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If your blog runs on WordPress, you can let the RankEarly team upload finished articles directly into your site as drafts. You stay in control of what goes live — every post lands in your Drafts queue and waits for you to review and publish. This page walks you through the one-time setup. It takes about five minutes.

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How it works

1

You create a dedicated user for our team

A WordPress user with the Author role, used only for our uploads. This keeps our work separate from your team’s edits and makes it easy to revoke access at any time.
2

You generate an application password

A long, randomly generated password that authenticates our uploads through the WordPress REST API. It is separate from the user’s login password and can be revoked without changing anything else.
3

We upload finished articles as drafts

Each delivered article — including the cover image, alt text, slug, excerpt, tags, and SEO fields — appears in your Posts → Drafts list, attributed to the dedicated user. Nothing is published.
4

You review and publish inside WordPress

Open the draft, make any final edits, set the category, and click Publish when you’re ready.

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Step 1: Create the user

Sign in to your WordPress admin as an Administrator, then:
  1. Go to Users → Add New User.
  2. Fill in the fields:
    • Username: rankearly (or any name you prefer).
    • Email: an address you control. WordPress uses this for password resets and notifications. A shared inbox or a +rankearly alias works well.
    • First name / Last name: RankEarly / Team is fine. This becomes the byline on drafts. You can change the post author later before publishing.
    • Role: select Author.
  3. Click Add New User.
  4. Open the account email from WordPress and set a login password for this user.
We recommend Author rather than Editor or Administrator. Authors can create and edit their own posts and upload media, which is everything we need to deliver a complete draft. They cannot edit other authors’ posts or change site settings.

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Step 2: Generate an application password

Application passwords are built into WordPress 5.6 and later. They authenticate API requests without exposing the user’s login password. Sign in as the dedicated user you created in Step 1, then:
  1. Go to Users → Profile.
  2. Scroll to the Application Passwords section near the bottom of the profile page.
  3. In New Application Password Name, enter RankEarly Uploads.
  4. Click Add New Application Password.
WordPress profile page showing the Application Passwords section with a RankEarly uploads password name ready to add WordPress shows a 24-character password formatted as six groups of four characters, like abcd EFGH ijkl MNOP qrst UVWX. Copy it immediately — WordPress only displays it once. WordPress Application Passwords confirmation showing the generated password and copy button
If you navigate away before copying the password, you’ll need to revoke it and generate a new one. The password is only shown at creation time.
If you stay signed in as an Administrator, you may also be able to open the dedicated user’s profile from Users → All Users → Edit. The main path for the dedicated user is still Users → Profile.

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If you don’t see the Application Passwords section

A few hosts and security plugins disable application passwords by default. If the section is missing:
  • The site is not using HTTPS: make sure your WordPress admin opens with https:// and WordPress detects the site as secure.
  • Wordfence, iThemes Security, Solid Security, or similar: open the plugin’s settings and re-enable application passwords or REST API access for authenticated users.
  • Hosted WordPress (WP Engine, Kinsta, Pressable, etc.): confirm with your host that the REST API and application passwords are enabled for your plan.
  • WordPress.com (not self-hosted): use a plugin-enabled plan with hosting features activated. WordPress.com lists Personal, Premium, Business, and Commerce plans as supported for site-specific application passwords.
If you’re not sure, send us a note and we’ll help diagnose it.

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Step 3: Share the credentials with us

Send us the following over Slack DM or email:
  • The site URL (for example, https://yourdomain.com).
  • The username of the dedicated user.
  • The application password (the 24-character string from Step 2).
We store credentials only as long as your blog pack is active. When the pack ends — or any time you ask — you can revoke the application password from the same profile page, and our access stops immediately.

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Step 4: Review and publish

When an article is ready, you’ll see a new entry in Posts → Drafts authored by the RankEarly user. Each draft includes: WordPress Posts list showing a RankEarly-authored draft ready for review
  • The article body as native Gutenberg blocks — headings, lists, images, quotes, and separators arrive as proper blocks, so you can edit immediately without clicking Convert to blocks.
  • A featured image uploaded to your media library, with alt text set on the media item.
  • Tags, created on the fly if they don’t already exist on your site.
  • A slug and excerpt.
  • SEO fields if you use Yoast, Rank Math, or All in One SEO — we fill in the meta title and description.
Categories aren’t auto-created. WordPress only lets Administrators and Editors add new categories, and the RankEarly user is an Author. If you’d like specific categories on our drafts (for example, Insights or Product), please create them once in Posts → Categories before we deliver — we’ll assign them automatically from then on. Tags don’t have this restriction.
WordPress post editor showing a RankEarly draft with a featured image, excerpt, slug, and draft status To publish:
  1. Open the draft and skim it end-to-end.
  2. Set the category to match your taxonomy. Tags are already filled in — adjust if needed.
  3. (Optional) Reassign the author to a team member if you prefer the byline to come from someone on your side.
  4. Click Publish, or schedule it for later.
If you’d like changes before publishing, reply on Slack with what to adjust and we’ll update the draft in place.

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Revoking access

When you no longer need our access — or any time you want to rotate credentials:
  1. Sign in as the dedicated user and go to Users → Profile.
  2. In Application Passwords, click Revoke next to RankEarly Uploads.
The password stops working immediately. You can keep the user account for the post history, or delete it and reassign their drafts to another user from the same screen.

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Common questions

We always save as drafts by default so you stay in control. If you’d rather we publish directly, let us know in Slack and we’ll switch the default for your account.
No. The Author role doesn’t grant access to plugins, themes, users, or settings. We only create posts and upload media.
Tell us the post type slug (for example, articles or insights) and we’ll upload to it instead of the default posts. The user role permissions still apply.
Yes, for site-specific application passwords on plugin-enabled WordPress.com plans with hosting features activated. WordPress.com currently lists Personal, Premium, Business, and Commerce plans as supported.