Installing an SEO plugin does nothing on its own, it needs configuring.
Yoast and Rank Math both offer solid free versions.
Configure your site information, search appearance templates, and indexing settings.
Submit your XML sitemap to Google Search Console.
Monitor 404 errors regularly and set up redirects to keep visitors on your site.
Installing an SEO plugin does nothing on its own, proper configuration is where the real work happens. Without setting up your business details, submitting your sitemap to Google, and configuring which pages should be indexed, your plugin sits idle while your competitors rank above you.
Last month, a restaurant owner in Bristol asked why her website wasn’t appearing in Google. She had installed Yoast SEO six months earlier and assumed that was enough.
When we looked at her settings, we found the plugin had never been configured. Her sitemap wasn’t live, her page titles were generic, and several key pages were accidentally set to noindex.
This situation happens more often than you might think. Installing an SEO plugin is easy. Making it work properly for your business requires a bit more skill.
This guide shows you exactly which settings matter in Yoast and Rank Math, how to configure them properly, and how to verify everything is working.
Whether you run a local service business or an online shop, these settings apply to you. By the end, your plugin will be set up to help Google find, crawl, and index your pages correctly.
Table of Contents
Configuring Your Plugin
Many business owners assume their SEO plugin starts working the moment they activate it. This is a common misunderstanding.
While activation adds some basic functionality, the real benefits come from telling the plugin about your specific business.
An SEO plugin controls several things that affect how search engines see your website. It manages your page titles and meta descriptions, generates your XML sitemap, adds schema markup, and decides which pages should appear in search results.
Each of these needs setting up for your particular situation.
With default settings the plugin cannot know whether your site is a plumbing business in Leeds or an online boutique selling handmade candles. Your business type, location, and content structure all influence which settings will help you rank better in search results.
Should You Choose Yoast SEO or Rank Math?
Before configuring anything, you need to pick your plugin.
The two most popular options for WordPress are Yoast SEO and Rank Math. Both work well for small businesses, though they differ in approach and features.
Yoast SEO Overview
Yoast SEO has been available since 2008 and now has over 10 million active installations, making it the most widely-used SEO plugin in the WordPress ecosystem (WordPress.org). It maintains a 4.8 out of 5 star rating from nearly 28,000 reviews.
It offers a clean interface with traffic light indicators showing whether your content is optimised. The free version covers the essentials: title tags, meta descriptions, XML sitemaps, and readability analysis.
Yoast takes a guided approach to setup. When you first install it, a configuration wizard walks you through each setting with clear explanations.
This makes it particularly good for beginners who appreciate step-by-step guidance. The premium version adds redirect management and internal linking suggestions, but most small businesses manage fine without paying.
Rank Math Overview
Rank Math launched in 2018 and has grown rapidly, now boasting over 3 million active installations and a 4.9 out of 5 star rating on WordPress.org (WPMarmite). It gained popularity by offering premium-level features at no cost.
The free version includes built-in 404 monitoring, redirect management, schema markup options, and Google Search Console integration. Everything happens from a single, modern dashboard.
One notable advantage is that Rank Math lets you optimise for multiple keywords per page without upgrading. It also offers one-click imports if you’re switching from another plugin.
For business owners who want more features without spending money, Rank Math provides better value in its free tier.
Both plugins handle the fundamentals well. Your choice often comes down to personal preference. (Ours is Rank Math)
Do you prefer Yoast’s familiar traffic lights and guided approach, or Rank Math’s feature-rich dashboard? Either will serve your business effectively.
WordPress SEO Guide: How to Optimise Your Small Business Website
Which SEO Plugin Settings Must You Configure First?
Once you’ve chosen your plugin, certain settings need your attention immediately. These form the foundation of your site’s SEO and tell search engines what your business is about.
Site Information and Social Profiles
Start by telling the plugin about your business.
- In Yoast, find this under SEO → Settings → Site Basics
- In Rank Math, go to Rank Math → Titles & Meta → Local SEO
Enter your business name exactly as you want it appearing in search results. If you trade as “Thompson’s Electrical Services” rather than just “Thompson Electrical”, use the full trading name.
Specify whether your site represents a company or a person, then upload your logo.
Both plugins ask for your social media profiles. Fill these in because they help search engines understand your brand across platforms. Google uses this information when building knowledge panels and may display your social links directly in search results.
Search Appearance Settings
This section controls how your pages look when they appear in Google.
You can set up templates for titles and descriptions that apply across your entire site, saving you from writing unique metadata for every single page.
For page titles, both plugins use variables like your page name and site name. A good template for blog posts might be: %post_title% | %sitename%. This produces titles like “How to Fix a Leaky Tap | Thompson’s Electrical”.
Keep the total under 60 characters so Google displays the full title without cutting it off.
Your page title directly affects whether people click through from search results. Research from Backlinko found that the #1 result in Google has a click-through rate of 27.6% – roughly 10 times higher than the #10 result (Backlinko). A compelling, well-structured title can make the difference between getting that click or losing it to a competitor.
Meta descriptions should summarise what each page offers. As Google’s documentation explains: “A meta description tag should generally inform and interest users with a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about. They are like a pitch that convinces the user that the page is exactly what they’re looking for” (Google).
According to Ahrefs research, Google rewrites meta descriptions 62.78% of the time, and 25.02% of top-ranking pages don’t have a meta description at all (Ahrefs). Despite this, writing your own descriptions remains worthwhile – when Google does use them, well-crafted descriptions can significantly improve your click-through rate. Aim for 150 to 155 characters and include your location or a key benefit where relevant.
Content Types to Index
Not every page on your site needs to appear in search results. Your plugin lets you tell Google which content types to index and which to ignore.
By default, you want your pages and posts indexed. These are your main content.
However, tag archives, date archives, and author pages often create duplicate content problems. For most small business sites, setting these to ‘noindex’ prevents Google from wasting crawl budget on pages that won’t help your rankings.
In Yoast, find these settings under Search Appearance → Content Types. In Rank Math, go to Titles & Meta and review each content type individually. The options let you show or hide each type from search results with a simple toggle.
How Do You Set Up and Submit Your XML Sitemap?
According to Google Search Console documentation, “A sitemap is a file on your site that tells Google which pages on your site we should know about” (Google Search Console Help). Think of it as a directory you hand to Google, showing exactly where your content lives and when it was last updated.
For sites with good internal linking, a sitemap may seem redundant – but it ensures Google can find all your important pages quickly, even if your navigation isn’t perfect.
Both Yoast and Rank Math generate sitemaps automatically once you enable them.
In Yoast, go to SEO → Settings → Site Features and check that XML Sitemaps is toggled on. In Rank Math, visit Sitemap Settings and enable the module.
Your sitemap then updates automatically whenever you publish new content or make changes.
You can view it by adding /sitemap.xml to your website address. For example, if your site is www.example.co.uk, your sitemap lives at www.example.co.uk/sitemap.xml.
The next step is submitting this sitemap to Google Search Console.
Log into Search Console, select your property, and find the Sitemaps section in the left menu. Enter your sitemap URL and click Submit. Google will immediately start using it to crawl your site more efficiently.
Check back in Search Console after a week or so. The dashboard shows you how many pages Google discovered through your sitemap and flags any crawl errors. This gives you direct visibility into how Google sees your site structure and whether any pages have problems.
How Should You Handle 404 Errors and Redirects?
When someone tries to visit a page that doesn’t exist, they see a 404 error. This happens when you delete old content, change your URL structure, or when external sites link to pages that never existed.
Broken links are more common than most site owners realise – Ahrefs found that 66.5% of links to websites in the last nine years are now dead (Ahrefs). Regular monitoring prevents your site from becoming part of that statistic.
Too many 404 errors frustrate visitors and can signal poor site maintenance.
However, Google’s official guidance is reassuring: “404 errors are a perfectly normal part of the web. In fact, we actually prefer that, when you get rid of a page on your site, you make sure that it returns a proper 404 or 410 response code rather than a soft 404” (Google Search Central). The key is monitoring for unintended 404s – pages that should exist but don’t.
Rank Math includes a useful 404 Monitor in its free version.
Enable it from the dashboard and it tracks every 404 error occurring on your site. You can see which URLs cause problems and where visitors came from when they hit the error.
Yoast requires the premium version for redirect features. If you use free Yoast, you’ll need a separate plugin like Redirection to handle this. Either way, monitoring broken pages is worth the effort.
When you find a 404 error, you have two choices.
If the content moved to a new URL, create a 301 redirect pointing from the old address to the new one. This preserves any SEO value the old page built up and seamlessly sends visitors where they intended to go.
If the content genuinely no longer exists, consider whether you should create something new to serve those visitors.
Check your error log monthly and address issues promptly. Small problems left unattended become bigger ones over time.
What SEO Plugin Setup Mistakes Should You Avoid?
Even with good intentions, certain errors can undo all your configuration work. These mistakes happen frequently but are straightforward to prevent once you know what to watch for.
Accidentally Blocking Search Engines
The most damaging mistake is telling search engines not to index your site at all.
WordPress has a setting under Settings → Reading that says “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”.
This checkbox must remain unchecked on any live website.
Web developers often enable this during construction to prevent unfinished sites appearing in Google.
The problem arises when they forget to disable it at launch. Both SEO plugins will warn you if this setting is active, but check manually anyway. One tick in the wrong box can make your entire site invisible to Google.
Setting Important Pages to Noindex
Another common error is accidentally marking individual pages as noindex when you didn’t intend to.
Perhaps you tested the setting once and forgot to remove it, or a page builder template had noindex enabled by default.
To check whether your pages are indexed, type site:yourwebsite.co.uk into Google. This shows all pages Google currently has indexed from your domain.
If important pages are missing, investigate their individual SEO settings in your plugin.
Skipping the Setup Wizard
Both Yoast and Rank Math offer configuration wizards that walk you through essential settings. These take roughly ten minutes and ensure nothing important gets missed.
Some business owners skip the wizard, planning to configure everything manually later.
Later rarely comes. Running through the wizard is always worthwhile, even if you intend to adjust specific settings afterwards.
It establishes sensible defaults and catches obvious problems before they affect your rankings.
How Often Should You Review Your SEO Plugin Settings?
Your WordPress SEO plugin is now configured to help Google understand your website properly. The sitemap is submitted, search appearance settings reflect your business, and you have systems monitoring 404 errors.
Configuration isn’t a one-time task, though.
Review your settings quarterly, particularly after making significant changes to your site structure or launching new sections. When you add new content types, rebrand, or restructure your navigation, your SEO settings need updating to match.
As your business grows, your SEO approach should evolve with it. The foundation you’ve built here gives you a solid starting point.
If you want professional help optimising your WordPress site or need ongoing SEO support, explore our SEO services to see how we can help your business become more visible in search results.
Small Business SEO
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, you still need one. When themes claim to be SEO optimised, they mean their code is clean and loads efficiently. Themes don’t include the features an SEO plugin provides: meta tag management, XML sitemaps, schema markup, and content analysis.
No. You should only have one SEO plugin active at any time. Running two causes conflicts because both try to add the same meta tags and sitemaps. This creates duplicate code that confuses search engines and can damage your rankings.
Not if you do it correctly. Rank Math includes an import tool that transfers all your Yoast settings, including custom titles, meta descriptions, and focus keywords. As long as the import completes successfully and your content keeps the same metadata, search engines won’t notice any change.
Google typically processes a newly submitted sitemap within a few days. However, indexing individual pages can take longer depending on your site’s authority and how frequently Google already crawls it. New sites may wait several weeks for complete indexing. Track progress in Google Search Console under the Indexing section.
When a page is set to index, you’re telling search engines they can include it in search results. Noindex means you want that page excluded entirely. Use noindex for thank you pages, internal search results, duplicate archives, or any content that doesn’t add value in Google search.
Most small business websites work perfectly with the free versions. Premium features like advanced redirect managers, multiple keyword optimisation, and internal linking suggestions are helpful but rarely essential. Try the free version first. Only upgrade if you genuinely find yourself needing a specific premium feature that would save significant time.
Visit your sitemap URL directly in a browser. You should see an XML file listing your pages and posts with their last modified dates. Then check Google Search Console under the Sitemaps section. It shows whether Google successfully read your sitemap and how many URLs it discovered. Any errors appear there for you to investigate.
404 errors happen when someone requests a page that doesn’t exist. Common causes include deleted content, changed URLs, typos in links, and external sites linking to wrong addresses. Fix them by creating 301 redirects from the broken URL to a relevant existing page, or by restoring the missing content if it should still exist.
Quality WordPress plugins like Yoast and Rank Math are designed with performance in mind. They add minimal overhead when properly configured. However, enabling every possible feature or running multiple SEO plugins simultaneously can affect loading speed. Use one plugin only and enable just the features you actually need.
No SEO plugin (or service) can guarantee rankings. These tools help you optimise your content and technical settings, but rankings depend on many factors: content quality, backlinks, competition, domain authority, and user experience among them.