2026年11月12日

Rank Math Initial Setup: Setup Wizard, Titles, Sitemap and Schema

Plugins

This article is a localized edition of the Japanese original. Read the Japanese original

Rank Math SEO is an SEO plugin that handles titles and meta descriptions, XML sitemaps and structured data (schema) in one place. When you activate it, the Setup Wizard starts, and it covers most of the main settings.

This article walks through what you decide in the wizard and which settings are worth reviewing by hand afterward. Screen labels follow the English admin; the Japanese labels are noted where helpful. Everything was checked in November 2026 with Rank Math 1.0.281 (free version) on WordPress 7.1.

Install the plugin

In the admin, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin, search for "Rank Math", install it and activate it. With WP-CLI:

wp plugin install seo-by-rank-math --activate

After activation, a "Rank Math SEO" menu is added and you are taken to the Setup Wizard. To run the wizard again later, open it from Rank Math SEO → Dashboard.

If you already use Yoast SEO or another SEO plugin

With two SEO plugins active at the same time, the title tag, meta description, OGP tags and sitemaps are output twice. When you switch, go in this order:

Back up the database before migrating.
Activate Rank Math. In the first wizard step, any conflicting active plugins are listed, and you can deactivate them from there.
In the "Import" step, bring over the settings and per-post SEO data (titles, descriptions, keywords and so on) from Yoast SEO or similar. The readme says imports are supported from Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, SEOPress, Redirection and others.
After importing, check a few posts to confirm the titles and descriptions came across, then deactivate the old plugin.

To import later, use Rank Math SEO → Status & Tools → Import & Export → "Other Plugins".

How the Setup Wizard flows

The wizard goes through the steps below. "Save and Continue" moves to the next one; if you are unsure about a step, use "Skip Step" and change it later in the settings screens.

Step	What it covers
Getting Started	Checks the environment (PHP extensions and so on), lists conflicting plugins, and lets you choose a mode
Import	Shown only when another SEO plugin is detected. Imports its settings and post data
Your Site	Site type (personal blog, small business site and so on), person/organization name, logo for Google, default social share image
Analytics	Connecting Google services (Search Console and Analytics)
Sitemaps	Turning on XML sitemaps, whether to include images, which post types and taxonomies to include
Optimization (SEO Tweaks)	Noindex empty category and tag archives, nofollow external links, open external links in a new tab
Ready	Done. "Setup Advanced Options" leads on to Role Manager, 404 + Redirection and Schema Markup

Choosing a mode

The first step offers three modes. You can switch modes at any time later.

Easy: keeps most settings at their defaults and shows fewer options in the settings screens. This is enough to start with.
Advanced: shows every setting. Choose it if you want fine control over title formats or robots meta.
Custom Mode: loads a prepared settings file. This is a Pro feature.

A note on the “Analytics” step

To connect Google services, you are first asked to connect a (free) Rank Math account. Once connected, you can view Search Console data inside WordPress, and you can also verify site ownership and submit the sitemap. If you would rather not create an account, skip this step and set only the verification code under "Webmaster Tools", described below.

A note on the “Optimization” step

If you turn on "Nofollow External Links", every external link in your content gets rel="nofollow", including links to references and official sites. Think about whether that is what you want before turning it on. If you are unsure, leaving it off is fine.

Site-wide title and description settings

After the wizard, check the site-wide formats under Rank Math SEO → Titles & Meta.

Separator character

On the "Global Meta" tab, "Separator Character" sets the character between the post title and the site name. The default is -. By default, post titles take the form "Post Title Separator Site Name".

Homepage title and description

On the "Homepage" tab, set "Homepage Title" and "Homepage Meta Description".

However, if Settings → Reading uses a static page as your homepage, this tab shows no input fields, only a link to that page's edit screen. In that case, open the page used as the homepage and enter its title and description the same way as in the next section.

Defaults per post type

The "Posts" and "Pages" tabs under the same Titles & Meta screen set the title format, default schema type (see below) and robots meta for each post type. The defaults are fine to start with.

Per-post SEO settings

When you open a post in the block editor, the Rank Math icon and score appear at the top right. Click it to open the Rank Math panel.

Focus Keyword: enter the phrase you want the post to rank for. The free version lets you enter up to five per post by default (the readme says a filter can change the limit).
Edit Snippet: click "Edit Snippet" to edit the title, permalink and description shown in search results. If you leave them empty, they are generated from the Titles & Meta formats.
Score: Rank Math checks items such as whether the keyword appears in the content and title, and shows a score out of 100. In the post list column, scores of 81 and above are shown in green. The score measures how many of Rank Math's checks are met, not your search ranking, so apply its suggestions only where they still read naturally.

Values entered per post are saved as post meta. To check them with WP-CLI (123 is the post ID):

wp post meta get 123 rank_math_title
wp post meta get 123 rank_math_description
wp post meta get 123 rank_math_focus_keyword

rank_math_focus_keyword stores multiple keywords separated by commas. For posts where the title or description was left empty, nothing may be returned; in that case the value generated from the Titles & Meta format is used in the output.

Site-wide settings are stored in the options rank-math-options-general (General Settings), rank-math-options-titles (Titles & Meta) and rank-math-options-sitemap (Sitemap Settings). For example, to check the separator:

wp option pluck rank-math-options-titles title_separator

Set up schema (structured data)

Rank Math outputs a default schema for each post type. Right after installation, posts use Article (with the article type "Blog Post" = BlogPosting).

Site-wide default: change it with "Schema Type" on the Titles & Meta → "Posts" tab. For blog posts, Article is fine.
Per post: in the Rank Math panel on the post edit screen, open the "Schema" tab and choose a type from the "Schema Generator". Use only types that match the content, such as Product for a product review or Recipe for a recipe.
Organization and person: the person/organization name and logo you entered in the wizard's "Your Site" step are output as site-wide Organization (or Person) data.

You can also add FAQPage markup to FAQ-style posts, but Google has not shown FAQ rich results in search results since May 7, 2026 (according to Google Search Central's notice). There is no need to add it in the hope of changing how results look.

Check the output schema by entering a post URL into Google's Rich Results Test and confirming there are no errors.

Set up the XML sitemap

The Rank Math sitemap is turned on in the wizard's "Sitemaps" step. You can change it under Rank Math SEO → Sitemap Settings.

General: turning on "Include Images" adds images from your content to the sitemap.
Post type tabs (Posts, Pages and so on): "Include in Sitemap" for each post type and taxonomy decides whether it is listed. If you set thin tag pages to noindex, remove them from the sitemap too.

The sitemap URL is below. Requests to https://example.com/sitemap.xml are redirected to it.

https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml

Open it in a browser; if the post and page sitemaps are listed, it works. If you get a 404, open Settings → Permalinks and click "Save Changes" without changing anything to rebuild the rewrite rules.

To tell Google about the sitemap, add sitemap_index.xml under "Sitemaps" in Search Console. Google no longer accepts sitemap "ping" notifications, so submit it in Search Console or list it in robots.txt.

Verify site ownership in Google Search Console

If you connected Google through a Rank Math account, ownership verification and sitemap submission are handled as part of that connection. Otherwise, set an HTML tag verification code.

Add a property (URL prefix) in Search Console and choose "HTML tag" as the verification method.
From the <meta name="google-site-verification" content="……"> shown, copy only the content value.
Paste it into the "Google Search Console" field under Rank Math SEO → General Settings → Webmaster Tools, and click "Save Changes".
Go back to Search Console and click "Verify".

What to check after setup

In the page source of a post, there is only one title tag and one meta description (no duplicates from the theme or another plugin).
sitemap_index.xml opens, and the Search Console sitemap list shows "Success".
Your main posts pass the Rich Results Test with no schema errors.

Questions about WordPress? The publisher of this site is based in Japan and replies in Japanese. Contact (Japanese)