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You deployed blog routes that read from the RankBuddy API. This guide connects your RankBuddy workspace so content you publish appears on your site.

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Prerequisites

Blog routes are live at {your-domain}{blogPath} (for example https://acme.com/blog).
RANKBUDDY_API_KEY is set in your production environment (server-only, never NEXT_PUBLIC_).
Your RankBuddy project uses the same website URL and blog path you configured during onboarding.

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Steps

1

Create a RankBuddy account

Sign up at rankbuddy.io/auth/signup. The free trial includes full access to article generation and publishing.
2

Confirm project settings

In RankBuddy, open your project and verify:
  • Website matches your live domain (e.g. https://acme.com)
  • Content path matches your blog route (e.g. /blog)
Published articles resolve to: website + content path + slug → https://acme.com/blog/my-article.
3

Generate your first article

  1. Open the AI writer or content planner.
  2. Pick a keyword cluster or enter a target keyword.
  3. Generate a draft, review and edit it in the editor.
  4. Set SEO fields (title, description, slug, cover image) before publishing.
4

Publish

Change status to Published (or schedule a time). RankBuddy stores the article in the API your blog already reads.Nothing goes live on your site until you explicitly publish — drafts never appear in getArticlesList or getArticleBySlug.
5

Verify on your site

  1. Open {blogPath} — your new post should appear in the listing.
  2. Open {blogPath}/{slug} — full article, cover image, and metadata should render.
If you use on-demand caching (revalidate = false), you may need to redeploy or call your revalidation endpoint once before the first publish appears. For the simplest first launch, use time-based revalidation (revalidate = 3600) as described in the blog setup guide.
6

Keep publishing

Use the content planner to schedule posts, track clusters, and grow organic traffic from rankbuddy.io.

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Get your API key

  1. In RankBuddy, open Settings → API keys (or your project’s integration settings).
  2. Create a key with access to read published articles.
  3. Add it to your hosting provider as RANKBUDDY_API_KEY.
  4. Redeploy if the variable was added after the last deploy.
Never expose RANKBUDDY_API_KEY in client components, browser bundles, or public repos.

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Troubleshooting

SymptomLikely causeFix
Empty blog indexWrong API key or project not publishingCheck env var and publish status in RankBuddy
404 on article URLSlug mismatch or article still draftConfirm slug in RankBuddy matches URL
Stale content after publishStatic cache not refreshedLower revalidate interval or add tag-based revalidation
Build fails locallyMissing API key at build timeProvide key in CI or guard generateStaticParams with try/catch