Publish or schedule a post

When a post is ready, Blog AI sends it straight to your WordPress or Strapi site: no copying and pasting, and the title, text, images, categories, tags and Google snippet all arrive in the right fields. You can publish now or pick a time. Publishing and scheduling never cost credits.

Before you publish

• Resolve any fact-check flags. A post marked Needs review can't be published or scheduled until every flagged statistic is resolved. See Reading fact-check flags.
• Check the Google result. Open Google result and details in the side panel and read the preview of how the post could look in Google.
• Choose a featured image, if your theme shows one. See Featured and inline images.
• On a Yoast SEO site, install the connector plugin first, or the Google title and description won't be set. See Install the Blog AI Connector plugin.

The side panel also has a Status of Draft or Ready to publish (Mark ready to publish sets it). On its own it doesn't publish anything, but if you've turned on auto-schedule, posts marked ready are placed in your next free slot. See Schedule posts and auto-schedule.

What goes with the post

• Key takeaways and FAQ. A post's key takeaways appear right after its introduction, under "Key takeaways", and its questions and answers at the end, under "Frequently asked questions". Blog AI writes both with the post; edit them in the Key takeaways and FAQ card on the post's page. They are sent to every platform as part of the post. On WordPress and Strapi they sit between hidden markers, so Blog AI can replace them when you update the post without touching the rest.
• The Google title, description and main search phrase go to your SEO plugin or CMS fields. See Improve how a post looks in Google.
• Alt text for the featured image: a description of the picture for people who use screen readers, and for search engines. Blog AI writes it for an image made from its own image description; you can edit it under the featured image in the Images card. Without one, the post's title is used.
• Structured data (schema), where your platform can carry it: a hidden description of the post that search engines and AI answer engines read. See Structured data (schema) for the site on the Sites page: on WordPress it needs the Blog AI Connector plugin.

The Blog AI credit

On the free plan, every post Blog AI sends ends with a one-line credit, "Produced in partnership with Blog AI". On WordPress and Strapi, "Blog AI" is a link marked nofollow, so it passes no search ranking. On a platform where a link can't be marked nofollow, the credit is plain text with no link. Paid plans don't add it unless you tick Add a 'Produced in partnership with Blog AI' credit to my posts under Blog AI credit in Settings. It's added or removed when a post is next published or updated (Update live post), and it's never counted as part of your post or imported back into Blog AI.

Publish now

1. Open the post from Posts or its notification.
2. Click Publish now in the side panel. Blog AI saves your latest edits first, then sends the post to your site.
3. Check it. When it's done you'll see "Published to" your site, with View live. Any warnings are listed underneath, for example if a Strapi field was skipped.

Schedule a post

1. Pick a date and time under Schedule for. Times are in your computer's time zone, and must be in the future.
2. Click Schedule. The post shows Scheduled for with the time it goes live.

You can also schedule from the Calendar: click Schedule a post, or Schedule on a post in Ready to schedule, or drag it onto a day (it goes out at 09:00 that day). Reschedule on a scheduled post moves it or takes it off the calendar. Auto-schedule can fill your chosen days for you. See Schedule posts and auto-schedule.

How scheduling works on each platform

WordPress

Blog AI creates the post on your site straight away as a normal WordPress scheduled post, so you can see it in your WordPress admin with its date. WordPress then publishes it at that time.

WordPress's scheduler only runs when someone visits your site. On a quiet site, a scheduled post can miss its time. Blog AI checks each scheduled post: if WordPress hasn't published it about 10 minutes after its time, Blog AI publishes that same post itself. You won't get a duplicate.

Strapi

Strapi has no scheduler Blog AI can use, so the post waits in Blog AI and is created in Strapi within a few minutes of the time you picked.

What you'll hear about

For scheduled posts, Blog AI emails you when the post goes out, or if publishing failed and why. The post's page, Home and the Actions page show the same thing. See The weekly email and other notifications.

If publishing fails

The post is marked as failed and its page shows Last publish attempt failed, with the reason from your site. Home shows it in a banner, and the Actions page puts it at the top, with Retry publish.

Common reasons, and what to do:

• The credentials were refused. The application password or token was revoked or expired. Use Fix connection; see Fix a broken connection.
• "Use the canonical site URL." Your site redirected the request. Blog AI never follows redirects when it writes, because a redirect can silently lose the post. Update the site address in Fix connection.
• A security plugin or firewall blocked it. Allow authenticated requests to your site's REST API.
• The post was deleted or turned back into a draft on your site before its scheduled time. Blog AI marks it failed and explains; schedule it again if you still want it.
• It was interrupted. Very rarely, a publish is cut off part-way. Blog AI marks it failed with a note to check your site before retrying. Retrying updates the same post rather than creating a second one.

Settings problems, such as a missing site address, don't mark the post as failed: the post stays as it was, and the message says what to fix.

Read-only sites

If your plan includes fewer sites than you have, the extra sites are read-only. You can't publish or schedule to them, and posts already scheduled for them fail with the reason. Upgrade, or remove a site, to make them writable again. See Adding your site.

After publishing

• Changing a live post: edit it in Blog AI and click Update live post. See Update a post that is already live.
• Unpublishing or deleting: do it on your site. Blog AI never deletes posts on your site.
• Measuring: once Google has data, the post's page shows How this post is doing, with a marker on the day it was published.