Since then, thousands of you have built blocks, shared feedback, and pushed the tool in directions we didn’t expect.

That enthusiasm kept us going. Here’s what’s new.

1. Show Telex what you want to build

You can now upload reference images when describing your block. A Figma mockup. A screenshot of a design you like. A napkin sketch. 

Upload it alongside your prompt and let Telex see what you’re imagining.

This helps most with complex layouts — or when you’re chasing a specific aesthetic. Instead of writing a detailed description of how every element should be arranged, just show it.

A picture is worth a thousand prompt words, or so they say.

2. Work in your favorite editor, then come back

One of our most requested features — editing blocks outside of Telex — is here.

Download your block, open it in VS Code, Cursor, or whatever you prefer (we’re not starting that debate), and make your changes. Then upload the zip back to Telex to keep refining with AI.

This round-trip workflow bridges AI generation and traditional development. It’s early days — we’ll keep improving it.

3. Explore previous versions risk-free

Version history now works better. When you restore a previous version, Telex creates a new version instead of overwriting your current work. 

This means you can explore past iterations, compare approaches, and recover that thing you deleted three prompts ago.

Your past mistakes are now just research. Or as we call it: iterative development.

4. Telex speaks your language

Telex is now available in 7 languages for you to create blocks and experiment.

We also fixed an issue where Japanese, Chinese, emoji, and other multi-byte characters weren’t streaming correctly.

5. Small improvements that add up

We’ve also shipped a bunch of smaller fixes:

• Dynamic page titles: Juggling multiple blocks in different tabs? The page title now matches your selected project.

• Save confirmations: Manual code edits now show a “Files updated” message. You’ll always know your changes took.

• Shorter share links: Cleaner URLs that are easier to pass along.

• Changelog page: Want to keep up with every update? We now have a dedicated changelog. It’s like release notes, but we actually write them.

Keep experimenting

Telex is a living experiment. Your feedback shapes where it goes.

Spin up a block. Try the image upload. Tell us what’s working and what isn’t — in the comments or through the in-app feedback form.

But something was missing.

“I really enjoyed thinking about very deep questions,” she says. “But I kind of missed the human element. I would get frustrated — why should a normal, everyday person care about this?”

That question led her toward science writing. And eventually, to a portfolio she built in an hour using our AI website builder.

From lab to byline

To pursue her science writing dream, Lily built up slowly. Volunteer projects. Small bylines. Then, in late 2023, she applied to the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship — mostly as practice.

She got in.

Ten weeks at a public radio station in North Carolina, reporting on science. That was the moment it became real.

“This might actually be something I could do.”

The portfolio problem

But to get paid work, she needed a portfolio. A place to show her clips. Proof she could do the job.

She kept putting it off.

I had been dreading making the website — not because it would be so hard, but I just didn’t know exactly how to do it.

Then a deadline hit. An internship application. Four hours to finish everything — resume, cover letter, portfolio.

She opened WordPress.com, found the AI website builder, and started typing. About an hour later, her online portfolio was live.

It lowered the barrier for me to get started and get everything together.

What Lily’s new website delivered

She didn’t get that first job. But the website stuck around.

A few weeks later, another interview. They wanted writing samples. She sent the website immediately.

As a result, Lily got:

• Contract work from that company
• A separate internship
• A portfolio ready to send whenever opportunities come up

They asked for writing samples. I sent them my website. I got the contract.

Your story deserves a home, too

Lily had been putting off her portfolio for too long. A deadline forced her hand — and the AI website builder got her there in an hour.

WordPress.com’s managed hosting also means she’s not dealing with updates or maintenance. She focuses on her career. The platform handles the rest.

Her story started in the lab. But her website is where the next chapter begins.

Yours can too.

You bring the idea — AI makes it real

Use our AI website builder for free today.

Try it now

If you’ve used our AI website builder, you already know how easy it is to create a full site by having a conversation. Now, that same intelligence stays with you inside the editor and Media Library. 

Unlike standalone AI tools, the WordPress AI Assistant works inside your site. It understands your content and layout and can take action where you’re already building — no copy-pasting, no prompt engineering, and no code to figure out what to do with.

Sites on WordPress.com’s Business or Commerce plans can now opt into the WordPress AI Assistant at no extra cost.

Build, write, design, and manage without breaking your flow

The new AI assistant will show up in a few places within your WordPress experience once enabled on each of your sites:

The Editor

Get help with site-wide structure and design decisions, as well as content editing and refinement without leaving the editor. You can adjust layouts, styles, and patterns on your posts and pages just by talking — and see changes take shape as you work.

You can ask it to:

• “Make this section feel more modern and spacious.”
• “Change my site colors to be more bright and bold.”
• “Give me more font options that feel clean and professional.”
• “Add a testimonials section below this section.”
• “Add a Contact page.”
• “Rewrite this to sound more confident.”
• “Translate this section into Spanish.”
• “Give me three title options for this page.”
• “Generate an image of a croissant for this blog post.”

Media Library

Create and edit images directly in your Media Library. The AI assistant helps you generate new visuals or make targeted edits to existing images, so your media stays consistent with your site’s look and brand. You can specify aspect ratios and image styles to have even more control over the final look.

This feature uses the latest Nano Banana models, bringing you added value without needing other subscriptions.

In your Media Library, click the “Generate Image” button. You can ask the assistant things like:

• “Generate an image of a calico cat reading a book.”
• “Update this image to be black and white.”
• “Replace this stack of pancakes with a stack of waffles.”

Block notes

The block notes feature introduced in WordPress 6.9 lets you collaborate with teammates directly in the editor. The WordPress AI Assistant extends that same workflow with AI: ask questions in block notes and get answers with your content as context, including relevant links and info from external sources:

• “@ai Please fact-check this block.”
• “@ai Give me headline ideas for this article”
• “@ai Suggest examples to strengthen this paragraph”

The WordPress AI Assistant works right inside WordPress, so you get help exactly where you’re building, writing, and editing.

How to enable the WordPress AI Assistant

You can opt-in in just a few clicks:

1. Log in to your WordPress.com account and go to your Sites list.
2. Click your site name, and then click Settings. 
3. Scroll down and click the “AI tools” setting.
4. Click the toggle to enable the setting.

Alternatively, if you purchase a site built with our AI website builder, the AI assistant will be enabled automatically, regardless of which plan you choose.

Note that the AI assistant works best with block themes. If you’re using a classic theme, the AI assistant won’t appear in the editor. However, you can still generate and edit AI images in the Media Library.

Get started today

Most tools stop after generating a site. Others give you a single chat box isolated from your workflow or one-off code you need to know what to do with.

The WordPress AI Assistant works inside your actual site, helping adjust blocks, shape layouts, write content, and guide decisions.

This is WordPress, now with intelligence built in — ready to help you create, design, and grow faster than ever. And just one of the many ways WordPress.com users will be empowered by AI this year.

The good news? Your WordPress site can show up in both traditional Google results and AI-generated answers with a few practical tweaks.

In fact, most of what AI systems need already exists in WordPress — if you structure and use it properly.

This guide shows you how to optimize your WordPress site for AI search with nine simple steps.

1. Write answer-first content with a clear structure

Start each section with the main point, then add supporting details when creating content for your website. 

AI systems extract information by scanning for direct answers and clear patterns. When you lead with the answer and use structured formatting, AI can quickly identify, extract, and cite your content.

Here’s an example of this answer-first approach: a question-based heading followed by a paragraph that starts with the most relevant details, then adds more context later.

How to do it in WordPress

• Start each page with a direct answer, definition, or takeaway.

• Use Heading, List, Table, and Quote blocks to break content into scannable sections.

• Match your first sentence to your heading. If the heading asks “What is matcha?”, start with “Matcha is…”.

• Keep paragraphs short (2–3 sentences) so AI can extract key points without wading through walls of text.

• Place the most important information in the first 100 words of each page.

2. Organize content into topical clusters and key category pages

Group related content into clear topic areas to demonstrate authority, and explicitly name the people, brands, tools, and concepts you’re discussing.

Entities are the specific elements AI systems look for to understand meaning and context, such as “Monday.com” as a product, “remote teams” as a concept, or “integrations” as a feature category. 

When you organize website content around these entities and use consistent terminology, AI can map relationships between topics and understand your expertise.

Source: Ninja Promo

How to do it in WordPress

• Identify related content around major themes (3–6 is a good start) that your brand owns. For example, a lifestyle blogger might organize their content into clusters such as wellness and self-care, home and organization, work–life balance, personal finance basics, travel, and everyday routines.

• Group related posts and pages into category pages. Here’s what that looks like on the WordPress.com blog: 

• Define each category and add descriptions (e.g., “Here we share practical advice and step-by-step guidance on personal finance”).

• Link category hub pages from your main navigation, and interlink posts within each cluster using clear, entity-focused anchor text (the specific words associated with the hyperlink).

• Use the Query Loop block to automatically show related posts and pages on your hub pages.

3. Add schema to formalize entities and relationships

Add schema markup (structured data) — code that labels what type of content you’re publishing — to tell search engines and AI systems exactly what your pages are about.

For example, you can mark a page as a recipe, product review, or local business listing.

Schema isn’t a magic bullet (few things in SEO/GEO are), but it can help AI better understand your WordPress site and pages. 

For example, a recent Semrush study found a correlation between schema use and AI citations, likely because schema adds context and credibility that AI systems can analyze.

How to do it in WordPress

• Identify the correct schema type for each page (Article, FAQ, Product, Review, LocalBusiness).

• Connect content to authors and organizations using Person and Organization schema.

• Use an SEO WordPress plugin to apply schema without custom code. Some of the best WordPress plugins that offer this feature include All in One SEO, Schema & Structured Data for WP, Yoast SEO, and Rank Math SEO.

4. Add FAQs and structured sections AI can quote

Add FAQ sections with clear question-and-answer pairs that AI systems can easily extract and quote.

FAQs work well for AI search because they mirror how people ask questions conversationally. They also let you control how your answers are framed and presented.

For example, you can use FAQs to communicate your brand positioning in a structured way, such as in this article about picking a cloud GPU provider:

How to do it in WordPress

• Write one clear question followed by one focused answer.

• Start each answer with the main point, then add details.

• Keep answers helpful, not salesy, especially for neutral questions like “What is X?”.

• Place FAQs at the end of your content or where readers make decisions.

• Use the Accordion block to organize FAQs neatly:
  

• For larger help centers, such as software documentation, try the BetterDocs plugin.

5. Make authorship, experience, and E-E-A-T signals explicit

Add author information, credentials, and original thoughts to your website content so readers and AI tools know who wrote it and why they’re credible.

When you clearly show practical experience and expertise — what Google calls E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) — both search engines and AI tools are more likely to trust and cite your content.

For example, DigitalOcean published original research testing AI detector accuracy on its company blog. It became one of the company’s top traffic drivers and eventually earned a citation from Cornell University.

How to do it in WordPress

• Use the Authors Widget to display the post author’s name on your blog.

• Link author names to detailed author pages showcasing their background.

For example, iFixit — an e-commerce and how-to site — extensively highlights the expertise of its writers:

This helps users trust the site when getting tips on fixing their electronics and sends positive signals to AI search engines.

• Interview subject matter experts and weave in their insights to support E-E-A-T and add uniqueness.

• Conduct original research and include up-to-date statistics to demonstrate credibility and substantiate claims. 

6. Strengthen site-level trust

Create clear, comprehensive About and Contact pages so visitors and AI systems can verify that you’re legitimate.

AI doesn’t just evaluate individual posts — it looks at your entire WordPress site to determine if you’re a trustworthy source. 

Websites with transparent information about who runs them, how to reach them, and what they stand for earn more trust from both readers and search engines.

Here’s another great example of the About Us page from iFixit:

How to do it in WordPress

• Create a clear About page explaining who you are, what you do, and who you serve.

• Use Organization schema (via an SEO plugin such as AIOSEO) to formally tell search engines your business name, location, and what you do.

• Add a dedicated Contact page with real, verifiable business details.

• Surface About and Contact pages in site-wide navigation, such as in the footer and header.

Pro tip: Your WordPress site’s trustworthiness also stems from external signals. To prove to AI search engines and Google that you’re credible, you need mentions and backlinks from outside sources, such as guest posts, media coverage, content creators, partners, and community platforms like Reddit.

7. Reinforce local and business credibility 

If you run a local business, add location details, business hours, and customer reviews to show you’re a real, legitimate company.

Local business information strengthens trust for both physical storefronts and service-based businesses. 

When AI search tools see consistent contact details, genuine reviews, and clear location data, they’re more confident mentioning your brand.

For example, here’s how Cha Cha Matcha showcases its address and other details on its website:

How to do it in WordPress

• Keep your business name, address, and phone number consistent across your site and Google Business Profile.

• Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile with accurate hours, photos, and services.

• Implement LocalBusiness schema via the AIOSEO plugin.

• Display customer reviews and testimonials using the Testimonial block and the Google Business Reviews and Rating plugin.

• Embed a map on your Contact or Location page.

8. Make sure search engines can access and crawl your site

Remove technical barriers so search engines and AI tools can find and index your content.

For example, if your site blocks crawlers, loads slowly, or isn’t indexed, even great content stays invisible. 

Reliable WordPress hosting solves most of these issues automatically by maintaining site speed, enforcing HTTPS, and ensuring reliable uptime.

Tip: For the best foundation, invest in a WordPress host that prioritizes performance and security. Managed WordPress hosting on WordPress.com includes caching, automated software updates, security, and performance optimization.

How to do it in WordPress

• Enable indexing in Settings → Reading. This tells search engines they’re allowed to find and list your site in search results.

• Configure robots.txt correctly using a plugin such as AIOSEO. This file tells bots which parts of your site to crawl and which to skip, such as admin pages.

• Submit an XML sitemap via your SEO plugin. This file lists all your important pages, making it easier for search engines to find them. For WordPress.com users, sitemaps are activated by default.

• Ensure HTTPS is active by looking for the padlock icon in your browser’s address bar. This shows your site is secure, which search engines and AI systems require before indexing your content.

• Optimize site speed and uptime by compressing images, using caching, and choosing lightweight themes. 

Tip: AI search relies on standard indexing, so avoid blocking AI bots unless the content is proprietary, paywalled, or sensitive. You can use the Block AI Crawlers plugin or Better Robots TXT plugin if needed.

9. Use visuals as explanatory assets

Add images, diagrams, and screenshots that help readers understand your content, not just decorative stock photos.

Clear, explanatory visuals make complex topics easier to grasp. AI systems are also moving toward multimodal search, meaning they’ll increasingly interpret visual content directly.

For example, this article on how to use Google Colab for non-developers includes step-by-step screenshots that walk readers through the entire process:

How to do it in WordPress

• Use descriptive file names and alt text. For example, name your file “wordpress-dashboard-settings.jpg” instead of “IMG_1234.jpg,” and write alt text that describes what the image shows for search engines and screen readers.

• Add captions to provide additional context for readers.

• Reference visuals in your text. Don’t just drop in an image — mention it (for example, “as shown in the screenshot below”).

• Use Image, Gallery, and Table blocks to add diagrams, screenshots, and process flows.

• Organize assets in the Media Library so you can reuse images across multiple posts.

Pro tip: Guide AI search tools to your most important content.

An llms.txt file is an experimental way to tell AI tools which pages on your site matter most, such as your best guides, category hubs, and About page.

This isn’t a requirement, and AI systems aren’t obligated to follow it. Think of it like the early days of robots.txt — a suggestion, not a control mechanism. 

Here’s how to do it in WordPress:

• Create an llms.txt file using the Website llms.txt plugin.
• List your most important URLs, such as key guides, category pages, and your About page.

Stay visible in modern search with WordPress.com

We explored the core steps to make your WordPress site visible in AI search: clear structure, credible authorship, organized content, and strong technical foundations.

Start with steps 1–5, then expand as you grow. The sooner you adapt to AI-driven search, the stronger your long-term visibility will be.

You don’t need a new strategy — just a more intentional approach. When your expertise is clear and your site is technically sound, AI systems can better understand and surface your content.

WordPress.com further supports this with secure managed hosting and publishing tools built for performance and reliability.

Today, we’re releasing new Skills and a Claude Cowork plugin designed for vibe coders and anyone who wants to create WordPress themes, generate sites, and experiment with AI-assisted development. You’ll find that you don’t need to be technical at all.

These tools are in rapid development and changing constantly, but we wanted to get them into your hands now. 

We believe this is where site building is headed.

WordPress site creator plugin for Claude Cowork

This new Claude Cowork plugin turns a conversation with Claude into a fully built WordPress site. Describe what you want, and it creates a complete block theme and deploys it to a local site running in WordPress Studio.

For example:

/create-site A website for my fitness coaching business. I help busy professionals get strong without living at the gym. I want to book discovery calls and share workout tips.

Claude kicks off by asking you about your site and then provides multiple design options. Iterate until you are happy, and then a few minutes later, you have a full WordPress block theme.

WordPress Studio provides you with a preview link you can send to anyone, and it also allows you to easily sync your completed site with WordPress.com.

How to get started with the plugin

There are two parts to set up: WordPress Studio (which runs your site locally) and the Cowork plugin (which generates the theme). The whole process takes about 10 minutes.

First, download and install WordPress Studio (macOS only for now). Open Studio, go to Settings → Preferences, and click “Enable the studio command in the terminal.” 

Then open your terminal and run:

studio --version

This confirms it’s working.

Next, connect Studio to Claude Desktop so Claude can create and manage your local WordPress sites. 

In Claude Desktop, go to Settings → Developer → Edit Config, and add the following to your configuration file:

{
"mcpServers": {
"wordpress-studio-mcp-server": {
"command": "node",
"args": [
"/ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/wordpress-studio-mcp-server/dist/index.js"
]
}
}
}

From here, replace /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/ with the actual path where you cloned the wordpress-agent-skills repo on your computer. For example:

/Users/yourname/projects/wordpress-agent-skills/studio-mcp/dist/index.js

Quit Claude Desktop and reopen it.

Finally, install the Cowork plugin. In Cowork, open the plugins menu at the bottom of the left sidebar, select Add to marketplace from GitHub, and paste:

https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-agent-skills

Install the Create WP Site plugin.

That’s it.

Run the /create-site command in Cowork (or select it from the plugins menu) and describe the site you want to build.

*Note: This is a developer preview. Things will break, and results will vary. That’s expected — we’re sharing it early because we want your feedback. If you run into issues, file them on GitHub. 

Skills that power it

Alongside the plugin, we’re sharing the Skills that make it work. Skills are reusable instruction sets that teach AI assistants how to perform specific tasks — think of them as the next evolution of prompts.

We have skills for:

• Site Specification, collecting important context and info about the site being created
• Site Design, creating multiple design options and helping with fonts, colors, and style
• WordPress Theme Creation, sticking to best practices to generate a working block theme

The best part is you can use these Skills just about anywhere, including ChatGPT, Codex, or your favorite vibe coding tool.

These Skills are in active development and changing weekly. But they’re already producing themes worth shipping, and we expect results to only improve.

Build with us

We’re in a significant period of change. There’s uncertainty. But there’s also opportunity, especially for site builders willing to experiment.

Try the new tools. Break them. Tell us what’s missing. Help us make them better.

We have the hosting solutions to make it easy to take your AI-created sites and share them with the world.

And watch this space. Claude Cowork is just the start; we want to help you build WordPress sites with your AI agent of choice. 

This guide shows you how to set up Claude Code and WordPress Studio to create working plugins with text prompts.

Claude Code is Anthropic’s AI coding assistant. WordPress Studio is a free local WordPress environment. Together, they let you go from idea to a working plugin in minutes — no deep coding knowledge required.

This walkthrough covers the complete setup and shows you how to build your first plugin.

1. Install Claude Code

Head to Claude Code and sign up for an account — you can choose any paid plan available. 

Run the native installer from the setup page and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

The installation runs for a minute or two. When it finishes, Claude Code is ready to use.

2. Install WordPress Studio

Download WordPress Studio — it’s completely free and works on both Mac and Windows.

Install it, then create a new site. Give it any name you want — e.g., “My WordPress Website” works fine.

Because Studio runs locally on your computer, everything you build stays safely contained on your machine — so you can experiment with AI-generated plugins without risking a live website.

3. Start Claude Code

Using the Open in… options on the Overview tab in Studio, click Terminal. This will open a terminal window at your project file’s location.

Then, type claude. If it’s your first time, you’ll be prompted to log in to your Claude account and confirm that you trust the files in this folder.

Click Enter/Return on your keyboard to trust the folder, and you’ll see the welcome message.

4. Build your first plugin

In the Claude terminal, describe what you want. Give it some context about where you are and what you need. For example:

“We are in the root of the WordPress site folder. I want a simple plugin that prints out ‘Hello [Your Name]’ in the admin of the site.”

From here, Claude will ask some follow-up questions, create a plugin folder, and generate the complete plugin file with proper WordPress structure.

5. Activate and test

Go back to WordPress Studio and open your WordPress admin. Navigate to Plugins, find your new plugin, and activate it.

If the plugin works correctly, your custom message will appear at the top of the admin area — in our case, “Hello Nick” shows up as an admin notice. 

If you haven’t changed your name, you may see it say “Hello admin.” Simply go to your Users list and change the name of your default user.

This is the simplest plugin possible, but it shows how fast you can build with Claude and WordPress.

6. Keep building

From here, you can add more features. 

Go back to the Terminal in your editor and ask Claude to add new functionality — settings pages, custom blocks, whatever you need.

As with any AI tool, experimenting with prompting will help you achieve better results:

• Give Claude context about where you are in the file structure
• Be specific about what you want the feature to do
• Break complex features into smaller steps
• Ask Claude to explain the generated code if something doesn’t make sense

Bonus tip: Telex — an alternative for WordPress blocks

Telex is another unique tool that helps you generate WordPress blocks with AI — and it’s completely free to use.

Just describe what WordPress block you want, and Telex builds it with a live preview in WordPress Playground.

Test it, refine it with follow-up prompts, then download it as a plugin and install it on your WordPress site.

You’re ready to build with AI

You now have an AI-powered setup for building plugins for your WordPress site.

• Describe the plugin you want to build, and watch Claude generate working code inside your WordPress Studio site.
• Experiment with Telex to create entire WordPress blocks.
• Keep experimenting and trying new things.

Start simple, then tackle more complex projects as you get comfortable.

And if you build something fun, share it in the comments — we’d love to see what you make.

WordPress hosting is often the better choice if your site runs on WordPress, while general web hosting makes more sense if you plan to use other platforms or need a more open setup. 

In this guide, we compare WordPress hosting with general web hosting and explain when each option makes sense based on your skills, needs, and budget.

WordPress hosting vs web hosting: What’s the difference?

The main difference is that WordPress hosting is optimized for WordPress with minimal setup, while general web hosting is more flexible, supports multiple platforms, and requires more manual configuration.

Here’s how they compare:

What is general web hosting? A simple explanation

General web hosting is a service that lets you set up any kind of website by storing your files on an online server where web browsers can find them. 

It offers flexibility to build with WordPress or other software, but it requires hands-on setup, website maintenance, updates, and security.

You can choose from different hosting types based on how server resources are allocated:

• Shared hosting: Your site shares a server and resources with other websites, which keeps costs low but can impact speed and performance.
• Virtual private server (VPS): You get your own section of a shared server with dedicated (though limited) resources, which gives you better performance and customization.
• Dedicated hosting: You get a dedicated server with full resources and better performance, but at a higher cost.
• Cloud hosting: Your site runs on a network of servers that scales computing power up or down as needed, with costs based on actual usage.

What is WordPress hosting? And how is it different?

With WordPress-specific hosting, everything from the server hardware to the software and features is designed precisely for WordPress.

You get the same server options as with general web hosting — shared, VPS, dedicated, and cloud — but they’re specific to WordPress.

With WordPress hosting, typically you can:

• Use a server setup designed for the WordPress platform.
• Have one-click or automatic WordPress installation.
• Take advantage of built-in performance optimizations, such as caching.
• Feel confident in security features, like backups and malware scans.
• Experience support from WordPress experts.
• Utilize custom website management panels.
• Enjoy additional features, such as premium themes, plugins, and developer tools.

You can also go a step further with managed WordPress hosting, where the provider takes care of setup, updates, security, and ongoing maintenance for you.

Tip: Since WordPress can run on almost any server, many providers label their plans as “WordPress hosting” without actually optimizing them. It’s worth checking which WordPress-specific features are really included — or choosing a trusted hosting provider like WordPress.com instead.

WordPress hosting vs general web hosting: What are their pros and cons?

WordPress hosting makes running a WordPress site easier. General web hosting might give you more freedom and lower costs, but you have to handle more of the setup and maintenance yourself.

WordPress hosting: Pros and cons

WordPress hosting is a strong fit if you want speed, security, and less day-to-day work, but it’s not ideal if you plan to run anything beyond WordPress.

Pros

• Less to worry about day to day: Hosting is set up to “just work” with WordPress.
• Fewer technical decisions: Performance, security, and updates are handled for you.
• Faster time to launch: You can get a site live without touching server settings.

Cons

• WordPress-only focus: It’s best suited for sites that run entirely on WordPress.
• Often priced higher than basic hosting: You’re paying for convenience and optimization.

Regular web hosting: Pros and cons

Standard web hosting is a better fit if you want to run multiple platforms or manage your server configuration yourself.

Pros

• More control over your setup: You choose your software, stack, and server configuration.
• Broader flexibility: You can run any type of site, not just WordPress.
• Often cheaper than specialized hosting: Fewer bundled features can mean lower entry costs.

Cons

• More to manage day to day: Setup, updates, security, and maintenance are your responsibility.
• Less platform-specific optimization: Performance and security aren’t specific to WordPress by default.
• General support only: Help is usually limited to server issues, not application-level problems.

WordPress hosting vs general web hosting: Which should you choose?

If you plan to stick with WordPress and don’t want to deal with technical setup, WordPress hosting makes more sense. If you want to use other platforms or keep your setup more open, general web hosting is the better fit.

If you’re just getting started, choosing the simpler option now can save you time and effort early on. For example, with managed WordPress hosting on WordPress.com: 

• Get a ready-to-run WordPress site.
• Enjoy 99.999% uptime and reliable performance.
• Experience no limits as your traffic grows.
• Have a free domain for the first year.
• Take advantage of expert WordPress support.
• Trust in enterprise-grade security.

Whether you share knowledge, create content, or offer services, this course walks you through practical, beginner-friendly ways to get paid. No traditional eCommerce setup required.

The course is fully self-paced, so you can dip into individual lessons as needed or follow along from start to finish at your own pace.

What you’ll learn

Across a series of practical lessons, you’ll learn how to:

• Understand your monetization options — explore the different ways WordPress.com lets you earn, and choose approaches that fit your goals and audience.
  
• Accept payments with confidence — set up simple payments for products, services, or donations without building a full store.
  
• Offer paid content and subscriptions — use memberships and subscriber-only content to monetize your expertise.
  
• Create value people will pay for — package your knowledge, content, or services in a way that feels natural and worthwhile to your audience.
  
• Set realistic expectations — understand how monetization grows over time and how to avoid common pitfalls.
  
• Build a sustainable approach—choose tools and strategies that can evolve with your site and audience.
  

Why you should take this course

If you’re already creating something valuable, this course helps you take the next step in a way that fits your site. 

You’ll learn what’s possible on WordPress.com and get practical steps you can use right away, without setting up a full commerce store or reworking your site.

More video resources to explore

If you’re new to WordPress.com or ready to keep leveling up, check out our other popular courses and video tutorials:

• Grow your website’s audience 
• Intro to SEO course
• Create a Website course
• Start a Blog course

We pulled real usage data from WordPress.com sites to see which plugins people rely on, and we selected the ones that address core website needs. Then, I personally tested each plugin and looked at user reviews.

This guide covers the most essential WordPress plugins. These are helpful if you’re launching your first WordPress site, filling gaps in your current setup, or something in between:

1. Jetpack: For all-in-one site management
2. Akismet: For spam protection
3. Page Optimize: For site speed
4. Crowdsignal Forms: For user feedback
5. WooCommerce: For e-commerce
6. Gravatar Enhanced: For user profiles
7. Yoast SEO: For search engine rankings
8. Google Site Kit: For analytics
9. WPForms Lite: For building forms
10. MailPoet: For emails and newsletters
11. Imagify: For image optimization
12. All-in-One WP Migration: For site migration

Let’s explore each of them in detail.

1. Jetpack: Essential all-in-one site management 

• Key focus: Use it for ongoing site security and maintenance.
• Price: The core features are free on all WordPress.com plans, with advanced features available on Business and above.
• Best for: Website owners who want a full solution for security, speed, growth, content, and more are the ideal users.

The Jetpack plugin is a comprehensive suite of tools that help launch and grow your WordPress site, which essentially replaces five or six separate plugins. 

Instead of installing separate tools for backups, security, speed, and analytics, you get everything in a single dashboard. 

I like that the essential features activate with one click — no digging through settings:

Unlike smaller plugins that can go months without updates, Jetpack is actively maintained.

You’re not left dealing with compatibility issues or security gaps when WordPress releases new versions.

Key features

• Security: It provides brute force attack protection and spam filtering on all plans, real-time backups, one-click restores, malware scanning, and WAF on Business and above.
• Performance: It offers image CDN, video hosting, and custom site search.
• Growth: It includes site stats, SEO tools with automatic XML sitemap, and social auto-posting.
• Content: It comes equipped with an AI writing assistant, forms, payment buttons, and newsletter signups.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

If you’re new to WordPress or just don’t want to spend hours researching plugins, Jetpack covers the basics in one install — security, speed, stats, and content tools. 

You can always add specialized plugins later, but Jetpack gives you a solid foundation to start.

2. Akismet: Essential for spam protection

• Key focus: Keep spam, ads, and inappropriate content out of your comment sections.
• Price: It’s free, included for all WordPress.com users.
• Best for: It’s ideal for sites that allow comments, user-generated content, and/or submissions.

Akismet filters out over 99.99% of spam comments, form submissions, and texts, keeping your site and inbox clean. 

The best part of Akismet is that you probably won’t even notice it’s there. 

Occasionally, I review blocked comments, but I find it to be so good at its job that I do it more out of curiosity than necessity. 

Tip: Akismet is included in Jetpack Security, so if you’re a WordPress.com user on any plan, Akismet is already installed on your site. 

Key features

• AI-driven filtering: Akismet uses machine learning to determine which comments are spam and blocks them before they appear on your site.
• Analytics: The plugin tracks the total number of spam comments it has filtered and its accuracy in your admin dashboard.
• Customizable settings: Akismet can automatically filter and delete comments (this is the setting I use) or hide questionable comments until you review and approve them.
• GDPR compliance: If you have European visitors, cover your bases with Akismet’s GDPR notice on your comment sections.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

If your site allows comments or form submissions, spam is inevitable. 

Akismet handles it in the background, so you don’t have to manually filter through junk — or worse, let it pile up and make your site look neglected.

3. Page Optimize: Essential for site speed

• Key focus: Keep your site’s code optimized for blazing fast speeds.
• Price: It’s free, included for all WordPress.com users.
• Best for: It’s ideal for non-developers who want to automatically clean up their site code and theme for optimal performance.

Page Optimize speeds up your website by removing unnecessary site code to reduce processing time. 

It also optimizes which elements of your site are processed first, so users never see a blank screen.

My years of working with web developers taught me that not all code is created equal. There are many routes to the same destination, but some are more efficient than others. 

With third-party themes and plugins adding extra weight, Page Optimize helps keep things clean on the backend.

Key features

• Concatenate HTML and CSS: Page Optimize strings together all of your site’s code, removing comments and unnecessary spaces for quicker processing.
• Execution timing: It also adjusts the timing of non-critical JavaScripts to either run asynchronously or at a delay.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Page Optimize removes unnecessary code and optimizes script timing so your pages load faster — and since it’s built into WordPress.com, there’s no setup or configuration required.

Site speed matters more than most people realize: visitors bounce when pages take too long, and search engines factor load time into rankings. 

A faster site means better engagement, lower bounce rates, and more visibility in search results.

4. Crowdsignal Forms: Essential for user feedback

• Key focus: Embedded and pop-up user polls are the focus.
• Price: It’s free for up to 2,500 signals, and then it’s $15–$45/month.
• Best for: Get ongoing customer feedback or improve site engagement with polls.

Crowdsignal Forms is a WordPress plugin that lets you add custom polls to individual pages or as pop-ups on your website.

Polls are one of the easiest ways to boost engagement — readers can respond to your content with a single click and see how others voted. 

They’re also great for collecting feedback. Unlike emails or comment boxes (where you mostly hear from unhappy people), quick polls have low friction, which means higher response rates.

For example, a recipe website could create pop-ups with simple questions like “What’s your favorite meal?” to gain real insight into its audience. 

Key features

• Polls: Crowdsignal Forms lets you add multi-select and single-select polls using the Poll block.
• Customization: You can also customize your poll to match your site colors and styling for a cohesive look.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Crowdsignal Forms helps boost user engagement, which is a vital element of successful websites. 

This plugin is a low-lift way to make your site visitors feel like their opinions are valued.

It can also provide critical information about visitors that might not be available through traditional analytics tools.  

5. WooCommerce: Essential for e-commerce stores

• Key focus: Create and sell products on your WordPress website.
• Price: Use this tool for free.
• Best for: E-commerce stores, small businesses, and websites that want to sell custom merch will find it most helpful.

WooCommerce lets you turn your WordPress site into a full online store — product pages, a shopping cart, checkout, and other essentials.

And unlike selling on marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon, you don’t pay a built-in marketplace commission on each sale — though standard payment processing fees still apply.

The setup walks you through the basics, and there’s a massive ecosystem of extensions if you need extras like subscriptions, bookings, or gift cards.

Key features

• Product management: Create listings with images, pricing, categories, stock levels, variations, and custom configurations.
• Built-in shopping cart: Customers can browse, add items to cart, and check out — all without extra plugins.
• Guided setup: A step-by-step onboarding flow gets your store running in minutes.
• Massive extension ecosystem: Hundreds of add-ons are available for subscriptions, bookings, gift cards, shipping integrations, and more.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

If you want to sell online with WordPress, WooCommerce is the standard. It’s open-source, so you own your store and data — and with thousands of extensions available, you can add pretty much any feature you need as your business grows.

6. Gravatar Enhanced: Essential for user profiles

• Key focus: It creates clickable profiles for WordPress users.
• Price: It’s free, included for all WordPress.com users.
• Best for: It’s ideal for websites with multiple contributors or large, active digital communities.

Gravatar Enhanced humanizes WordPress writers and commenters with customizable and clickable profiles.   

If you write for a larger blog with multiple authors (like I do here at WordPress), your Gravatar will show up alongside your posts. 

Gravatars are also used for commenting in forums and on your blog posts in the WordPress reader. 

Key features

• Custom avatars: Users can upload a custom image, add a public display name and bio, and more.
• Profile blocks: The plugin lets you add profile sections to posts and pages to showcase author information, including bio, social links, and recent posts.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Gravatar Enhanced puts a face and bio behind every comment and post, which helps build trust and a sense of community on your site.

7. Yoast SEO: Essential for Search Engine Rankings

• Key focus: Optimize your website to improve search engine readability and rankings.
• Price: Use the standard option for free, and pay $99/year for Premium.
• Best for: Use this if you’re a website owner who wants better visibility in search results for organic traffic.

Yoast SEO optimizes your website’s content and structure to improve search engine rankings.

Some of this happens automatically — like generating XML sitemaps and adding schema markup so that search engines understand your content. 

Other features work in real time as you write: Yoast flags missing meta descriptions, analyzes keyword usage, checks readability, and suggests improvements before you hit publish.

If you’re new to SEO, it’s a practical way to learn about what matters without getting lost in technical details.

Key features

• Automatic structured data and sitemaps: Yoast generates XML sitemaps and adds schema markup behind the scenes, so search engines can crawl and understand your content without you touching any code.
• Real-time SEO feedback: As you write, Yoast flags missing meta descriptions, grades your keyword usage, and suggests improvements.
• Readability analysis: Get real-time suggestions to simplify your writing, improve flow, and keep readers engaged.

Tip: If you don’t want a separate SEO plugin, WordPress.com includes built-in SEO features powered by Jetpack — including SEO titles and descriptions, sitemaps, social previews, and AI writing assistance.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Search is still one of the main ways people discover new websites. If your content isn’t optimized, you’re missing out on traffic. 

Yoast gives you clear, actionable feedback on every page — so you can improve your rankings without needing to become an SEO expert.

8. Google Site Kit: Essential for analytics

• Key focus: Add Google’s comprehensive site analytics to your WordPress dashboard.
• Price: Use it for free.
• Best for: Try it if you’re a website owner who wants to track key metrics like site visitors and engagement inside WordPress.

Google Site Kit is the official WordPress plugin from Google that brings multiple Google tools into one dashboard.

Instead of logging into separate accounts for Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and AdSense, you can see everything in one place — right inside WordPress.

You can track how people find your site through Google Search, which pages get the most traffic, how fast your pages load, and how much you’re earning from ads. 

If you’re not a data person, don’t worry — the dashboards focus on the metrics that actually matter without overwhelming you with charts you’ll never use.

Key features

• One-click Google setup: Connect Google Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and AdSense to your WordPress site.
• Unified dashboard: See traffic, search performance, page speed, and ad earnings in one place — no need to jump between Google accounts.
• Built into WordPress: Access all your data directly from your WordPress dashboard, right where you’re already working.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Understanding your audience and site performance is critical for growing your website. Without this data, it’s hard to know what’s working and what isn’t.

Tip: If you don’t need the full Google toolkit, WordPress.com includes Jetpack Stats on all plans — a simpler way to track visitors, top content, and traffic sources without connecting external accounts.

9. WPForms Lite: Essential for building forms

• Key focus: Create no-code contact forms, surveys, and lead capture forms.
• Price: Use it for free, but for advanced features, upgrade to WPForms Pro, which starts at $50/year.
• Plugin rating: 4.8/5
• Best for: It’s ideal for structured data collection, like potential customer info, surveys, special event forms, and more.

WPForms Lite is a beginner-friendly form builder that lets you add professional-looking forms to your site in minutes.

Forms are useful when you need specific information from visitors, like contact details from potential customers, project specs from partners, or applications for review.

Instead of messy back-and-forth emails, you get structured submissions with the fields you need — and since forms send to your inbox without exposing your email address, you avoid spam and scraping.

Key features

• Drag-and-drop form builder: Create forms by simply dragging fields onto your form canvas — no coding required.
• Templates: Start with pre-built form templates for common use cases like contact forms, newsletter signups, and feedback surveys.
• Spam protection: Built-in anti-spam features keep junk responses out of your inbox.
• Mobile-friendly: Forms automatically adjust to look great on mobile devices.
• Email notifications: Receive instant notifications in your inbox when you have a new form submission.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Every website needs a way for visitors to get in touch. Forms let you control that process — you decide what information to collect, and submissions arrive organized and ready to act on. 

10. MailPoet: Essential for sending emails and newsletters

• Key focus: Use for email marketing and newsletter management.
• Price: It’s free for up to 500 contacts, with paid plans starting at $10/mo.
• Best for: Use it for sending regular email communications to customers and subscribers.

MailPoet is an email marketing platform built into WordPress. You can send newsletters, one-off campaigns, or automated emails — all without leaving your dashboard.

Because it lives inside WordPress, there’s no need to sync contacts or set up integrations with external tools. Your subscriber data and site activity are already connected.

This WordPress plugin also includes signup forms, pop-ups, subscription blocks, and automated workflows that are all drag-and-drop, with no code required.

Key features

• Drag and drop email builder: Design emails, forms, popups, and more with drag and drop tools inside WordPress.
• Newsletter subscription: You can create a pop-up subscription block or banner to encourage new subscribers. Subscribers will be automatically added to the newsletter segment.
• Automated emails: The plugin also lets you send emails automatically when readers complete specific WordPress actions, like signing up for your newsletter or purchasing an item from your store.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Email is still one of the most direct ways to reach your audience. Regular newsletters keep your site top of mind and bring readers back, turning one-time visitors into loyal followers.

11. Imagify: Essential for image optimization

• Key focus: Automatically resize and compress images for quick website loading.
• Price: Use up to 20MB/month (~200 images) for free; paid plans are available for higher volumes — up to $10/month.
• Best for: Use for sites with photo galleries, product images, or lots of visual content.

Imagify automatically compresses and optimizes images, dramatically reducing page load times. High-resolution images can significantly slow down your site, but Imagify works in the background to shrink file sizes while keeping images sharp. 

I especially appreciate that it can retroactively bulk optimize existing images — you don’t need to manually compress or re-upload every photo you’ve already added to your site library.

Key features

• Bulk image optimization: The plugin compresses all existing images on your site with one click and automatically optimizes new uploads.
• Format conversion: It lets you automatically convert images to WebP format for even faster loading.
• Smart compression: You can choose from three compression levels (Normal, Aggressive, and Ultra) based on your images and quality needs. Imagify uses intelligent algorithms to reduce file size without visibly reducing image quality.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Oversized images are one of the main culprits for slow sites and one of the easiest things to fix. Imagify handles it automatically.

12. All-in-One WP Migration: Essential for site migration

• Key focus: Use for site migration and backups.
• Price: Use it for free (with size limits); paid extensions are available for larger sites, cloud storage, and automated backups.
• Best for: Use it to move your WordPress website from one hosting provider to another.

All-In-One WP Migration creates complete site backups that you can export and import with a single click, making it simple to move your entire WordPress site between hosts or keep a backup on hand.

I’ve used this plugin multiple times to move my personal website and client websites between hosting providers.

In addition to your site design, All-In-One WP Migration exports databases, downloads media files, and recreates admin settings automatically in the same file, making migration seamless. 

Key features

• Single-click migration: You can export your entire site (database, media files, plugins, themes) as one file, and then import it to a new host with one click.
• Backups: It also lets you create full site snapshots before making major changes or updates.

What makes this WordPress plugin essential

Having a full site backup is critical if you want to change hosting providers or make significant changes to your site. With one click, you can save and re-upload your site design, content, and data. 

Bonus: The 11 most popular WordPress plugins

In addition to the essential plugins listed above, we’ve compiled the most downloaded (and beloved) plugins on the WordPress.com Plugin Marketplace — removing any popular plugins that come pre-installed for our users.

Explore this list for further inspiration:

1. Elementor: Design more flexible, free-form drag-and-drop pages with advanced styling options that go beyond Gutenberg’s base capabilities.
2. AMP: Optimize your website pages and design for mobile and alternative screen sizes to improve mobile user experience and search rankings.
3. WooPayments: Accept a variety of payment types in your WooCommerce store, including credit cards and Apple/Google Pay.
4. Contact Form 7: Create lightweight forms with HTML and text editing for users who are comfortable with basic markup.
5. Google Site Kit: Track comprehensive analytics from Google services directly in your WordPress dashboard.
6. Classic Editor: Disable the visual Gutenberg Editor and re-enable the Classic site editor, for those who prefer the traditional WordPress editing experience.
7. WP Forms Lite: Create flexible website forms with a drag-and-drop editor and collect information from site visitors.
8. Insert headers and footers: Add custom code snippets in your header and footer sections without editing theme files.
9. Google Analytics for WooCommerce: Connect your WooCommerce store to Google Analytics to track e-commerce performance and customer behavior.
10. WooCommerce product add-ons: Create product add-ons, like gift wrapping, personalization options, or extended warranties, for products in your WooCommerce store.
11. Google for WooCommerce: Sync your WooCommerce products to Google Merchant Center and run Google Ads campaigns directly from WordPress.

How to choose the right WordPress plugin

To select the best WordPress plugins, start with what your site actually needs, use what’s already built in, and be selective. 

The right plugins solve specific problems without adding risk or complexity.

1. Determine your site’s goals: Before installing anything, be clear on what your site needs to do. Are you collecting leads, selling products, or building a community? Your goals should determine which plugins you install — not the other way around.
2. Check your website’s out-of-the-box functionality: Many hosting providers include built-in features or preinstalled plugins. For example, WordPress.com users get Jetpack features for security, performance, and content by default, so you may not need additional plugins for that. Higher plans include even more functionality.

3. Vet plugins before installing: Any developer can publish a WordPress plugin, so take a minute to evaluate it. Check user ratings, recent updates, which WordPress version the plugin is compatible with, and the available support. Plugins that aren’t actively maintained may break or cause compatibility issues with newer WordPress versions.

4. Keep your plugin stack lean: Install only what you truly need. Too many plugins — or multiple plugins doing the same job — can slow down your site. It’s also a good idea to make sure you have a recent backup before adding anything new. On WordPress.com Business plans and higher, backups are handled automatically.

Get started with WordPress.com

The easiest way to try these essential plugins is to start a site on WordPress.com. 

You can explore the plugin library directly, see which tools are already built in, and add only what your site actually needs.

WordPress.com plans also include Jetpack features, professionally designed themes, and an AI website builder so you can launch and extend your site without piecing together separate tools.

He noticed that African history wasn’t just underrepresented — it was actively obscured. Achievements credited to the wrong civilizations. Truth buried in books most people would never read.

So he started making content. First on TikTok. Then YouTube. One video went viral — a few million views in days. The audience grew from there.

From a viral TikTok to 160,000 followers

What started as a few videos turned into something much bigger:

• 120,000+ YouTube subscribers
• 160,000+ followers across platforms
• A library of documentaries and original research
• Museum visits, trips to Egypt, academic papers

Andrew is a qualified teacher by training. He spent years teaching high school. 

But his real passion was history — specifically, making African history accessible to people who’d never pick up a niche textbook.

There’s a lot of truth hidden in books. But most people aren’t book enthusiasts — they come across things in their day-to-day life. YouTube is probably the most powerful medium for reaching them.

YouTube became his classroom. Documentaries became his lesson plans. And the community that formed around The King’s Monologue became his students.

Why Andrew needed a website

Social platforms are borrowed land. Andrew knew that.

When you’re on social networks, there’s always that thing in the back of your mind — if they one day close or cancel your channel, where is everyone going to go?

He wanted a home base. A place he actually owned. Somewhere to:

• Host images from museum visits and statue reconstructions
• Publish academic papers and articles
• Build search engine visibility so his content would rank
• Support initiatives like his Kickstarter book launch

A Linktree wouldn’t cut it. He wanted control.

A former WordPress developer who didn’t have time to develop

Here’s the twist: Andrew used to be a WordPress developer. He knows how to build sites from scratch — find hosting, install WordPress, customize themes, write code.

But he didn’t have time for any of that.

Even just thinking about it was giving me a headache. Finding hosting, installing WordPress, going through all that rigmarole.

So he went the simpler route. He signed up for WordPress.com, saw the AI website builder, and gave it a try.

You bring the idea — AI makes it real

Use our AI website builder for free today.

Try it now

The structure of his new website came together in minutes. No code. No theme hunting. Just prompts and tweaks:

It was like working with a theme and being able to customize it on the fly without knowing any code.

He kept the design simple — limited colors, consistent thumbnails — and let the builder do the rest.

The website builder did most of the work. I just stuck to a strict theme for fonts and thumbnails, and it gave the whole site a professional look without me doing much at all.

What the website does today: Funding the Kickstarter and creating organic content

At the end of last year, Andrew launched a Kickstarter for his book on African history. The website was the launchpad.

I had a page set up — tkmedu.com/book-launch — and a lot of traffic came through that link, which then took people to the Kickstarter.

The campaign was successfully funded.

The website was a big part of that. It’s done its job so far.

Besides, the site is an educational resource, which includes:

• Articles and original research
• An image gallery with museum photos and reconstructions (optimized for search)
• A donation feature for supporters

From here, Andrew wants to expand. He already hired a website admin to help populate content — transcribing his videos and livestreams, editing, and posting. 

Next, he plans to attract contributing authors — vetted and edited — filling the site with hundreds, eventually thousands of articles. 

A searchable archive of African history that ranks in Google and serves researchers, students, and curious minds.

Your story deserves a home, too

Andrew is a former WordPress developer who chose not to build his site the hard way. 

WordPress.com gave him a faster path. The AI website builder got the structure up in minutes. Managed WordPress hosting also means he’s not dealing with updates, security, or server maintenance.

He focuses on the mission. The platform handles the rest.

Andrew’s story started on TikTok. It grew on YouTube. But his website is the place he actually owns — and the launchpad for everything that comes next.

Yours can be too.

You bring the idea — AI makes it real

Use our AI website builder for free today.

Try it now