Quickstart: from sign-up to your first published article

This tutorial takes you from a new Rankbox account to a first article live on your site, with autopilot writing the rest. Most people finish it in about 10 minutes, plus however long your developer needs to add one API call to your site.

Before you start

Have these ready. Nothing else is required.

Step 1: Create your account

1. Go to https://rankbox.xyz/auth. If you entered your website on the Rankbox homepage, the address comes with you.
2. Click Google to sign in with your Google account, or fill in Full Name, Business Email and Password.
3. Click Start my traffic engine.

Rankbox opens onboarding at /onboarding. If you already have an account, click Sign in under the form instead; an account that has finished onboarding goes straight to the dashboard.

Step 2: Confirm your brand

Onboarding opens on Step 1 of 3, "Start with your website".

1. Type your site into Website, for example yoursite.com. After you stop typing for about a second, Rankbox reads the site and shows Reading in the field.
2. Check what it filled in under "Is this your brand?": the logo, Brand name and What you do. Fix anything that's off. What you do briefs every article, so one or two plain sentences a stranger would understand work best.
3. If no logo was found, click the square and upload an image under 1 MB.
4. Click Find my keywords.

If the site can't be read, you'll see "Couldn't read that site. Fill it in and continue." Type the brand name and description yourself and continue.

Step 3: Pick your keywords

Rankbox analyzes the site. The screen shows "Reading yoursite.com…" and a short checklist; this takes about 20 seconds.

1. Review the list under "Pick the searches to win". Each row shows the keyword, its intent, its estimated monthly searches and a trend arrow.
2. Remove any keyword that doesn't fit by clicking the × on its row. A toast offers Undo.
3. Add a keyword you know converts in the Add a keyword you know converts field and press Enter or click Add.
4. Optionally, open What we learned about your brand and correct the niche, market, audience or brand voice.
5. Click Build my plan.

Each keyword becomes one article, so the number of keywords you keep is the size of your first content plan (up to 30 articles).

Step 4: Confirm your content plan

Rankbox drafts one article title and brief per keyword. The screen reads "Your first month of content" when it's ready.

• Ready on your dashboard lists the first 4 articles. They arrive as ideas you can write whenever you like.
• Autopilot queue lists the rest, labelled Day 1, Day 2 and so on. They are scheduled one a day, starting the day after you confirm.

Click Confirm plan. Rankbox saves your brand, settings, keywords and articles, shows "You're set up. Welcome to Rankbox." and opens the dashboard.

Step 5: Start your free trial

The Overview page shows a next-step card titled "Put your N ready articles to work", with a short launch checklist: start the trial, connect your site, publish your first article.

1. Click Start free trial on the card. The same button sits at the foot of the sidebar until you have a plan.
2. Read the dialog, then click Start free trial again.
3. Enter your card in the Stripe form that appears inside the dialog and complete it.

When the dialog shows "Starting your trial…" and closes, you'll see "Your 7-day trial is live." Your plan's site now has 7 article credits for the trial.

Step 6: Write your first article

1. On Overview, find the next step "Write your first article", or any row in the Autopilot queue table, and click Generate now.
2. Wait while the article is written. In the article panel this reads "Writing your article. This usually takes under a minute — it keeps going if you close this."

When it's done, Rankbox opens the article in Articles. Its status is Published, which in Rankbox means written and available to your site. Writing used 1 of your article credits; the Article credits figure on Overview goes down by one.

To write a specific idea instead, go to Articles, open the idea, edit its title, keyword or meta description to steer it, and click Write now.

Step 7: Connect your site and publish

Published articles wait in Rankbox until your site collects them. Connect once and every article after that arrives on its own.

1. Go to Dashboard → Integrations.
2. Under Developer, open REST API. If your platform's tile offers Connect with the API, that opens the same setup.
3. Under Set it up, give the key a name (for example "Acme blog") and click Create key.
4. Copy the key from Copy your key. It is shown only this once, so store it where your site keeps secrets.
5. Add the call below to your site, at build time or on a schedule. Pass back next_since each time to get only what changed.

curl "https://rankbox.xyz/api/public/v1/articles?since=2026-01-01T00:00:00Z" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $RANKBOX_API_KEY"

const res = await fetch(
  `https://rankbox.xyz/api/public/v1/articles?since=${lastSync}`,
  { headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.RANKBOX_API_KEY}` } },
);
const { articles, next_since } = await res.json();
// Save next_since and send it as ?since= next time.

Step 4 of the setup, See it connect, shows "Listening for your site's first request…" until your site calls the API, then "Connected — your site called in just now." This usually happens within a minute of the key going live on your site. On Overview, Your site changes from "Waiting" to "Live".

Each article in the response carries title, slug, description, body_markdown, body_html and tags. Render it however your site renders posts. When the article is live, report its address with PATCH /articles/{id} so the backlink exchange and the Rank page know where it lives; see Live URLs and verification.

Step 8: Check autopilot is on

Autopilot is switched on for every new site and starts working once your trial does. It writes the next scheduled article each time one is due, paced by your weekly setting.

1. Look at the top right of Overview. It should read Autopilot On.
2. Click it to open Settings → Autopilot.
3. Check Write automatically is switched on. It reads "On — writing every day" by default.
4. Under Pace, pick Every day, 5 a week, 3 a week, 2 a week or 1 a week. Changing the pace re-spaces your scheduled articles from tomorrow, and the toast offers Undo.

The line under Pace shows about how many articles a month your pace writes and how many your plan covers. Every day is about 30 a month, which matches the paid plan's 30 article credits.

What happens next

To cancel before you're charged, open Plan & Billing and click Card & invoices, which opens Stripe's billing portal. See Billing, invoices and cancellation.

If something goes wrong

• The site couldn't be read, or analysis failed: see Onboarding problems.
• Generate now asks you to start a trial, or your card wasn't verified: see Trial and billing problems.
• The key setup never leaves "Listening for your site's first request…": see Publishing with the API.
• Autopilot shows Off or Overdue: see Autopilot problems.

Related

• Onboarding, step by step: every field in setup and how to change it later.
• A tour of the dashboard: what each page in the sidebar is for.
• Any website, with the REST API: the full integration guide.
• Autopilot and the publishing schedule: pace, queue order and overdue articles.
• The free trial: exactly what the trial includes and when you are charged.