Brief and settings
Updated · First published
Brief & settings holds everything that decides what an article is, described as "What you do, how it should sound, and where it goes."
Nothing here has a save button in the usual sense. Each choice saves the moment you make it, and a small confirmation appears beside the section.
Your brief
Three cards, drafted from your site and headed with the date they were drafted and why they matter: correct anything that is wrong, because every article is written against them.
What you do is a paragraph about the business. A long one is clamped with a Read more, so one verbose description does not stretch the row.
Who it's for is a short list of the people who buy from you.
Who you're up against is competitor domains as chips. Adding one is typing a domain and pressing enter; removing one is a cross. These feed the plan: Rankbench mines what those sites rank for and you do not.
If the brief is empty, a button drafts it from your site.
How you write
Point at one or two articles you are proud of and the writer will match them. Up to five addresses, one per line. Pages from your last audit are read without fetching them again.
This is the fastest way to make the output sound like you rather than like a competent stranger.
Publishing
How much, when, and whether it is running at all.
Articles a week, from one to every day.
Goes out at, the time of day.
Timezone, so the day boundary is yours rather than the server's.
And the running state, with Pause beside it. Running reads: an article is written on each scheduled day and sent wherever you have connected.
How it should read
Four decisions, described as being sent to the writer with every article, so they change what comes out rather than labelling it.
Voice: practical (lead with what to do), authoritative (definitive, no hedging), conversational (like explaining to a colleague), technical (assumes the reader knows the field), or storytelling (opens with a real situation).
Written for: new to this (defines terms as they appear), general (a working professional), or expert (skips the fundamentals).
Length: short at about 1,200 words answering one question, standard at about 2,000, or long at about 3,200 for the definitive piece. Beside the tiles, Target length holds the exact number, described as what the tiles set, changeable for anything in between.
Language.
Pictures
The look, the cover, whether there are pictures inside the article, a note for the artist, and a preview on your next article that draws only when you ask. A new site's pictures are picked for it; a site that was already running is offered them in one press. The details are in pictures.
More
Folded under one disclosure, described as real settings, rarely touched, whose defaults are what most sites want.
Brand name, mentioned only where it is genuinely relevant. Blank keeps articles brand-neutral.
Phrases to never use, comma separated. Worth filling in with the two or three phrases that make you wince.
Voice notes, for anything the tiles do not say.
Internal links per article and External links per article, where zero forbids them.
Key takeaways at the top and FAQ at the end.
When settings take effect
On the next article written. An article already drafted keeps the settings it was written under, which is why changing the voice does not retroactively rewrite last week.
To apply new settings to an existing draft, use Write this article again on its day page.
Where to go next
Steering a day before it is written is the same idea applied to one article. Pictures covers the images.
Still stuck?
Open Rankbench and the page this article describes — most screens explain themselves as you go.