Improving your search engine rankings is the primary goal of most websites today. While there are several ways to go about it, using a plugin can make it easier. And the Rank My WP plugin is easily one of the best options to do this.
This plugin is designed to help you rank within the top ten results and keeps track of your progress so you can keep track of your growth. It acts like a keyword research tool that can help you find the best options for your site.
It even has storage functionality where you can store keywords for later to build content around. As such, it is not only a great way to improve rankings but can help give you content ideas to follow.
Today I will demonstrate how to use Rank My WP to improve search rankings for WordPress.
This tutorial is for:WordPress 6.5.5Plugin: Rank My WP v1.1.0
Why Search Rankings Matter
Many may try to downplay the importance of ranking highly on search engines, but the truth is it is critical for your website to succeed. One statistic will prove that as 93% of all web traffic comes from search engines.
While many are focusing more effort on social media, the truth is ranking highly on a search engine is more important.
Unfortunately, search engine algorithms are notoriously complex, which makes it incredibly difficult to know what to do. This is why most sites hire SEO teams and use analysis tools to track trends to improve their chances of ranking higher.
If you fail to rank highly, the likelihood your site will ever gain a steady audience is incredibly low. Luckily, with millions of websites to pull data from, many experts have figured out how to rank higher. Thus, with the right tool, it is achievable.
How to Improve Rankings with Rank My WP
The Rank My WP plugin offers developers a lot of tools to improve ranking but manages to still be a simple tool when it comes to usability. One of the main features would be the keyword tool it includes.
This helps you locate keywords that your site can rank for, as well as view what the competition is for each one. That said, it is important to point out that SEO is far more than just having the right keyword.
It is highly recommended to have another SEO plugin like Yoast SEO to help cover the other aspects.
Step 1: Install Rank My WP
Let’s start by clicking on Plugins and selecting the Add New option on the left-hand admin panel.
Search for Rank My WP in the available search box. This will pull up additional plugins that you may find helpful.
Find the Rank My WP plugin and click on the “Install Now” button and activate the plugin for use.
Step 2: Get Free API Key
Before you can start using the plugin to research keywords, you’ll need to obtain the free API key for it. Luckily, this should only take a minute. Start by clicking on the Rank My WP option.
Now, click on the “Connect and get Free API Key” button.
You will be prompted to create a username and enter a valid email address. Once you do, you will receive a verification email. Click on the link inside of it, and you will be prompted to create a password for the account you are creating.
After this, you can log into your newly created account. You will find the API key immediately upon logging in.
Return to WordPress, paste the API key into the appropriate box, and click on the “Connect with API Key” button.
Your website will now be connected with Rank My WP; thus we can begin using the tool.
Step 3: Keyword Research
As I already said, the bread and butter of this plugin is the long-tail keyword research you can perform directly in WordPress. What are long-tail keywords? Simply put, they are longer keyword phrases that users are more likely to type into search engines.
For example, you may try to rank a page for “fast typing”, but a user is more likely to search for” How to type faster” because it is more specific to what they are looking for. This creates a narrower search that your website is more likely to rank highly for.
This tool can help you find the best long-tail keywords for your site based on what you enter.
Start off by entering the keyword or phrase you want to research. Click on the “Do Research” button.
This will enter the research tool. It will fill the box with what you previously entered, so click on the “Next” button to continue. This will allow you to choose if you want to perform a global search or narrow it down to a specific country.
Most smaller sites will want to focus on country searches, but the choice is there if you want it.
The plugin will then generate similar keywords and ask you to select up to three of them. Once you do, click on the “Next” button. This will commence the full research. After a few moments, the plugin will turn up the results.
Understanding the Columns
The results are broken up into several columns. They include:
- Keyword
- Co (Country)
- Competition Level
- Search Volume
- Discussion Level
- Trends
The results for each column are color-coded with green being good and red being bad. Essentially, the greener a result turns up the better, but I would say you ultimately want a keyword with low competition and high search volume.
At the end of each row are three vertical dots. If you hover over it, you will have the option to copy the keyword or to store it in your briefcase, which acts as a storage area for keywords you find. This is great if you find several great keywords you want to use.
And that really covers the keyword research you can perform with this plugin. At the bottom, you will find a start-over option that lets you begin the process again with a different keyword.
Does This Mean Other Marketing Efforts Are Pointless?
No. While 93% of all website traffic comes from search engines, marketing efforts play a key role in influencing your rankings.
Think about it for a minute, what is the purpose of an ad? It is to inform the user that a product or service exists and entice them to check it out. A successful ad will have users searching for information about that product, service, or topic.
Other websites will see that and create content in the form of reviews about said product to meet the user demand. Thus, as the topic becomes more popular the search volume increases, putting your website in a better position to pick up the traffic.
Social media is also a great platform. Many users share news stories, reviews, and whatnot with friends and family. These stories that end up going viral as a result, lead to many users performing that search into Google directly.
Marketing is just as important as a good SEO strategy, and I would say they are directly tied to one another.
Improve Your Search Engine Rankings Today
As you can see, Rank My WP is a great plugin for researching keywords for your site. Doing so can help boost your rankings by picking ones with less competition and higher search volume.
With that said, keyword research is just one aspect of a site’s SEO strategy. You’ll need to do a lot more to improve your rankings, which is why I recommend having a comprehensive SEO tool like Yoast to use alongside this plugin.
I hope you found this tutorial helpful in learning how to use Rank My WP to improve rankings.
Did you find Rank My WP easy to use? Have your rankings improved after selecting better keywords?
