Getting Started: Choosing Your Integration
Before you can create any content, you'll connect Opinly to your website. This tells Opinly where to publish your posts when they're ready.
You have a few options depending on how your site is built:
CMS Integrations connect directly to your platform:
- WordPress — publishes posts straight to your WordPress site, mapped to your existing categories
- Shopify — creates blog articles inside your Shopify store
- Wix — publishes to your Wix blog
- Webflow — syncs content into your Webflow CMS
SDK Integrations are for custom-built sites and require a developer to set up:
- Next.js — your developer adds the Opinly SDK and content is served through your existing site
Manual is the simplest option. You write content in Opinly, then copy and paste it wherever you need it. No automatic syncing — full control in your hands.
If your platform isn't listed yet (Framer, Nuxt, Svelte), you can register your interest and we'll prioritise it.
Telling Opinly About Your Business
Once you've connected your integration, you'll walk through a short setup to configure how Opinly generates content for you.
Company Description This is the most important step. You describe what your business does — what you sell, who your customers are, and what makes you different. Opinly uses this to make sure every piece of content it generates is relevant to your market and audience. If you're unsure what to write, Opinly can look up your website and suggest a description.
Target Locations You'll select the countries or regions you want to appear in search results. This affects which keywords Opinly targets and how it writes content — a UK audience gets different phrasing and context than a US one.
Generation Rate You set how many posts per week you want Opinly to create. This feeds into your monthly publishing schedule. Your plan determines the maximum.
Auto-Publish You can choose whether posts publish automatically or sit in a review queue waiting for your approval. If you want full control over what goes live and when, turn auto-publish off.
Content Clusters: Your Content Strategy
Rather than just generating random blog posts, Opinly organises your content around clusters — groups of related topics that build your authority in a specific area.
Think of a cluster like a content pillar. For example, if you run an HR software product, you might have clusters around "Employee Onboarding," "Performance Reviews," and "Remote Work Policies." Each cluster contains a set of keywords — specific search terms your potential customers are actually typing into Google.
Opinly generates an initial set of suggested clusters based on your company description and competitor analysis. You review them and either approve, edit, or remove them. You can also create your own from scratch.
Narrow vs Broad clusters give you control over how specific your content is:
- Narrow clusters target precise, niche topics — great for readers who are close to making a decision
- Broad clusters cover general industry topics — good for building awareness
Only approved clusters are used when Opinly is selecting keywords to write about. You can turn clusters on or off at any time to shift your content strategy.
How Posts Are Created
There are three ways content gets created in Opinly:
1. Automatic Generation
If you've set a weekly generation rate and approved your clusters, Opinly runs in the background. It picks keywords from your clusters, writes posts on a schedule, and either publishes them automatically or queues them for your review — depending on your auto-publish setting. You don't have to do anything.
2. Manual AI Generation
When you want to create a specific post, go to Generate with AI. You enter a keyword you want to target, choose when to publish it, and configure how many images you want. You can also add any special instructions — like a specific angle to take, a competitor to mention, or a tone to match.
Opinly then generates your post in two steps:
Step 1 — Outline: Opinly creates a structured outline for your post — the headings, the key points it will cover, the angle it's taking. This usually takes a couple of minutes. You can review the outline and either approve it or request changes.
Step 2 — Full Content: Once you approve the outline, Opinly writes the complete post. This includes the headline, all body content, images if you requested them, an FAQ section, and all the SEO metadata (meta description, open graph tags for social sharing). This takes a few minutes and runs in the background — you can navigate away and come back.
3. Bulk Batch Generation
If you want to fill out several weeks or months of content at once, the batch generator lets you create multiple posts in one go. You select how many posts you want, pick a date range, review the suggested keywords, and set a schedule. Opinly queues them all up and generates them in the background.
Managing Your Posts
Every post in Opinly goes through a clear lifecycle:
Draft — A post being written or edited. You can make changes freely.
Scheduled — The post is queued to publish at a specific date and time. If auto-publish is on, it will go live automatically.
Scheduled Review — The post is scheduled, but auto-publish is off. It will wait for your manual approval before going live.
Published — The post is live on your site.
Syncing — The post is in the process of being sent to your platform (WordPress, Shopify, etc.).
Sync Failed — Something went wrong syncing to your platform. You'll see an error message and can retry.
If you want to edit a published post, you don't overwrite it directly. Instead, you create a new draft version. Opinly keeps a full version history of every post, so you can always see what changed and when.
The Editor
When you open a post, you get a full editor where you can:
- Edit any text — the headline, all body sections, captions, everything
- Manage images — replace the featured image, add or remove inline images, edit alt text
- Edit FAQs — add, remove, or modify the FAQ section
- Update metadata — slug, meta description, open graph title and description for social sharing
- Change settings — author, folder/category, target keyword, publish date
- Export — download your post as Markdown or HTML if you need it elsewhere
Publishing to Your Platform
When you publish a post that's connected to a CMS integration, Opinly handles the sync automatically:
- For WordPress, the post is created under your selected category with the correct formatting
- For Shopify, it becomes a blog article in your store
- For Wix and Webflow, it's published directly to your blog
If the sync fails for any reason (authentication expired, API limits, network issues), the post status shows Sync Failed with details on what went wrong. You can fix the issue and retry.
For Manual integration, there's no sync. Your post lives in Opinly, and you copy the content across to wherever you need it.
The Content Calendar
The content calendar gives you a bird's-eye view of everything that's scheduled and published. You can see all your posts by month, colour-coded by status:
- Green — Scheduled or published
- Yellow — Waiting for your review before publishing
- Red — Sync failed, needs attention
Click any post in the calendar to jump straight to it.
Images
Opinly can generate images for your posts automatically. When setting up a post, you choose:
- Whether to include images (title image, inline images, or none)
- How many inline images to include through the body
- Image style — from clean vector illustrations to realistic photography to pop art editorial, there are several styles to match your brand
The first few images are included in your plan. Additional images use credits.
If you'd prefer to use your own images, you can upload them directly in the editor and replace anything Opinly generated.
Keywords and What Gets Written About
Opinly uses keyword research to make sure every post it writes has a real chance of ranking. When it picks a keyword from your clusters, it's looking at:
- What your potential customers are actually searching for
- How competitive those keywords are
- Whether the keyword fits your business (it runs a sanity check so you don't end up ranking for something irrelevant)
If Opinly ever suggests a keyword you never want to target — a competitor's name, an unrelated topic, anything — you can blacklist it. Blacklisted keywords are permanently excluded from future suggestions.
What Opinly Handles Automatically
To summarise what the system does for you without you having to think about it:
- Finds the right keywords to target based on your business and competitors
- Structures each post into a logical, SEO-friendly outline
- Writes the complete blog post in your brand's context
- Generates images in your chosen style
- Creates metadata and FAQs
- Schedules posts across your month
- Publishes and syncs to your platform
Your job is to set the strategy (which clusters to approve, what rate to publish at, what your brand sounds like), review and approve content before it goes live, and keep your integration connected. Everything else runs in the background.
FAQS
Will Opinly publish content to my site without me reviewing it?
Only if you explicitly turn that on. When you first set up your integration, you'll go through the setup wizard, where you will be asked whether you want auto-publish on - if you would like to review first, turn this off. In this mode, Opinly will generate posts and schedule them, but nothing goes live until you manually review and approve each one. You can find the auto-publish toggle in Settings → Content. It's clearly labelled "Auto-Publish Content", and you can change it at any time — it applies to all future posts from that point on.
I already connected my integration. How do I check whether auto-publish is on or off?
Go to Settings → Content and look for the "Auto-Publish Content" checkbox. If it's checked, posts will publish automatically on their scheduled date. Uncheck it to switch to a manual review workflow where everything waits for your approval first.
If auto-publish is off, what actually happens when a post is scheduled?
The post is created and placed in your queue with a scheduled date. When that date arrives, instead of publishing automatically, the post moves into a Scheduled Review state — meaning it's overdue for your approval and waiting for you to act. Nothing goes live until you click Publish. You'll be able to see all posts in this state clearly in your content calendar and posts list.
Can I approve posts one at a time or do I have to approve them all at once?
You approve them individually. Each post has its own status and its own publish action. There's no "bulk approve everything" — you review each one on its own and publish when you're happy with it.
What if I connect my CMS and then decide I want to review everything before it syncs?
Just turn off auto-publish in Settings → Content. From that point forward, all posts you create will sit in review before syncing. You're not locked into any particular workflow — you can switch back and forth between auto-publish and manual review whenever you like. If you already have posts scheduled, you can go to that post and set it for review.
Do I have to connect my CMS immediately?
Yes, however, Opinly will not touch your site without your permission. Just set Auto-Publish to off, and you will be able to test out the content generation.
What integrations does Opinly support?
Currently available: WordPress — publishes directly to your WordPress site Shopify — creates blog articles in your Shopify store Wix — publishes to your Wix blog Webflow — syncs content into your Webflow CMS Next.js — served via the Opinly SDK for custom-built sites (requires a developer) Manual — generate content in Opinly, copy and paste it yourself Framer, Svelte, and Nuxt integrations are coming soon. You can register your interest from the integration selection screen.
What does connecting an integration actually do to my website?
Connecting an integration gives Opinly permission to create posts on your behalf. It does not modify your site's design, layout, navigation, or any existing content. The only thing it can do is create new blog posts. Nothing about your existing website is changed.
What if the sync to my platform fails?
If a sync fails, the post is marked Sync Failed with a reason — usually an authentication issue or a temporary API problem. Your post remains safely inside Opinly, and nothing is lost. You can fix the underlying issue (for example, reconnecting your integration) and retry the sync.
Can I edit a post before it publishes?
Yes — always. Every generated post sits as a draft inside Opinly's editor. You can edit the headline, body content, images, metadata, and FAQs before publishing. Nothing is locked.
What if I publish something and want to make a change afterwards?
You create a new draft version of the post. Opinly keeps a full version history, so you can always see what changed and when. Once you're happy with your edits, you publish the new version — which syncs the updated content to your platform.
Can I delete a post that Opinly generated?
Yes. You can delete any post from the post detail page. If the post was already published to your CMS, you'll need to remove it there separately — Opinly doesn't delete posts from your platform, it only creates and updates them.
Does Opinly write the same kind of content repeatedly?
No — each post targets a different keyword and is generated fresh. Content clusters ensure posts are spread across related but distinct topics within your industry. You can also review and edit your clusters at any time in Settings → Content to adjust the direction of future content.
How do I stop Opinly generating content temporarily?
How do I stop Opinly generating content temporarily?
You can pause generation by going to Settings → Content and setting the keyword selection mode from Automatic -> Manual. This will prevent any new posts from being generated.
Where can I see all my scheduled posts?
The Content Calendar gives you a monthly view of everything scheduled and published, colour-coded by status. You can also view a list of all posts filtered by status from the main content page.
Can I change the date of a scheduled post?
Yes. Open the post, go into settings, and update the publish date. The change takes effect immediately.
What's the difference between "Scheduled" and "Scheduled Review"?
Scheduled means auto-publish is on, and the post will go live automatically at the scheduled time Scheduled Review means auto-publish is off, and the post needs your approval before it publishes — even if the scheduled date has already passed
What time zone are scheduled posts based on?
You can set your preferred time zone in Settings → Content. The default is Eastern Time (US). Your default publish time is also configurable there — for example, set it to 09:00 in your time zone so all posts publish in the morning.
