Adding your first website

Everything a site owner does on Rankbank starts with a site: audits, link swaps, guest post rules, the content calendar. The walkthrough at Get started adds one in about a minute, and then keeps going until the site is actually doing something rather than just existing.

You land there automatically after registering. Get started stays in the sidebar until you answer the first question; after that, Dashboard becomes the first destination and the walkthrough keeps a Dashboard action available while you are in setup.

What do you want to do first?

The first screen asks exactly that, under the line "Pick whichever is closest — we'll walk you through the setup one step at a time." Three cards:

• Publish a guest post: "Write an article for another site — bring in a Google Doc or write it here, and send it off."
• Trade links with other sites: "You link to them, they link to you. Find a partner site and we track both links for you."
• Audit my own site: "We read your whole site and tell you what to fix to rank better on Google."

One card carries a Start here pill. If your account has a workspace, that is Audit my own site. If it does not, it is Publish a guest post. It is a suggestion based on how you described yourself when you registered, not a restriction.

Your choice is saved. Come back later and a line under the cards reads "You picked audit my own site before — choosing again just updates it."

Where each card leads

Publish a guest post hands straight over to the guest post intake at /intake, because that flow already asks the questions this one would. No site of your own is needed. Pick up the story in submitting your first guest post.

Trade links with other sites asks a follow-up first: What are you trading with? with the explanation "A swap needs something of yours that can host a partner's link. Both of these work."

• A website I manage: "Partners' links go on your pages, and yours go on theirs." This continues to the site question below.
• An article I've published somewhere: "On Medium, Substack, a client's blog — anywhere you can still add a link." This takes a published URL instead of a site, and skips the site steps entirely.

Audit my own site goes straight to the site question.

Picking either of the two site-based cards also creates your workspace if you did not already have one, so a writer's account that decides to add a site is not blocked by a permission error.

Which site are we working with?

The step is headed Which site are we working with?. The line underneath depends on why you are here: "This is the site Rankbank will read and audit" for an audit, or "This is the site that trades links — it hosts your partner's link, and their site hosts yours" for a swap.

If you have no sites yet, you get two fields:

• What's the site called? with the placeholder "e.g. Redmonark". A name for your own benefit, usually just the site's name.
• Its web address with the placeholder "e.g. redmonark.com". The homepage is enough. With or without https:// both work, and Rankbank reduces whatever you paste to the root domain.

If the address does not parse, you get "That doesn't look like a web address — try something like example.com." A blank name gets "Give the site a name."

If you already have sites, they are listed as radio options showing name and domain, with Add a different site instead underneath. Coming from the swap path, a blue note appears: "Link swaps will be switched on for this site — that's what lets partners trade links with you."

Continue saves the site and moves on.

Prove the site is yours

Next comes verification, headed Prove {your domain} is yours. This is the one step people are tempted to skip, and the one worth doing properly, so it has its own article: proving your site is yours.

If the site is already verified, the walkthrough notices and skips this screen rather than showing you a finished form with nowhere to go.

From here the two paths diverge again.

The audit path: read your site

The step is headed Read {your domain}, with the promise stated up front: "Rankbank opens your pages one by one and records what links to what. Nothing on your site is changed — it only looks."

Press Start the audit and the line becomes "Reading… N pages so far", ticking upward. The first read covers up to 100 pages, following links up to two clicks from the homepage. You do not have to sit and watch it.

When it finishes you get You're set and the count: "Rankbank read N pages of your site. The problems worth fixing are waiting for you." See what we found opens the site's audit. If nothing could be read, the screen says so honestly instead of pretending: "The audit finished, but no pages could be read — the audit page shows what went wrong and lets you retry."

How Rankbank reads your site explains what a read records and what happens after one finishes.

The swap path: set your swap rules

The step is headed Set your swap rules, with "Partners read these before asking for a swap. Two questions — you can refine everything later in settings."

• What topics do you accept links about? for example "Web development, design tools, marketing for small businesses".
• Any rule for the link text? which is pre-filled with "Use natural anchor text." and described as "Most sites keep this default — it just means no spammy exact-match phrases." Anchor text is the visible words a link is made of.

A blue note spells out the consequence: "Saving lists {your domain} in the swap directory so partners can find you." Press Save my rules, and the finish screen offers Find a partner site. The full set of switches and thresholds is covered in setting up your site for swaps.

What happens right after

Your site now exists in your workspace. You will find it under My sites in the sidebar, on the Websites page, which is headed My websites and described as "The sites you own or manage. Each one carries its own guest post rules, audits and calendar."

The table shows each site's name and domain, an Open to column (Guest posts, Submissions, or "Nothing yet"), a Rules column showing the live guideline version or "None yet", and an Open button.

Sites created through the walkthrough start with Accept guest posts switched on, and link swaps switched on only if you came through the swap path.

Changing a site's details later

Open the site from My websites and you land on its own page at /admin/websites/{id}, headed with the site's name and the line "Everything about {domain}: the rules guest authors follow, and the site's own settings." Four tabs:

Overview answers the question you probably arrived with: what can I do with this site now? It lists four things, each with its current state and a way in. Check the site's health, accept guest posts, swap links with other sites, plan a month of articles. If domain strength figures have been fetched, a Site strength card sits above them, described as "How the web sees this domain — partners see these same numbers when you propose swaps."

Guest post rules is where you write and publish the rules authors see before they submit. See writing your guidelines.

Website settings holds verification and the site's own details: Website URL, What should we call it?, Description, Target country, Primary language, Categories / niches, and the three capability switches described below. A Custom submission link disclosure hides the slug, which is generated from the name unless you set it.

Availability carries Pause submissions or Resume submissions, Copy submission link, and Archive website.

The three capability switches

Under the heading What is this site open to?, with the reassurance "You can change these anytime — nothing happens without your approval either way":

• Accept guest posts lets writers submit articles to this site. See opening your site to guest posts.
• Open to link swaps lets other sites ask to trade links with this one.
• Open to paid collabs marks the site as open to sponsored arrangements. Rankbank handles no money; the flag is a signal to other people.

They are per site, not per account, so a workspace with three sites can take guest posts on one and swap links on another.

Adding more sites later

You do not have to go through the walkthrough again. My websites has an Add website button that opens a form headed Add website with the line "Takes a minute — then audits, guest posts, link swaps and the calendar all know about it." Only the address and a name are required. Everything else is optional.

If you publish on Medium, Substack, or a client's blog rather than a site you control, the page points you at Published articles instead, which plays the same role for platforms you do not own.

Where to go next

Verify the site in proving your site is yours, then read the SEO overview, explained to make sense of what the first read turned up. For the whole first-audit story as one narrative, read the tutorial your first site audit.