Publishing articles

An article only starts working for your SEO once it is live on your website. Connecting your CMS lets RankYak publish articles to it, with one click from the article page or fully automatically when auto-publishing is on; without a connection, publishing is a copy-and-paste routine. This page explains all three, along with publish status, publishing errors, and how to push edits to an article that is already live.

Connecting your website

The path you should reach for first is connecting your CMS under Settings, then Integrations. RankYak connects directly to WordPress, WordPress.com, Shopify, Wix, and Webflow. For other platforms, you may publish through Make, Zapier, the API, an RSS feed, or webhooks.

A connection on its own does not publish anything by itself: it gives RankYak somewhere to deliver to. Once connected, publishing a finished article is one click on the Publish button on the article page.

Automatic publishing

Auto-publishing takes the click out of it. With it on, an article goes live on your site shortly after it is written on its scheduled date, with everything in place: the content, meta title, meta description, slug, and header image.

You may turn it on or off with the Auto publishing badge on the calendar or the articles overview, or with Publish new articles in your site settings, under Content automation. The switch is always yours to flip; auto-publishing simply needs somewhere to deliver to, so nothing publishes until an integration or a webhook is connected.

Articles that finished before auto-publishing was turned on are not picked up retroactively; you may publish each of those yourself with the Publish button on the article page.

Publishing as drafts

Sometimes you may wish to review each article before it goes live. Every integration offers a Publish articles as draft option: go to Settings, then Integrations, and click Edit settings next to your connection. New articles then land in your CMS as drafts, and you publish them from there on your own terms.

Publish status

The article page shows where an article stands. Once it is published, a badge names the platform it was published to, and a View button opens the live article on your site. The articles overview also lets you filter by Published, Needs republish, and Unpublished.

Publishing errors

Sometimes a publish attempt fails, for example when your site is temporarily unreachable or the connection's credentials have expired. When that happens, RankYak emails you the error and automatically tries again later. Of course, you may also retry immediately with the Publish button on the article page.

When a publish cannot start at all, RankYak tells you why right away instead of appearing to succeed. Typically the reason is an integration that is disconnected or whose setup was never finished; reconnecting or completing the setup under Settings, then Integrations, clears it. Pushing edits with Publish changes still delivers to your webhook even while the integration is unavailable.

Republishing after edits

When you edit an article that is already live, RankYak marks it with an Unpublished changes badge, and a Publish changes button appears on the article page. Clicking it pushes your edits to your site through the integration. Articles that RankYak refreshes or rewrites itself are republished automatically, as long as Republish updated content is enabled in your site settings.

Publishing without an integration

Without an integration, articles simply collect in RankYak until you publish them. Clicking Publish on an article opens a short setup: you may connect your CMS on the spot, with the platform you picked during onboarding suggested first, or choose Publish manually instead. Of course, you may also close it and come back whenever you are ready.

The manual option walks you through the copy-and-paste routine.

1. Copy the article body in the format your editor takes. Rich text suits most editors, and HTML and Markdown are available too.
2. Paste the content into a new post in your CMS, and copy the title, meta title, meta description, and slug into the matching fields. The same formats are always available from the Copy article menu on the article page.
3. Publish the post, paste its URL into the Article URL field, and click Mark as published so RankYak knows where the article lives.

You do not need to do this every day; it is often more convenient to publish several articles in one sitting, and RankYak keeps writing daily in the background either way. If your platform is not on the integration list, see unsupported platforms for the full set of options.