RankControl publishes articles into a CMS collection in your Framer project and then publishes your site, so you never click Publish in Framer for a new article. Articles are native CMS items: they use your blog’s design, live at your own URLs, and updates revise the same item.
You need a Framer project where you can generate an API key (site owner or editor with settings access).
Before you connect: your site needs a blog page
Framer stores CMS items separately from pages. A collection only shows up on your site when a detail page displays it. A collection with no page accepts articles that nobody can see.
If your site has no blog yet, add one in Framer from the Insert menu. That creates the collection together with its listing and detail pages. If you already have a blog collection with pages, you are set.
1. Generate the API key
In Framer, open Site Settings → General and create an API key. The key belongs to this one project, so use the project that hosts your blog.
2. Copy the project URL
With the project open in Framer, copy the URL from the browser address bar.
It looks like https://framer.com/projects/.... Extra parts at the end are
fine.
3. Connect in RankControl
Go to Brand Control → Publishing, choose Framer, and enter a name, the project URL, and the API key. Click Test connection.
Then:
- Pick the blog collection to publish into. A collection marked not shown on your site yet has no detail page; see Troubleshooting before choosing it.
- Optionally pick a default author if your collection has an author field. Every article gets that author.
- Choose Publish (articles go live on schedule) or Draft (articles wait in your CMS for a person to publish them).
- Save.
What gets filled in
RankControl matches your collection’s fields by name:
| Your field | Name it something like | Gets |
|---|---|---|
| Formatted text (required) | Body, Content, Article | The full article |
| Text | Title, Name | The article title |
| Text | Summary, Excerpt, Description | The meta description |
| Image | Thumbnail, Cover, Hero, Image | The hero image (every matching image field) |
| Date | Date, Published | The publish date |
| Reference | Author, Writer | The default author you picked |
Only the formatted-text field is required. Fields that do not match are left alone.
Publishing and live links
Each publish adds the item, then publishes your site. RankControl reads your site’s published domain and the collection page’s path to show the live link on the Content screen, and loads the article a couple of minutes later to confirm it renders. An article that is not reachable is marked Not live yet, and the check retries on its own.
Republishing an article revises the same CMS item, so its URL stays put.
Troubleshooting
“Connected, but this project has no CMS collections.” Add a blog from Framer’s Insert menu so the collection arrives with its pages, then test again. Creating a bare CMS collection is not enough: it stays invisible.
A collection shows not shown on your site yet. No page in your site displays it. In Framer, create a detail page for that collection (Pages panel → new page → choose the collection under CMS), lay out the title, body and image fields, and publish the site once. Articles already saved to the collection appear as soon as the site publishes.
“This collection has no formatted-text field for the article body.” Add a formatted text field (for example Body) to the collection in Framer, then test again.
“Article saved to the Framer CMS, but publishing the site failed.” The item exists; only the site publish failed. Publish the site once in Framer, then republish the article from RankControl.
Test connection fails. The API key and the project URL must come from the same project. Generate the key in the project that holds your blog and copy that project’s URL.
Articles have no live link. Same cause as the collection with no page. Once the detail page exists and the site is published, republish each article from RankControl and its link fills in.