Welcome back to the WordPress.com changelog! You can now do more with the WordPress Agent on WordPress.com, more easily connect your site to a popular AI agent, and more efficiently review new content in the Reader.

WordPress Agent knows plugins

You can now ask the WordPress Agent about plugins! Activate, update, and install, directly from the chat.

Cursor (and Grok Bot) can now easily connect to your WordPress.com site

WordPress.com now has a plugin in Cursor’s marketplace, so you can manage your site straight from the AI agent you’re already coding in.

The Reader now remembers what you’ve already read

Do you use the Reader to stay on top of your favorite blogs, sites, and news sources?

Now, posts that you’ve already read dim automatically so you can spot what’s new at a glance. An unread count also now shows up next to Recent so you know exactly how many posts are new.

If you don’t need it, you can turn off this functionality from your preferences.

Site logs are now included on Personal and Premium plans

Personal and Premium sites can now see their own PHP error logs and web server logs to more easily debug if something breaks. Go to your Hosting Dashboard, select your site, and then click Logs.

More detailed logs related to monitoring, performance, and deployments are available on Business and Commerce plans.

WordPress 7.1.1 and 7.1.2 security releases

Two new WordPress releases shipped with important security fixes. On many hosts, that means logging in, running updates, and hoping nothing breaks. On WordPress.com, it’s already done. Your site is running the latest, most secure version of WordPress, and you didn’t have to lift a finger.

Fixes and improvements

We also:

• Closed several ways embedded content in the Reader could run unwanted code on the page. (GitHub PR)
• Fixed long domain names from getting cut off in your DNS records list. (GitHub PR)
• Polished the WordPress Agent’s account connections screen for clearer email, Slack, and Telegram setup. (GitHub PR)
• Updated the block editor with a new layout and media options, including a grid layout and quicker list indenting with the tab key. (Github PR)
• Fixed long support chats in the Help Center cutting off partway through, so you can now see the full conversation. (GitHub PR)
• Fixed a bug so you can now add your own text above the opening quote when participating in daily writing prompts. (GitHub PR)
• Added .es as a purchasable domain extension. Learn more about .es domains.

We compared current pricing ranges across major website platforms to show what a blog, business site, or online store costs in year one and beyond. 

So, how much does it cost to build a website? As an example, a straightforward DIY site on WordPress.com, built on open source WordPress, can cost as little as $4 per month in its first year. Better yet, you can start for free with hosting included and a WordPress.com subdomain (.wordpress.com).

But for any plan, the first-year introductory price is only part of the story. The more useful number is what that same site costs to keep running in year two when your plan comes up for renewal.

What actually goes into the cost of a website?

Before you compare prices, it helps to know what you’re actually paying for. Your website-building cost starts with a platform and a hosting plan. Most people will also want their own domain name. Everything else depends on what you need your site to do.

Here are the main website costs to consider:

• Website platform + hosting: The software you use to build your site and the servers that keep it online.
• Domain name: Your web address. A free site might use an address like yoursite.wordpress.com; your own domain name gives you something like yoursite.com.
• Business email: An email address using your domain name, like hello@yoursite.com.
• Themes, plugins, or apps: Extras that change how your site looks or what it can do.
• Selling fees: Fees charged when someone pays you through your site.
• Professional help: Paying someone to design, write, or build your site.

Those are the basic bill items. The mistake is budgeting for every feature you might want someday as though you need it from day one.

How much does a blog or portfolio website cost?

A blog or portfolio is the least expensive website you can run. You need somewhere to publish, a domain name that’s yours, and a way for readers to follow your posts. Everything else is optional, and most of it can wait.

All in, a blog or portfolio setup typically costs about $5–$22 per month after introductory offers end. Most of that spread is the platform, not the domain.

What you can skip for now: a premium theme, extra storage, an email marketing platform, a professional email address, a store.

On WordPress.com, you can get this setup with the Personal plan and a .com domain.

With annual billing:

• Year one: $4 a month
• Year two: $5 a month

How much does a small business website cost?

For a consultant, a local service, or a freelancer, the site should give people a reason to hire you and make it easy to get in touch. 

That’s five pages (home, services, about, testimonials, contact), a form, and an email address at your own domain. When you’re putting time into promoting your services, analytics help you see which efforts bring visitors and which service pages they read.

All in, this small business setup typically costs about $12–$35 per month after the introductory offers end, billed annually.

What you can skip for now: a booking system, a client portal, live chat, a CRM, a store, a second mailbox.

On WordPress.com, you can get this setup with the Premium plan, a .com domain, and one Professional Email mailbox added separately. With annual billing:

• Year one: $10 a month
• Year two: $12 a month

How much does a small online store cost?

First question: do you need to accept payments, or do you need a store? If you sell one or two things occasionally, a payment button on a regular site is enough. A store is for a catalog: product pages, a cart, checkout, and order management. 

All in, a small store typically costs about $24-$41 per month after introductory offers end, plus roughly 3% of sales.

What you can skip for now: subscriptions, abandoned-cart automation, advanced shipping rules, multi-currency, point-of-sale, and most extensions.

On WordPress.com, you can get this setup with the Business plan, a .com domain, one Professional Email mailbox, and the free WooCommerce plugin. With annual billing and current first-year offers:

• Year one: $27 a month
• Year two: $29 a month

Before you choose a plan, ask these five questions

Whatever platform you’re weighing, the same five questions turn its pricing page into the bill you’ll actually receive.

1. What is the renewal price?
   Find three numbers before you buy: the charge today, the period it covers, and the price it renews at. “$4 a month” is usually billed annually upfront, and the lowest advertised rate often requires a two- or three-year commitment. Then check the extras on their own terms: an included domain is typically free for the first year only, and an email trial bills on its own schedule. On WordPress.com, every subscription’s renewal date and price is listed under Purchases. The page also flags an expiring plan and the features you would lose.
   
2. What’s still included in year two?
   Count the features you’ll rely on: your own domain, no platform ads, storage, support, and any tool the site needs to run. Backups are the one to read closely: check what the plan lets you restore, and how. WordPress.com plans include managed hosting, SSL, and security protections on every tier; the rest varies by plan, so price the setup you need, including any separate services.
   
3. What do you pay when you sell?
   Look up the fee for the payment tool you’ll actually use; a payment button and a store checkout can carry different fees on the same platform. There’s usually a percentage and a fixed amount per transaction, and both are deducted from every sale. If a pricier plan promises lower selling fees, run the numbers on the sales you realistically expect before upgrading.
   
4. What if you’d rather have someone build it?
   Paying for a build buys back your time; you’ll still have running costs after launch. Get a quote that specifies the pages, features, content, and rounds of revisions included, plus any ongoing support charges, and keep it separate from the plan, domain, and services you’ll pay for each year after launch. WordPress.com’s Website Design Service starts at $499 for a five-page site, plus the required Premium plan.
   
5. Can you start for free?
   On some platforms, yes. The free WordPress.com plan gives you hosting and a yoursite.wordpress.com address, with WordPress.com ads on the page. It’s enough to start publishing and build out your pages. Move to a paid plan when you want your own domain and to get rid of the ads.

You’ve done the math, now make it yours

Your first website probably needs less than you think. 

Start with what you want it to do: publish your work, bring in clients, or sell what you make. Use what’s already included, budget beyond the first year, and add tools when you have a reason to use them.

WordPress.com bundles hosting, security, and support into every paid plan. Take a look at what’s already included before paying for another tool or moving to a higher tier. 

At the time of writing, WordPress.com is the only major hosted website platform that comes in under $50* on a standard one-year paid plan. You can also start for free with hosting included if you’re happy to have ads and use a WordPress.com subdomain. 

*Lower advertised rates require a multi-year commitment.

With OpenStation, you can keep both open, side by side, in the same browser tab. The same goes for your media, your pages, and any other WP Admin screen.

It’s the same plugin that we introduced in June as Desktop Mode, now called OpenStation. Since then, we’ve redesigned the workspace, made it faster, and begun bringing the experience to phones.

Your WP Admin screens, side by side

Open a post, then open your media next to it. When you find the photo you want, drag it into the post.

The media picker in the editor works well for a single image. For a recipe with a photo for every step, keep your library open beside the draft instead of opening the picker again and again.

Photos on your computer work the same way. You can drag a few of them, or even a whole folder.

Preview your post while you write

Every post and page window has an eye icon at the top. Click it, and your draft moves to the left half of the screen while a preview opens on the right, showing how your visitors will see the post.

Keep writing. Every time you save, the preview updates, so you can check how a new title wraps or how a photo looks in your theme without switching tabs.

Come back to exactly where you were

Windows in OpenStation stay open until you close them. So, switching back to one is instant.

We compared navigation times in OpenStation and classic WP Admin. In the classic WP Admin, going back to a screen you had left a moment earlier took between 2.4 and 3.7 seconds. In OpenStation, there was nothing to load.

Your layout is saved too. Close the browser, come back again (even from another computer), and your windows will be right where you left them.

A desk for each job

Some days are for writing. Others are for answering comments or sorting through photos. Workspaces give each of those jobs its own desk, so you can focus more easily on the right task.

Jump between workspaces from the dock or with the arrow keys (nothing closes when you switch to another workspace).

Make it look like yours

Pick a wallpaper, or use one of your own photos. Change the accent color, move the dock to the left or right side of the screen, or enlarge it.

You’ll find all of it in System -> OpenStation Preferences → Appearance.

Use it as an app on your phone

You can install OpenStation on your phone via the System -> Install web app option in the dock.

The phone layout is still experimental, so we’d love to hear in the comments or our OpenStation support forum how it works for you.

Why the new name?

Desktop mode is best known as a setting in mobile browsers, so searching for it mostly turned up browser help pages.

The plugin had also grown past the idea of a mode you switch on. It’s closer to a workstation for your WordPress site, and it’s open source, so we called it OpenStation.

If you already use Desktop Mode, you don’t have to do anything. It’s the same plugin; it keeps updating as usual, and your windows and settings are still there.

Your site stays the same

OpenStation changes how WP Admin looks only for the people who turn it on. Visitors see your site as they always have. If you deactivate the plugin, WP Admin goes back to the way it was.

OpenStation is open source. You can read the code on GitHub, and the team writes about what they’re building on the OpenStation blog.

Try OpenStation

On WordPress.com, you can install OpenStation on any paid plan.

1. From your site’s dashboard, go to “Plugins“, search for “OpenStation,” and click the “Install and activate” button.
2. Click the “Switch to OpenStation” link at the top right of the admin bar.

3. To go back to the classic WP Admin, click the “Exit OpenStation” icon at the end of the dock.

Want to try it before installing anything? This live preview runs OpenStation in your browser, with nothing to install.

If something doesn’t work the way you expect, tell us in the OpenStation support forum or open an issue on GitHub.

Now you can go ahead and close a few tabs.

eCommerce Expo brings together retailers, brands, and ecommerce teams to talk about everything from finding customers to getting orders out the door. The expo shared the floor with Technology for Marketing, so it felt like two events at once. 

With that much going on, it’s easy to leave with a bag of swag and a blur of buzzwords. With the holiday rush coming up fast, one panel felt especially relevant: Preparing for Peak Shopping Seasons: How to Win Christmas with Chris Hutchins (Audiense), Ellie Bradford (Clearer.io), Naomi Boonin (WPP Media), and James White (Klaviyo).

The idea is simple: Start preparing now for the peak shopping season, so you can serve your holiday shoppers better and give them a reason to come back long after December.

The problem with “set it and forget it”

Peak season isn’t a great time to put your store on autopilot. What people search for, which products are selling, where shoppers hesitate, and what they complain about can all change quickly.

The speakers discussed a habit many of us know: you set something up for the holidays, let it run, and don’t really watch it. The campaign goes live, the site stays as it is, and you check back in January.

Their alternative starts with something you already have: last year’s data.

Your customers have already left you clues 

The speakers pointed to two useful places to start: onsite search data and customer reviews.  These show what customers are looking for in their own words. 

Here are three signals to look for: 

• Top searches: What people wanted most. Make sure those products are easy to find, in stock, and front and center.
• Zero-result searches: What people looked for and didn’t find. Every one is a lost sale and a clue about a missing product or a naming mismatch.
• Review data: What customers said after they bought. If “shipping took forever” came up again and again last December, you know what to address this year: put clear cut-off dates and delivery expectations on your site before anyone has to ask.

Nothing here needs a new tool. Start with the data you already have, and follow the clues: the unexpected search term, the product someone couldn’t find, the review you wish you hadn’t received. 

Don’t bring a sledgehammer to Q4

Q4 is loud. Every brand is in every inbox and every feed. Keep filling their inbox with more of the same, and the next click may be “unsubscribe.”

The speakers’ advice was to be selective: prioritize the channels where your customers actually are, and make the message personal. Blasting everywhere might win a sale, but it rarely wins loyalty.

To show what that looks like, they used KitKat’s sharing bar launch as an example. Nestlé built it around one clear, human idea – shared moments with friends and family – and the whole team pulled in the same direction. It was focused, playful, and memorable.

The holiday shopper is a different shopper

Your holiday visitor may not be your regular customer. They’re probably buying for someone else; they may not know your brand, and they’re short on time.

This part landed hardest for me – just how little context a gift buyer may have. They might not know your brand, the product category, the right words to search, or even exactly what the person they’re buying for would choose.

Our panel provided an example of shopping for a coffee-loving relative. You know you want to buy them something they’ll love, but you may not know the name of a particular coffee press. That’s when clear gift collections, categories, and filters really matter.

So design for them. A gifting collection filtered by price (“gifts under $25,” “under $50”) gets them straight to what they came for. On a WooCommerce store, product collections and filters make this quick to set up.

A fast, easy on-site experience during the busiest shopping weeks of the year might be what turns a one-time gift buyer into a repeat customer.

Get curious before you get busy

The theme running through the whole session was curiosity: What drives your shopper? What are they worried about? What would make their day easier?

Curiosity helps both sides: customers find what they need, and merchants earn trust that lasts past the holidays. The speakers also reminded us that small human touches, like a handwritten note in the box, still matter a lot.

London was a beautiful, easy city to love, and I’m already planning my return. But the thing I brought home was a notebook full of ideas and one question for every merchant I talk to this season: what is your data already telling you?

If you’re getting ready for Black Friday, start with your search bar and your reviews and choose one thing to improve. 

The terminology is new, but most of the work is not. AEO is largely an extension of good SEO and good writing: make useful information clear, credible, and easy for AI tools to cite.

What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?

If you’ve heard generative engine optimization (GEO), AI optimization (AIO), or LLM visibility tossed around and felt a step behind, you’re not missing something obvious. The terminology (and the operations behind it) is genuinely still settling. 

There isn’t a strong consensus on which term is “correct” yet. You’ll see several names for roughly the same kind of work. The boundaries appear fuzzy, but here’s the simplest way to think about them:

• AI search optimization → umbrella term
• AEO and GEO → two overlapping names for getting into AI answers
• LLM visibility → the result you measure
• AIO → another broad label with no settled definition

AEO describes the practice of making content easier for AI to understand, cite, and recommend in generated answers. This means optimizing content for AI systems’ answers (i.e., SEO for AI search), not traditional search rankings.

What mentions, citations, and recommendations actually mean

In traditional search, visibility means your page appears in the results; a click means someone visits your site from that result. 

Being mentioned, cited, or recommended by AI isn’t the same thing, and the difference matters:

• Mentioned: Your brand is part of the conversation.
• Cited: The AI used your content as a source.
• Recommended: The AI suggests your brand as an option for what someone’s looking for.

It’s worth noting that simply showing up in an AI-generated answer isn’t the same as being the option someone ultimately chooses. 

A mention can build awareness, a citation can send someone to your site, and a recommendation can influence what they consider next. Each one tells you something different about how your brand is showing up.

For a beginner-friendly walkthrough, try our free Master SEO and AIO course.

Where AI answers get their information

AI tools don’t all cite the same sources, and the mix varies depending on the question, industry, and tool.

Broadly speaking, citations come from three places:

1. Company websites: Product pages, blog posts, guides, and documentation. This is good news for smaller brands: your own useful, specific content can be cited directly. Large cross-platform studies find company-operated websites are the biggest source category overall.
   
2. Independent sources: Reviews, comparison articles, news sites, and industry publications. These give AI tools authoritative information about your brand that doesn’t come directly from you.
   
3. Communities and social platforms: Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, forums, and other places where people discuss products and brands. These can matter, but which ones matter most changes significantly by topic and AI tool.

It’s also worth resisting the urge to chase this month’s citation winner. Reddit became a popular target for AI search strategies, only for its share of visible ChatGPT Search citations to drop by about 86% in a single week. The drop happened around the same time ChatGPT changed how it searched the web.

The lesson isn’t to avoid Reddit. It’s not to build your AEO strategy around any one platform’s current citation share. Start with useful content you own, then build a genuine presence in the places your audience already trusts.

Where smaller brands can win in AI search

Bigger brands may have an edge in AI search because they’re already talked about across more of the web, not necessarily because they publish more or better content than everyone else.

That existing footprint can give bigger brands a head start. But it doesn’t mean smaller brands are locked out.

Smaller businesses and creators are often closer to the people they actually serve. You know the specific questions your customers ask, the trade-offs they weigh, and the details a generic answer from a household name tends to miss.

That firsthand knowledge can make a focused, specific answer more useful than something broad from a brand everyone’s heard of. Take your customer’s FAQs and address them head-on with highly targeted content. 

You don’t need to outpublish a bigger brand. You need to publish the clearest, most useful answer in the space you already know best and give other people good reasons to talk about it.

One question, several decisions

A person might type one question into an AI search tool, but the answer they actually need often depends on several smaller ones.

Take someone asking, “What’s the best website builder for a small bakery?” They’re not just asking about website builders. The AI is also weighing hosting reliability, ecommerce features, pricing, ease of use, and online ordering before it combines all of that into a single answer.

Google calls its version of this query fan-out: AI Mode and AI Overviews can run several related searches behind the scenes and stitch the results into a single response. It’s a useful example of how the process works, not a rule that every AI tool follows the same method.

Google’s query fan-out video shows this process in action:

That matters because a page that only answers the headline question can miss the details people actually need to act on. Answer the main question clearly, then cover the follow-ups that naturally come next — you don’t need to chase down every possible sub-question to be useful.

Those same follow-up questions are useful for content planning, too. Our guide to building an endless stream of content ideas with WordPress and Claude shows one way to work through them.

How AEO compares to SEO

The biggest difference between AEO and SEO comes down to what you’re actually optimizing for. 

Traditional SEO focuses on earning clicks from search results. AEO cares about earning mentions and citations in AI-generated answers — so a click isn’t the only outcome that counts anymore. In that sense, AEO builds on SEO instead of replacing it. 

The same practices that help people and search engines understand your content also help AI systems cite and recommend it. 

Google’s own guidance supports this: established SEO fundamentals still apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode – no separate playbook required.

If you’re looking for practical ways to structure your content for AI search, our AI search optimization guide covers the essentials in step-by-step detail.

How to tell if AEO is working

AEO measurement looks different from traditional SEO because there’s a new layer of visibility to track.

Dedicated AI visibility tools like OtterlyAI can show whether your brand is being mentioned or cited across answer engines. That tells you whether you’re showing up in the answer itself.

Traffic tools answer the next question. WordPress.com Stats and Google Analytics can show when those appearances turn into visits to your site and what people do after they arrive.

A no-budget way to track your AEO visibility

However, you don’t need an enterprise tool to start checking whether your AEO work is having an effect.

A spreadsheet and a few repeatable questions can give you a useful baseline. Treat this as a pulse check, not a ranking report.

1. Ask the questions your customers ask
   Pick five to ten questions that matter to your business and run the same prompts through tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google AI Mode. Note whether your brand appears, whether your site is cited, and which competitors show up instead. Look at what those cited sources offer that yours doesn’t.
   
2. Ask AI about your brand directly
   Does it describe your business accurately? Does it associate you with the products, services, or topics you want to be known for? If the answer is vague, outdated, or inconsistent across tools, that can point to gaps in how clearly your brand is represented online.
   
3. Track the same prompts over time
   Record the prompt, platform, date, mentions, and citations in a simple spreadsheet, then check again monthly. If you publish something specifically aimed at one of those questions, record the result before publishing and compare it again later.

Taken together, these signals give you a clearer picture: Are you showing up? Are people clicking through? And is that traffic doing anything useful once it gets there?

AEO is still developing, so the exact metrics and tools will continue to change. Our AI Tools archive rounds up our latest coverage in one place, including our guide to AI discovery and a plain-English look at what’s new in WordPress 7.0’s AI infrastructure.

Prepare your website for AI search with WordPress.com

Most of what people are calling AEO right now is just being clear enough that a machine can quote you. It’s an evolution of good SEO and good writing, not an entirely new discipline.

The fundamentals haven’t changed: create helpful content, structure it clearly, and build credibility both on and beyond your own site. Those habits will continue to put your content in the best position to be discovered. 

If you’re ready to put that into practice, follow these 9 steps to prepare your WordPress site for AI search engines.

New stores on the WordPress.com Commerce plan start on Purple, a store-first theme built by WooCommerce. 

The shop page, product pages, the cart, and checkout are already there, designed to work together. 

Your first decision is what to sell.

Pages built to work together

Purple ships with a complete set of store templates: shop, category, single product, cart, and checkout, all sharing the same template parts and the same pattern library.

Your product page and your checkout look like they belong to the same store, because they were designed as one system, not assembled piece by piece.

Say you have 20 products ready to list. On Purple, that is not a design project. It is just adding inventory.

A checkout you can actually edit

Checkout is where you lose people. A confusing layout, a field that feels unnecessary, a form that does not match the rest of your store. Friction at that step costs sales.

On Purple, checkout is built from blocks, just like the rest of your site. Most themes don’t ship with a block checkout. Purple does. 

Open it in the Site Editor and change what you need to: the layout, the labels, the fields. Add a reassurance line before the payment step. Remove a field you do not need. It works like any other page.

A theme is one part of a store

You open a store on Purple and the infrastructure is already handled. Hosting, your domain name (free for the first year), SSL, and payment processing come with the Commerce plan. 

WooPayments is available for merchants in 38 countries; once set up, you can accept payment from customers anywhere in the world. 

There are no WordPress.com transaction fees on your sales, though payment-processing fees still apply. Your store includes analytics and SEO tools — no plugins to install. WordPress.com handles theme updates for you.

The design is yours to move. Colors, typography, spacing, headers, footers, page layouts, and templates are all editable through the WordPress.com Site Editor. Purple ships with a set of style presets. Change the whole look without rebuilding a single page. 

When the store is already built, you can spend more time on your products and customers.

Start your store with Purple

Start a new store on the WordPress.com Commerce plan with Purple’s shop, product, cart, and checkout designs in place. Add your products and make the storefront your own.

Already selling on the Commerce plan? Explore Purple in the Theme Showcase.

Questions about Purple? Reach out to our support team. We’re here to help.

But then the little costs start to creep in: the AI subscription you rely on, a stock-image license, a better microphone, or other creative tools that help turn an idea into a post. And you think: It’d be nice if this thing paid for itself.

This is about cultivating and sustaining your passion without turning it into a side hustle, a personal brand, or an influencer job.

Decide what “enough” looks like

Before you choose a way to monetize your website, decide what you’d like it to cover right now. Maybe that’s a yearly domain name renewal, a premium WordPress theme, or the plugin you rely on. 

It doesn’t have to be a life-changing number, and it doesn’t have to be the end of the story either.

Check the invoices for the expenses that help you publish – your professional email, storage and backups, or a favorite creative tool – for the actual figures. Think of it as a useful first milestone, not a cap: a tip jar might take care of your next renewal; an affiliate link or small download may cover more. 

If that gets you to “enough,” great. If it makes you curious to do more, you can always see where it goes.

How to monetize your site 

There’s more than one way to make your site pay for itself. 

Start with the exchange that already makes sense for your readers: a tip jar lets them say thanks; an affiliate link points them to something useful; a payment button gives them a resource they’ve asked for. Paid newsletters and sponsored posts can come later, when you want to offer more.

The options below start small and gradually ask a bit more of you. Pick one that fits your blog as it is, not the business you’re supposed to build.

A donation or a tips button

A donation form or tips button lets readers who already like what you do support it directly. If your readers leave thoughtful comments, email to say thanks, or share your posts with friends, it may be all you need.

Some people will tip; some won’t. Either way, it doesn’t hurt to have it there for readers who want to support your work. 

On WordPress.com, the Donations Form block (available on Premium, Business, and Commerce plans) lets you collect one-time or recurring tips, and you can set your own suggested amounts. You can also show a form directly on the page, or set it to appear as a pop-up button instead. 

There’s also a preconfigured tips button labeled “Buy me a coffee” that you can customize. That gives you an even simpler place to start.

Affiliate links

Affiliate links let you earn a small commission from recommendations you’re already making. If you already mention books, gear, or tools you genuinely use in your posts, you can use them as a simple way to offset your site’s costs.

Say you run a book blog and you’re the friend everyone asks for a beach read. Each month, you recommend three or four you’ve really enjoyed. That’s where an affiliate link fits naturally.

Join the company’s affiliate program and add the link to your post. You’ll earn a commission every time someone buys through it. No WordPress.com setup required, just the link itself.

But remember that the recommendation should come first, and readers should always know when a link earns you a commission. A blog built around chasing commissions feels very different from one that only adds affiliate links to things it would recommend anyway, and readers can tell the difference.

Used this way, affiliate links ask very little of you. You don’t need to change your site’s design or ask readers to do anything new. You also don’t need one in every post; sometimes there simply isn’t anything worth recommending.

If this helps pay for the books, research subscriptions, and reference material behind your recommendations, it might already be enough.

A payment button

A payment button lets you sell one thing readers keep asking for — no store required. Maybe it’s a printable seed-starting calendar, a zine of your favorite hiking routes, or a downloadable checklist you’ve already shared a dozen times.

The Payments block works much like the Donations Form block, except it’s for selling something instead of collecting tips. For a digital download, you don’t need a shopping cart or a full online store.

Add the button to any page or post, connect Stripe, and set your price.

It can be the only thing you ever sell. And if it pays for the software, stock images, fonts, music licenses, or design tools that make your work possible, you’re done.

A paid newsletter

This one’s a bigger step than a tip jar, so it only belongs on your list if you already have regular readers who keep asking for more.

Say you’ve written a monthly gardening blog for years. Most readers are happy with your public posts. But a handful keep asking for planting calendars, seasonal reminders, or behind-the-scenes notes by email. That’s the point where a paid newsletter starts to make sense.

WordPress.com already lets readers subscribe to get your posts by email. You can add an optional paid tier for readers asking for more: exclusive posts, early access, and bonus content.

You can also customize what new subscribers see when they sign up, like a welcome message and a clear description of what the paid newsletter includes.

But for plenty of sites, a donation button and the occasional affiliate link cover the yearly costs. A commitment to a paid newsletter isn’t always necessary.

An occasional sponsored post

Sometimes the opportunity comes to you instead. A company whose products you already use might ask you to write about them. That’s another way to help your site pay for itself. 

With sponsored posts, the same rule applies as with affiliate links: only work with brands you’d mention anyway, and always be upfront with readers when a post is sponsored.

You don’t need to chase brand deals or build a sponsorship pipeline. If one or two sponsored posts each year help pay for a camera, recording equipment, or a piece of specialist gear, that’s all you need. It shouldn’t be the bulk of what you publish.

Your blog, audience, and earnings on WordPress.com

Give yourself five minutes today to decide which first step fits your blog as it is. You don’t need a 15-point business plan to take it.

Pick the smallest step that already makes sense: a tips button, an affiliate link to one recommendation you’ve already made, or a price on the download readers keep asking for. 

If it covers the next renewal, great. If it opens up something you want to build on, you can choose that later.

Paid newsletters, sponsored posts, memberships, and online stores are there if you decide you want more.

Welcome back to the WordPress.com changelog! Much of the engineering effort these past two weeks went into some meaningful rollouts: our AI website builder flow got an upgrade and there’s a new VideoPress player.

Create a custom theme with AI

Our AI website builder for creating new sites just got more capable. On Premium and Business plans, it now generates a fully custom theme built around your goals and brand.

Once it’s built, we’ve streamlined the AI Editor, where you can keep refining the design by chatting with the WordPress Agent, so you always have support and can get your site exactly as you want. A helpful new feature is called Annotate, which allows you to send multiple targeted edits to the agent at one time:

A refreshed video player

There’s a redesigned VideoPress player available with some powerful new features for sites on Business and Commerce plans. As a reminder, VideoPress is a lightweight and responsive video player you can use to host and embed videos on your WordPress.com website.

The update is built around a cleaner control bar with chapter markers and scrub-preview thumbnails built into the seek bar, an easier way to share a video (with separate handling for private ones), and an end screen that offers options to replay, share, or download once a video finishes. The sharing and downloading is in your control as always.

Fixes and improvements

We also:

• Improved messaging when canceling a Google Workspace subscription, so it’s clear exactly when access ends. (Github PR) 
• Replaced the dead-end empty cart when a domain can’t be renewed with a clear explanation and a one-click way to search for a new domain. (Github PR) 
• Cleaned up the WordPress Agent’s command menu in Telegram. (Github PR) 
• Restored the missing Search menu item for Jetpack Search on impacted sites. (GitHub PR)
• Refreshed the design of the password reset page for a clearer, more guided flow. (GitHub PR)
• Added a “Retired” badge so you can tell at a glance when a theme in your site’s theme list is no longer receiving updates. (Github PR)

Twenty-five years on, we still hold that memory close, and we think about the families everywhere who carry that loss every single day, not just today.

What strikes me every year is how many people turn to writing to process something this big. Grief doesn’t always fit into a conversation. Sometimes it needs a page.

That’s something our community does beautifully. Across WordPress.com, people all over the world have spent years building spaces to remember: personal reflections on where they were that morning, deep dives into the history of the memorials built afterward, quiet tributes to the small moments that don’t make the history books.

A couple from our own community:

The World Will Never Forget 9/11 is exactly what it sounds like, an entire blog dedicated to keeping the memory of that day alive, from the Memorial Plaza to the stories behind it.

Ephemeral New York has spent years documenting the small, personal memorials tucked into corners of the city, the ones you’d walk past without noticing unless someone pointed them out.

This is exactly why WordPress.com exists. From day one, our mission has been to give everyone, everywhere, a place to share their voice, whatever that voice needs to say. Sometimes that’s a recipe blog or a small business finding its first customers. Sometimes it’s someone working through the hardest thing that ever happened to their city, their family, or their country, one post at a time. We built this platform to hold it all, and we always will.

This is what community looks like to me. Not one big monument, but thousands of small ones, kept alive by people everywhere who decided their corner of the internet was worth using to remember.

To everyone who lost someone that day, and everyone who’s lost someone since to illnesses tied to that day: we’re thinking of you. To the first responders and regular people who ran toward danger instead of away from it: thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

But that doesn’t mean organic traffic is dead. It simply means it comes from multiple smaller streams rather than a single large source.

If you’re a small business owner, freelancer, or creator trying to grow your site, this guide covers practical ways to attract visitors through search, AI visibility, newsletters, partnerships, and personal branding.

Step 1: Create content to answer real customer questions

Answering real audience questions clearly helps customers understand what you offer. 

It can also give search engines and AI tools a useful page to consider when someone asks a related question — but no format guarantees a citation.

You can find out what questions your audience is asking online through:

• Keyword research: Type your keyword into Google and check the “People also ask” section and autocomplete suggestions.
• Customer support and sales: Mine your support inbox and sales calls for recurring questions, or ask your customers directly.
• Social media listening: Monitor your brand mentions and important keywords in social networks. Browse relevant niche communities on Reddit, Quora, or Facebook.
• Competitor research: Check what questions your competitor’s content answers and look at reviews on G2, Trustpilot, or Google.
• Product reviews: Read online reviews of your own products to find what questions customers had before buying them.

Next, answer customer queries in your content, for example:

• Dedicated website landing pages (“Is [product] worth it?”)
• Blog posts (how-to posts, comparisons, etc.)
• Headings inside your content
• FAQ sections and pages (use the Accordion block to create them)
• Infographics
• Case studies

When you do create this content, get to the answer quickly. Start each section with a short explanation, then expand on the details below it. 

That’s good for readers first, and it also makes the page easier for search and AI tools to interpret.

WordPress.com users can use the integrated AI Assistant to help tighten long paragraphs, clarify answers, or add FAQs — right inside the WordPress editor.

Step 2: Build landing pages for high-intent searches

When someone is close to requesting a quote, booking a call, or buying from you, they should land on a page built for that decision – not a generic blog post.

That might be a service page for a specific audience, location, or problem. Comparisons and “best for” posts can support those landing pages by helping people narrow down their options.

These specific, high-intent pages are easier to rank for than broad topics and often convert better. 

What can those landing pages look like in practice?

• Highly specific service pages → “SEO Audit Services for German E-Commerce Stores”
• Comparisons narrowed to a target group → “MailChimp vs Kit for Bloggers”
• Targeted best-of list posts → “Best [product] for [specific audience]”
• Location-based variations, if relevant → “Best Coworking Spaces in Munich for Freelancers”

Here are two examples of targeted blog posts that show up in Google for “vegetarian meal prep for college students.”

This content strategy also helps appear in AI searches. According to Ahrefs, “best XYZ” blog lists make up 43.8% of all page types cited in ChatGPT responses, with 35% of those lists coming from low-authority domains.

Case in point: One of the websites from our previous example is also recommended by ChatGPT.

Additional growth tips:

• Use Table blocks for side-by-side comparisons.
• Be honest and thorough in your blog posts, not just self-promotional.
• Link prominently (e.g. from your homepage) to your niche pages to boost their authority and help visitors discover relevant information.
• Keep layouts clean and scannable by using well-designed block themes and reader-friendly formatting.

The AI Assistant can help here as well, for example, by brainstorming targeted content ideas.

Step 3: Turn one content piece into multiple traffic sources

With traffic more fragmented, new sites rarely grow from search alone. 

Get more out of the content you’re already creating by feeding several traffic channels with each piece.

Here’s what that process may look like:

1. Publish a focused blog post.
2. Send it to your newsletter subscribers (see step 4).
3. Share three short insights from it on LinkedIn or turn key points into a Bluesky thread with a link back to the full post.
4. Post it to one relevant niche community (e.g., Reddit threads, Facebook Groups, or Slack channels). Note that many of these communities frown upon overt self-promotion.
5. Use the article as a basis for a video or podcast episode — even if it’s just a two-minute screen recording.
6. Add internal links to and from older posts to keep traffic circulating.

Below is an example of me repurposing one of my own articles.

One article, then one newsletter send, three LinkedIn posts, and one community contribution — same core idea, different ways for people to find it.

To speed things up, you can use the MCP Claude Connector to give Claude access to the content of your WordPress.com site. It can then automatically generate social media snippets from existing posts or recommend niche communities to share them in.

Step 4: Use newsletters to attract visitors

A newsletter can bring visitors back to your site without hoping a search engine or social algorithm puts you in front of them. These are people who have already asked to hear from you.

The hard part is not sending the email – it’s giving people a reason to open it: something useful, timely, or interesting enough that they want to come back to your site.

An email list doesn’t just allow you to share your latest post, but also to send special offers, weekly updates, or behind-the-scenes information. It helps you encourage repeat business and learn more about your audience.

To use newsletters effectively:

• Publish your newsletters publicly as web pages to provide examples and attract organic traffic.
• Promote newsletter topics on social media to establish your expertise and drive more subscribers.
• Link back to your service pages or blog posts — the goal is to get people on your website after all.
• Place sign-up forms in your blog posts, your about page, and everywhere else people see it, not just the footer.

Need an example? Marketing Examined shows how a newsletter can grow into a broader media business. It’s a reminder that email can become a traffic source of its own — not just a place to announce your latest post.

On WordPress.com, you can put Subscribe blocks where readers will actually see them, email new posts to subscribers, and offer paid subscriptions when it makes sense.

Step 5: Build partnerships that send referral traffic

Partnering with others in your industry can be another source of traffic.
Establishing win-win relationships helps you gain visibility with existing audiences and attract highly targeted traffic.

Find potential partners by looking for businesses who share your audience but aren’t direct competitors. One way to do that is by contributing to communities your target customers are already a part of. 

Use your expertise and initiative to provide value and build genuine relationships with leaders and influencers in the space.

Partnering can take many different forms:

• Write guest posts for complementary businesses.
• Co-host webinars and publish recap pages on your site.
• Appear on each other’s podcasts.
• Exchange expert quotes and link to each other’s resources.
• Collaborate on research and create co-branded assets.
• Create dedicated landing pages for collaborations or events.
• Cross-promote each other on social media.

An example of such a partnership is the one between speed testing tool GTmetrix and WordPress performance plugin WP Rocket. The two businesses have been recommending each other on their respective websites for years.

Step 6: Grow your personal visibility alongside your site

In 2026, people often discover businesses through individuals first. People trust other people more than logos, so building a personal brand as a business owner can increase your company’s visibility and drive website traffic.

Tips for expanding and using your personal visibility:

• Consistently share practical, targeted insights: Use platforms where your audience hangs out, e.g. LinkedIn for B2B, TikTok/Instagram for visual industries.
• Show your personality and process: Post about what you and your team (if there is one) are learning, testing, or even failing at.
• Link strategically: Tie insights back to deeper resources on your site (e.g., “For the full guide, check out [link]”).
• Optimize your About page: Include specific results (“Helped 50+ clients increase traffic by 30%”) and social proof (testimonials, media features).
• Make authorship easy to verify: Use a named author, a short bio, and a linked About page so readers can see who is behind the advice and why they should listen.
• Keep branding consistent: Use the same name, photo, and bio across all platforms so people recognize you instantly.

Find additional tips in our post on how to build an online presence.

Step 7: Make your site easy to trust and reference

A fast, secure, easy-to-navigate site is more likely to hold onto the visitors you worked to bring in.

Before you chase another traffic source, check whether a new visitor can quickly work out what you do, who you help, and what to do next.

Start with a rock-solid technical setup that makes your website easy to understand and reference:

• Clean and descriptive URLs
• A logical site hierarchy and permalink structure
• Dedicated, linkable pages
• Trust signals via a clear About and Contact page
• A list of all your pages in an XML sitemap
• Additional information through schema markup

Using the block editor, you can create well-structured content with descriptive headings and relevance signals, such as image alt text.

The AI Assistant comes in handy here, too. It can help clean up unclear sections, tighten long pages, check grammar, and propose page titles. It’s also able to generate images, edit and add alt text to existing visuals, as well as adjust layouts, styles, and patterns.

Step 8: Treat AI search tools as decision influencers

AI tools shape buying decisions even when they don’t send a direct click. That’s why your brand needs to be referenced in them. 

It’s worth checking what they say about your brand, but you can’t control every answer. Clear, accurate information on your site gives them one solid source to work from.

Steps you can take to guide the conversation:

• Add concise summaries to your service pages.
• Include precise, consistent descriptions for your products.
• Answer specific questions your customers may ask AI to be cited in answers (see step 1).
• Clearly state who you help, what you do, and where you operate.
• Add pages that list your solutions for key customer types.
• Structure your content well so it’s easy to summarize.

AI mentions also rely on external platforms. Monitor how people discuss your brand on Reddit, reviews they write, etc. Try to get featured on trustworthy sites, such as well-known publications, industry directories, and industry authorities (see step 5).

Bonus tip: Track your mentions by searching your brand name directly in different AI LLMs. See how they describe you, whether they mention you at all, and what sources they cite when they do. Think of this as a rough visibility check, not AI’s version of rank tracking. Results can change depending on the prompt, the tool, and the day.

Continue to grow your website audience

Website traffic is less likely to come from one big breakthrough now. More often, it grows through a mix of useful answers, focused pages, distribution, newsletters, partnerships, and a site people can trust.

The important part is consistency. Pick two or three tactics from this list and stick with them long enough to learn what works. You can always expand later.

Our free one-hour Grow Your Website’s Audience course covers the practical side: getting found through search and social media, turning visitors into subscribers, promoting your work, and reading your site stats.