Rank Math is the SEO plugin I use on most sites at Puramu. Installing it is easy, but many sites keep the defaults and miss a lot. These are my steps for every new site.

1. Setup wizard

• Choose Advanced mode.
• Set the site type, name and logo (used for Organization schema).
• Connect Google Search Console.

2. Only the modules you need

Usually: Sitemap, Schema, Redirections, 404 Monitor (when needed), Image SEO, Breadcrumbs.

3. Sitemap

• Include posts, pages, products and main categories.
• Exclude tags, author archives on single-author sites and minor content types.
• Submit /sitemap_index.xml to Search Console.

4. Title and description templates

Posts:     %title% %sep% %sitename%
Products:  %title% - Best price %sep% %sitename%

Templates are a fallback — key pages still deserve hand-written titles and descriptions.

5. Noindex what shouldn't rank

Tag archives, author archives (single author), internal search; cart, checkout and account for shops.

6. Schema

Article/BlogPosting for posts, Product for WooCommerce, full LocalBusiness details for local businesses. Validate with Google's Rich Results Test.

7. Redirects and 404s

Use the Redirections module for 301s; 404 Monitor finds broken links — clear its log regularly.

8. Breadcrumbs

Enable and add them to the theme — good for users and for Google's understanding of structure.

Mistakes I've seen

• Rank Math and Yoast together → duplicate meta and schema.
• Forgetting WordPress's "discourage search engines" option at launch.
• Themes printing their own schema/breadcrumbs → duplicates.

See also 15 technical SEO tasks for a new site.