What RankMath score should I aim for?
80+ is a solid target. Don’t sacrifice readable sentences to reach 100 — Google doesn’t see the RankMath score, only the result of following the guidance. A score of 85 with a well-written article will outrank a score of 100 with awkward keyword stuffing.
Does RankMath work with SmartMag theme?
Yes. RankMath is compatible with SmartMag. The one configuration to check: SmartMag has its own breadcrumb option in the theme settings. Disable it and use RankMath’s breadcrumbs instead to avoid duplicate schema markup on your pages.
Next: once RankMath is configured, your content needs to match what Google expects for each keyword you target. That starts with understanding search intent — what the person typing that query actually wants to find.
For more information, see RankMath official documentation.