Can I add a project without a website yet?

Yes, but the baseline crawl is skipped until you set a primary domain, and most of the pipeline is blocked until website access is connected. Add the domain on the project's Connections screen and use Re-capture on the Setup page.

Who can create projects?

Anyone with the Manage clients permission. The built-in Owner and Admin roles have it; client-portal users do not.

Create a project

A project is created from just a website and goal, then RankOut runs a guided Setup page and captures a baseline before you connect anything.

In RankOut a project (also called a client) is one website you're optimising. Everything else — connections, opportunities, strategies, work, reports — hangs off a project.

Creating one

1
Open Add project
Use the + in the client switcher in the top bar, or Add project on the Clients screen.
2
Fill the short form
Project name, website URL, primary goal, website platform, and a primary contact email. That's it — no provider fields, no credentials.
3
Land on Setup
RankOut creates the project, sends a portal invitation to the contact email, and opens the Setup page for the new project.

The new project form with website, goal, platform and contact fields — Project creation is one screen — website and goal to start.

The Setup page

Setup is the guided Connect stage. It shows every data connection a project can have as a tiered checklist, with a readiness score and a plain statement of what each connection unlocks.

Tier	What it means	Examples
Required	Needed before RankOut can assess or change the site.	WordPress Connector, or GitHub for a codebase site
Recommended	Needed for a real performance baseline and to measure outcomes.	Google Search Console, Google Analytics
Optional	Adds coverage for a specific channel — connect only what applies.	Google Business Profile, Google Tag Manager, GitHub (if not the main path)

Each row shows a status — Connected, Action needed (for example Google is authorised but no property is chosen yet), or Not connected — and a button that jumps to that project's Connections screen. The readiness score is tier-weighted; a project is ready for a real assessment once website access is connected.

The Setup page readiness checklist grouped into Required, Recommended and Optional — Setup — one place to see what's connected and what a baseline still needs.

The baseline

When a project is created RankOut immediately runs a public first-party crawl of the domain and snapshots any performance sources that are connected. This is the honest starting point — captured before you've wired anything up. The Setup page's Baseline panel shows:

A public crawl score out of 100, with page counts (crawled, healthy, broken).
The top recommendations from the crawl audits.
Which performance sources were connected at capture time (usually none at first — that's recorded on purpose).
A Re-capture button to run it again after you connect more, or if the site was unreachable the first time.

The crawl baseline is a public, unauthenticated view. The full site audit (see Opportunities) needs the WordPress Connector and produces much deeper findings.