Connecting where it publishes

Updated August 24, 2026

The Where it publishes tab holds your CMS connections. Its description sets the expectation: "Connect the blog you publish to. Finished articles go straight there, as a draft for you to approve, or live, whichever you choose."

You can have more than one connection on a site, and you pick which one to use each time you publish.

The eight platforms

The Platform dropdown on the connection form lists these, in this order.

Ghost. Site URL and an Admin API key. The form tells you where to get it: "In Ghost: Settings → Integrations → Add custom integration. Copy the Admin API key (it looks like id:secret)." The field itself warns you to use the Admin API key rather than the Content API key, which is the mistake people make first.

Medium. No longer available. Medium retired its API and stopped issuing integration tokens on 1 January 2025, so a new Medium connection cannot be created. If you already hold a token from before that date it still works, but nobody can obtain a new one. The option is shown greyed out in the picker for that reason.

Shopify. Store domain (in the form my-store.myshopify.com), a blog ID, and an Admin API access token. The blog ID is in the URL when you edit the blog inside Shopify admin. For the token: Shopify stopped allowing custom apps to be created in the admin on 1 January 2026, so use the developer dashboard at dev.shopify.com/dashboard — create an app, give it the write_content Admin API scope, install it on your store, then copy the access token. It is shown only once. If you made a custom app before 2026 it still works, under Settings → Apps and sales channels → Develop apps → API credentials.

Strapi. Your Strapi URL, the collection to post into (the plural API id, for example articles), an API token, and optionally the name of the body field if yours is not called content. The token comes from Settings → Global settings → API Tokens, and must be Full access, or Custom with create ticked for that collection. A read-only token saves fine and then fails on the first publish. Strapi 5 is what this targets; Strapi 4 has reached end of life.

Webflow. A collection ID, an API token with the cms:write and cms:read scopes, and optionally the slug of the body field. Left blank, Rankbank tries the usual name, slug and post-body fields. Get the token from Site settings → Apps and integrations → API access → Generate API token. The collection ID is not the site ID: open the collection in the CMS panel and take it from that collection's settings.

Custom webhook. A URL, and optionally a signing secret. Rankbank posts the article to your endpoint as JSON. If you set a secret, verify the X-Rankbank-Signature header, which is an HMAC-SHA256 of the raw request body. This is the option for a static site generator, a headless setup, or anything with its own pipeline.

Wix. A site ID, an API key, and a member ID to attribute the post to. The API key is account-level, not site-level: go to manage.wix.com → Account Settings → API Keys → Generate API Key. Only the account owner or a co-owner can make one. Give it both Manage Blog and Manage Ricos Document permissions, add your site to the key, and copy the token immediately — Wix shows it exactly once. Your site ID is the long identifier in your site dashboard URL, straight after /dashboard/.

WordPress. Your site URL (the public address, not the /wp-admin one), your username, and an application password. Application passwords are created in WordPress under Users → Profile → Application Passwords. The field is explicit that this is the application password and not your login password, which matters: an application password can be revoked on its own without changing how you sign in.

Warning

Every credential you enter is stored encrypted, and secret fields are write-only. Once saved, the field shows a placeholder saying it is saved and that leaving it blank keeps it, so editing the default status later never silently wipes a working password.

Adding a connection

Press Add a connection. The form appears with Platform and Name it at the top.

Choose the platform first, because the credential fields below change to match it. Name it is how the connection appears everywhere else; if you leave it blank it takes the platform's name. Give it something recognisable if you have more than one blog.

Under the credential fields are four defaults that apply to every article sent through this connection.

Post articles as is the important one. Two options: Draft, described as "you approve it in your CMS", and Published, which "goes live immediately". The hint underneath is worth trusting: "You can still override this for a single article when you publish it." Starting with draft is the sensible default, and it is what the form selects for you.

Author name, Default categories and Default tags are passed to the CMS with each post. Categories and tags are comma separated.

Press Add connection to save.

The Where it publishes tab with the connection form open, showing the platform picker, credential fields and the default post status — The connection form. The credential hint above the fields tells you exactly where in your CMS to find the value it wants.

Testing, editing and removing

Each saved connection is a row with its name, a badge for the platform, a badge showing whether it posts as draft or publish, and a badge reading paused or no credentials when either applies.

Test runs a cheap credential check against the platform and reports back in place, either a success line or the reason it failed. Do this before you rely on a connection, and again whenever a post fails. Once a connection has been tested the row shows when it was last checked; if the last attempt errored, the error sits under the name in red.

Edit reopens the form. The platform cannot be changed on an existing connection, and the form says so: "The platform cannot be changed. Remove this and add a new one instead." Everything else can be edited, and blank secret fields keep whatever is stored.

Remove deletes the connection. Articles already published through it keep their record and their live URL.

The connections list showing two saved CMS connections with their platform badges and the Test, Edit and Remove actions — Saved connections. The badges show at a glance which one posts live and which one posts drafts.

If nothing is connected yet the panel says "Nothing connected yet" and lists the platforms you can choose from.

What actually gets sent

When you publish, Rankbank converts the article's markdown to HTML and sends the CMS a package containing the title, a slug, the HTML body, the original markdown, the meta description, the featured image URL and its alt text, the post status, the author, the categories and the tags.

The markdown converter handles headings, lists, tables, code, blockquotes, images, links, bold and italic. It escapes first and only allows http, https, mailto and root-relative URLs, so nothing unexpected can be smuggled into your blog through an article body.

Note

Featured image fields are always passed through to your CMS. Whether there is an image to put in them depends on whether image generation is configured on the deployment you are using and on the Featured image setting. If it is not configured, articles publish without pictures and the fields go across empty. Do not plan a launch around images without checking that a generated draft actually has one.

Where to go next

Publishing and what happens next covers sending an article and reading the result.
Reviewing and editing a draft is the step before this one.
Style & settings holds the featured image options.

Still stuck?

Open Rankbank and the page this article describes — most screens explain themselves as you go.