Got an old website? Update it and refresh your SEO

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Has your website seen better days, and are you looking to restore it to its former glory? Look no further. We will help you get your site up to today’s standards and make that splash online. We cover all the key areas you need to consider. Feel free to skip the steps that are already up to date, but be honest with yourself about what work still needs to be done. Your website only gets a millisecond to make a first impression, so let’s make the most of it. Now it’s time to peek under the hood, brush off the dust on those pages, and refresh your content.

Table of contents

Key takeaways

  • Consider making big changes to your old website first, such as updating the domain or CMS.
  • Check and update your CMS, plugins, and data privacy setup to meet modern standards.
  • Refresh your content and keyword research to ensure relevance and improve SEO performance.
  • Evaluate technical aspects like mobile-friendliness, core web vitals, and accessibility for better user experience.
  • Use the Yoast SEO plugin to streamline the process of updating your old website and maintain its performance.

Check your site’s set-up

Want to make any big changes? Do that first

Before we delve into the depths of your old website, it’s worth considering any major changes you want to make. Maybe you’ve always wanted to change your domain name or your URL structure, but it was too much work when everything was up and running. Or perhaps you could benefit from switching to a different CMS or hosting provider. If you do want to make sitewide changes, you’ll be far better off planning this from the start.

Old or new domain?

You will have registered your domain when your website was still live, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s still available now. Check whether your old domain is still yours or available. If it’s not, you’ll need to choose another one. This can give you a chance to start over fresh with a whole new website.

When you’re looking to get a new domain, consider how you want to build your website. You can hire someone to custom-build a website for you. But if you want to save on costs, website builders like Wix and WordPress let you create a website without coding. Although both allow you to create websites yourself, we recommend WordPress if you want the option to grow and alter your website beyond what the available templates offer.

There are also AI builders to consider when creating a new website. For example, Bluehost’s AI Website Builder generates your website by giving a prompt and answering a few follow-up questions. A quick way to get back online, with hosting, a domain, and even human support included if needed.

Bear in mind that changing your domain name comes with several drawbacks:

  • If your website was popular in the past, you will probably have built up some domain authority. Meaning that people know your brand name and can have (positive) associations with it. So when you change your domain name, you’ll lose any domain authority you’ve gained previously.
  • Your old URLs will no longer work, and you’ll need to plan to migrate your content to your new domain. This can be a lot of work, so don’t underestimate it!

Are your CMS and plugins up to date?

The next thing you’ll want to check is whether your CMS is up to date. Depending on how old your site is, that could mean all kinds of things. As new possibilities arise in web development, a good CMS will adopt these and implement them for you (mostly) automatically. So it’s well worth updating your CMS as a first step! Make sure to back up your site and test the changes first, though.

The impact of out-of-date plugins really depends on which plugins you have installed. But whichever plugins you use, you should check these too. The same goes for themes; they can stop working if they’re too old or no longer supported. Online, the older your technology is, the more vulnerable it is to hacking, so make sure to update what you plan to use and remove unnecessary plugins.

Tip: If you’re using WordPress, go to the Site Health section, located under Tools > Site Health in the backend. This will give an overview of what needs to be done to get your website healthy again.

Check your robots.txt / indexing settings

Noindexing a page means you block search engines from indexing it and showing it in their search results. Some people prefer to noindex their site while they make big changes to it, to avoid leaving users with a bad impression. But you shouldn’t really play around with this unless you know what you’re doing. I would also not recommend doing this if you still get a decent amount of traffic to your site.

To noindex your site, you’ll need to update your robots.txt file. If you’re a Yoast SEO user, you can manage your indexing in your configuration settings without ever touching your robots.txt file. An easier way to update your site behind the scenes is by using the LightStart plugin.

Check your data privacy set up

If your site has been around for a few years, there’s a good chance your data privacy setup doesn’t meet modern standards. For instance, if your site uses cookies to track user behavior, it’s now a legal requirement to ask users for permission in most regions worldwide. Similarly, if you have user data stored on your site, you absolutely need to ensure it’s stored securely and used in a legally compliant way. If that data is old user data, the safest option is probably just to delete it all.

Check your content

Refresh your keyword research

When it comes to updating the content on your old website, refreshing your keyword research is a good place to start. The words people use in their search queries change over time, so the longer your content has been out of action, the more likely it is that you need to do this. When checking your keywords, you should see whether you’re still using the most suitable ones for your site and audience, and whether you can still compete for those rankings.

Also, you should take AI search into account when researching how to update your content. AI search is now an undeniable part of people’s online search behavior, whether it’s Google presenting users with an AI overview or people using AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini. So make sure to optimize for AI search as part of your SEO efforts.

Does your content need updating?

It’s important to update your old posts and pages to keep them fresh and relevant. Old content can face various issues:

  • Is the quality still good enough? Is there room to improve the content by applying the E-E-A-T principles?
  • Is your information still accurate and up to date? Are there new insights that you could add to the content?
  • Do the external and internal links still work? Do the meta description or SEO title need updating?

Take a look at each page, and be critical. What could be improved? Do you really need to keep each page? Will you need to rewrite the whole thing, or will some small adjustments be enough? It could take a while to get through all of your content. Make sure to start with your most important pages first.

Check your internal linking and site structure

Making sure your content is high-quality and well-optimized is only half the story. It needs to be findable too. By linking related pages, you make your content easier for your users to find. And on top of that, if you make sure your most important pages get the most internal links, it helps Google get a better idea of your site structure. As a result, those central pages (which we call cornerstone content) are likely to rank higher in search results!

Check the technical SEO

Mobile-friendly is essential

Most people are using their phones or other mobile devices to access the internet. As a result, Google switched to mobile-first indexing years ago. This means that if your site doesn’t work well on mobile, this can impact your overall visibility in search. Responsive site design and proper mobile usability testing are more of a requirement now than a nice extra. Make sure everything works, and that it looks good on all kinds of screen sizes. Don’t treat the desktop version of your website as the default.

Core Web Vitals and page experience

Back in the days of dial-up internet, you always had to wait patiently for pages to load. But that’s a thing of the past; pages that load quickly are a basic expectation nowadays. Loading quickly isn’t the only consideration, because your pages need to actually work well once they’ve loaded. Google has a ranking factor to measure things like this. So you need to make sure you’re meeting expectations for aspects such as:

  • Loading performance (how fast does stuff appear on the screen?)
  • Responsiveness (how fast does the page react to user input?)
  • Visual stability (does stuff move around on the screen while loading?)

The details behind these factors are quite technical, but it’s worth delving into these Core Web Vitals to make sure your technical SEO isn’t holding you back.

Check your media usage

Another thing that changes over time is the best practice for using images and videos on your site. Nowadays, most users expect high-quality images that load quickly, too. Make sure to optimize and properly tag them before mindlessly adding them to your page. When it comes to video, these can increase your visibility on platforms such as YouTube and social media. They also tell search agents that the content on your page is rich and valuable, so make sure to get going with a proper video strategy for your site and other platforms.

Accessibility

For most websites, accessibility is an afterthought. Which is a big shame, as this also means you’re missing out on a whole group of potential customers. Don’t just consider how you experience a website; also accommodate the needs of different types of visitors. Accessibility means making small adjustments and additions that let everyone enjoy your content. You don’t need to redesign everything; there are simple improvements you can make, such as adding alt text to your images.

Structured data

If you want to have the best-looking search results in Google, you’ll need to start adding structured data to your site. Structured data is a way of telling Google about the context or purpose of different types of content. You can label your news items as news, for example, and Google can identify that and add your content to its News section. Or you could label your products using structured data and have a chance of getting listed in Google’s Shopping results. Structured data helps AI search engines and chatbots better understand your site. There are loads of ways structured data can boost your content, so give it a try!

Start publishing and sharing

Check your robots.txt / indexing settings (again)

Give your indexing a final check and make sure the pages you want Google to index are crawlable. You can start by checking your robots.txt or your indexing settings. Google Search Console can be a great help at this point. Submit your sitemap. This will let Google know your site is ready for indexing again, and help it understand what’s changed. Search Console will flag any crawl errors, so you can easily check whether everything is set up correctly.

Start (re)publishing and sharing content

And now for the final step in updating your old site: start publishing content again! Publishing content regularly and sharing it on social media will help you to build awareness of your site. Plus, you might gain some new fans and followers! If your social media pages are outdated, give them a refresh to let people know your site is back and ready to welcome them!

Update your site’s SEO with Yoast

As you can see, there’s a lot to check when updating SEO and refreshing your old website. Once you’ve restored your site to its former glory, make sure you maintain it and your SEO. Otherwise, in a few years, you might be doing this all over again. Luckily, our Yoast SEO plugin can help you update and maintain your old site, too!

Refresh your website with Yoast SEO Premium

Get Yoast SEO Premium and get feedback on your content, access to our SEO training and helpful tools to clean up your site!

Get Yoast SEO Premium Only $118.80 / year (ex VAT)

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Yoast SEO now works with Elementor’s new atomic editor

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Elementor recently introduced a new way to build pages, called the atomic editor. If you’d switched to it, you may have noticed something annoying: Yoast SEO couldn’t see your content. Your text length, keyphrase checks, and readability results came back empty, even on a page full of content.

We’ve fixed that. Yoast SEO now reads your content straight from Elementor’s atomic editor, so every check works the way you’d expect: text length, keyphrase density, images, links, and more. Keyphrase highlighting works too. Click the eye icon on any check, and you’ll see your keyphrase marked in your text, right there in the editor.

If you’re still using Elementor’s classic editor, nothing changes for you. Everything keeps working as it did before.

What you need to do

Update your Yoast plugins to the latest version. That’s it. Your existing content gets picked up automatically the next time you open a page.

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The June 2026 SEO Update by Yoast recap

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Each month, we host the SEO update by Yoast covering the latest in search and AI. In this edition, Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss discussed Google’s evolving stance on AI-driven search, publisher controls in the UK, and how to navigate visibility in an era where traditional SEO tactics are being reconsidered.

Watch the full recap on YouTube to dive deeper into these topics, hear some examples, and hear the answer to audience questions.

Remembering Bruce Clay

In this month’s SEO Update, we honor Bruce Clay, who recently passed away. He was a pioneer in SEO whose work shaped the industry. His mentorship and leadership left a lasting impact on professionals worldwide.

Google warns against manipulating brand mentions for AI

Google issued a clear warning: stop manipulating brand mentions to game AI systems. This includes tactics such as paying for unrelated brand citations, think dog food brands mentioned on sports betting sites, to artificially inflate perceived authority.

Why it matters: 

Google’s message is simple: if your brand mentions are irrelevant or forced, they won’t help your authority. Worse, they might backfire as AI systems get better at detecting manipulation. Focus on earning genuine mentions from relevant sources instead.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • Avoid paid or spammy brand mentions. 
  • Build authority through contextually relevant citations. 
  • If your mentions feel unnatural, they probably are. 

UK forces Google to give publishers control over AI use

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) struck a deal with Google, requiring the company to let publishers block their content from being used in AI features, without hurting their standard search rankings.

Why it matters: 

Publishers can now opt out of AI training data, but there’s a catch. If you block Google’s AI from using your content, you might lose citations in AI overviews, even if you rank well in traditional search. Users will instead see synthesized answers from other sources.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • If your content is truly unique and proprietary, blocking AI access might make sense, but only if you have a monetization strategy beyond search traffic. 
  • For most sites, allowing AI access is better for visibility. Ensure your content is structured and crawlable so AI systems can cite you accurately.
  • If you block AI access, provide a teaser, like Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature, to encourage clicks. 

New AI visibility insights in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

Both Google and Bing rolled out new reporting features to help you understand how your content appears in AI-driven search. 

Google Search Console grounding queries

Google now shows grounding queries, the specific searches where your content was cited by AI. This helps you see which topics are driving AI visibility.

Why it matters: 

Grounding queries indicate that AI systems are using your content to generate answers. If you’re not seeing citations, your content might not be structured or visible enough for AI to reference.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • Check Search Console weekly for grounding queries. 
  • Focus on visible, structured content, so avoid hiding key info in accordions or tabs.
  • Use this data to refine your content strategy, so double down on what’s working or fix what’s not.

Bing Webmaster Tools: AI performance reports

Bing’s new reports include intents, topics, citation share, and performance comparisons for AI-driven search. This gives you a clearer picture of how your content performs in Bing’s AI experiences, like Copilot.

Why it matters: 

Bing’s AI integrations, such as Copilot in Windows, reach millions of business users. Ignoring Bing means missing out on a growing segment of AI-driven traffic.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • Set up Bing Webmaster Tools if you haven’t already.
  • Compare Bing’s data with Google’s to spot gaps or opportunities. 
  • Use LLMs like ChatGPT or Claude to analyze exports from both tools for deeper insights.

Google’s new publisher profiles and business data integrations

Google introduced publisher profiles and enhanced business data integrations, giving creators and businesses more control over how their content appears in search.

Why it matters: 

These tools help you fill out your knowledge graph, which improves visibility across Google’s ecosystem, including Gemini. Think of it as Google+ for publishers, but with a focus on entity authority rather than social networking.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • Create or update your publisher profile in Google Search Console.
  • Ensure your Google Business Profile is complete and accurate.
  • Use structured data to connect entities such as authors, brands, and products to your content.

Google updates SEO guidance: Don’t blindly trust AI or SEO tools

Google’s latest guidance warns against blindly following AI-generated SEO advice or third-party tool recommendations. The example? An AI suggested changing “consultant” to “advisor” for a site, only for the site to start competing with financial advisors instead of its actual audience.

Why it matters: 

AI and SEO tools can misinterpret context. Always verify recommendations before implementing them.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • Trust but verify, so use AI and tools for ideas, but apply critical thinking. 
  • Check multiple sources, so compare Google’s data with Bing’s, or use tools like Semrush/Ahrefs for cross-referencing.
  • Prioritize human judgment, because if a recommendation feels off, it probably is.

Schema.org usage stats reveal underutilized opportunities

Schema.org released data showing that 95% of websites use only 12 of the 958 available schema types. Meanwhile, fewer than 1,000 sites use 485+ schema types.

Why it matters: 

Schema helps search engines understand your content, but most sites aren’t leveraging its full potential. Using more schema types can improve visibility in AI-driven search and rich results.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • Audit your current schema usage to identify any missed opportunities.
  • Explore less common schema types, like FAQPage, HowTo, or Event to stand out.
  • Use Yoast SEO’s schema blocks to simplify implementation.

German court rules Google liable for false AI overview claims

A German court ruled that Google can be sued for false claims made in AI overviews. This sets a precedent for holding AI systems accountable for inaccurate information.

Why it matters: 

If Google’s AI cites false or harmful information about your business, you now have legal recourse in Germany. However, prevention is better than litigation.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • Monitor AI overviews for inaccuracies about your brand.
  • Publish accurate, crawlable content to counteract misinformation.
  • If you find false claims, correct them at the source, such as on Reddit or in forums, and report them to Google.

Google’s open knowledge format: A new way to structure content

Google introduced the Open Knowledge Format (OKF), a way to catalog site content in markdown for AI consumption. This is part of Google’s push for structured, AI-friendly content.

Why it matters: 

While Google’s search team advises against duplicate markdown versions of pages, the engineering team is building tools like OKF. This suggests structured content will play a bigger role in AI-driven search.

Actionable takeaway: 

  • Wait and watch, as OKF is new, and adoption isn’t urgent yet.
  • Focus on structured content, like schema, clear headings, visible text.
  • Avoid gating critical information behind interactive elements, such as accordions and tabs.

Yoast news: Performance upgrades and new features

We rolled out performance improvements in versions 27.8 and 27.9, of Yoast SEO, including:

  • Faster admin pages and post editor for large sites.
  • Speed boosts for SEO analysis. For instance, a sitemap query on a 2M-page site dropped from 300 seconds to 25 milliseconds.
  • Yoast Duplicate Post plugin upgrades, including improved Rewrite and Republish functionality for easier content repurposing.

Sign up for the next SEO Update by Yoast

The next SEO Update by Yoast is on August 25, 2026, at 4:00 PM CET (10:00 AM EST). Sign up to join live!

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The SEO Update by Yoast – August 2026

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The SEO Update by Yoast – August 2026



Will take place on



4 PM CEST / 10 AM EDT

Don’t want to miss it?

Register now! (Opens in a new browser tab)

Hosts

Alex Moss

Principal SEO

Carolyn Shelby

Principal SEO

Is your 2026 SEO strategy actually ready for the next wave of AI search updates?

Between AI-driven search overhauls and constant algorithm tweaks, keeping your site visible can be challenging.

The SEO Update by Yoast brings you the latest insights on algorithm updates, AI-driven search changes, and industry developments, all in one easy-to-follow session.

Join Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss as they discuss the stories shaping SEO today and share actionable takeaways you can apply right away.

Who should sign up?

This update is ideal if you:

  • Want expert insight into recent SEO and AI changes and trends
  • Need help refining or validating your SEO strategy
  • Have SEO questions you’d like answered live

Event details

  • Level: Intermediate
  • Duration: 1 hour
  • Live Q&A with our SEO experts
  • Free registration
  • Recording available after the session

Don’t want to miss it?

Register now! (Opens in a new browser tab)

First upcoming events

Introduction to Yoast SEO webinar
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WordCamp US 2026
August 16 – 19, 2026

WordCamp US 2026

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The SEO Update by Yoast – June 2026
30 June 2026

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Alex Moss

Principal SEO

Carolyn Shelby

Principal SEO

The SEO Update by Yoast – June 2026

Expert analysis of the latest SEO & AI news developments with Carolyn…

Register now (opens in a new tab)

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Foodblogger Q&A: Google updates, AI search, and what actually matters for your blog in 2026

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Foodblogger Q&A: Google updates, AI search, and what actually matters for your blog in 2026



Took place on

Hosts & Guests

Carolyn Shelby

Principal SEO

Bjork Ostrom

Co-Founder of Pinch of Yum and Food Blogger Pro

Search is changing fast – and if you’re a food blogger trying to keep up with Google updates, AI Overviews, and what actually moves the needle for your site in 2026, this Q&A is for you. On June 17, we’re sitting down live with Carolyn Shelby, SEO expert at Yoast, to break down the latest Google updates and what the rise of AI-driven search means for your content strategy. Bring your biggest SEO questions and get answers straight from one of the most knowledgeable people in the space – register now to save your spot.

Carolyn helps shape SEO strategy for millions of WordPress users around the world. With over 20 years of experience in technical SEO, site architecture, and digital growth, she’s known for translating complex SEO concepts into actionable strategies that actually make a difference – especially for creators who want to grow sustainable, long-term traffic.

P.S. Can’t attend the Q&A live? Register anyway and we’ll send you the replay!

First upcoming events

Introduction to Yoast SEO webinar
8 July 2026

Hosts

John Dale

Support engineer

Michael Tiña

Support engineer

Introduction to Yoast SEO webinar

A practical, demo-driven webinar on using Yoast SEO for WordPress with confidence.

Register now (opens in a new tab)

Learn more

WordCamp US 2026
August 16 – 19, 2026

WordCamp US 2026

Team Yoast is Attending, Sponsoring, Yoast Booth at WordCamp US 2026! Click…



Learn more

The SEO Update by Yoast – June 2026
30 June 2026

Hosts

Alex Moss

Principal SEO

Carolyn Shelby

Principal SEO

The SEO Update by Yoast – June 2026

Expert analysis of the latest SEO & AI news developments with Carolyn…

Register now (opens in a new tab)

Learn more

The post Foodblogger Q&A: Google updates, AI search, and what actually matters for your blog in 2026 appeared first on Yoast.

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New: Yoast releases performance optimizations for larger websites

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With our latest 27.8 release, we introduced performance optimizations that should reduce loading times throughout the plugin’s functionalities, especially noticeable in large sites with lots of posts and users.

Note: This post contains technical content and implementation details.

Offering well-tuned software with minimal overhead in servers and fast loading times is always at the forefront of everything Yoast developers do. However, Yoast SEO is installed in millions of websites so the variance of setups that we must be well-tuned for is big. This means we should be continuously going back to search for windows in optimizing the performance of the plugin. We’ve been known to do that consistently in the past, like when we improved our database system.

The 27.8 release is the outcome of one of those targeted reviews. We deliberately picked features whose behavior at scale offered the most headroom and reworked them to be leaner and faster. From modifying queries to make pages faster for sites with many users and shaving heavy operations in the admin for sites with many posts, to reducing rounds trips to the database for multiple features and generally applying performance best practices, this is a release meant to improve the user and developer experience in the Yoast SEO plugin.

We would also like to offer a technical summary of the improvements in this release here, focusing on their nitty-gritty details because it’s always nice to raise awareness about performance best practice (not to mention that it’s always fun to talk about code).

Significantly reduce loading times of the root sitemap on sites with many users

For context, for Yoast SEO to calculate the Last Modified value of the author sitemap, when it outputs the root sitemap, it uses the usermeta of the all the users that are eligible to be included in the author sitemap.

Calculating the eligible users was traditionally done by checking user capabilities. This was done by adding the ‘capability’ => [ ‘edit_posts’ ] argument in the get_users() call that was used. As a result, a very heavy query with multiple joins and no use of the indexes of the database was triggered.

Specifically, the resulting query added a clause like this: 

AND ((((mt1.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'
        AND mt1.meta_value LIKE '%"edit\_posts"%')
       OR (mt1.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'
           AND mt1.meta_value LIKE '%"administrator"%')
       OR (mt1.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'
           AND mt1.meta_value LIKE '%"editor"%')
       OR (mt1.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'
           AND mt1.meta_value LIKE '%"author"%')
       OR (mt1.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'
           AND mt1.meta_value LIKE '%"contributor"%')
       OR (mt1.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'
           AND mt1.meta_value LIKE '%"wpseo\_manager"%')
       OR (mt1.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'
           AND mt1.meta_value LIKE '%"wpseo\_editor"%'))))

Since LIKE ‘%…%’ cannot use any B-tree index, MySQL must read each matching wp_capabilities row in full and do seven substring scans of the serialized PHP meta_value per row.

By modifying that calculation from using the capability check to looking for users with published posts (via using the ‘ has_published_posts ‘ => true argument), we instantly turned the resulting query to be one that uses indexes and that performs way better in sites with many users.

In fact, on one of our tests, on a site with around 2 million users, the time it took to complete each query (so approximately the time that took the root sitemap to render), went from over 300 seconds down to just 25 milliseconds! This means that the change has the potential for drastic improvements in loading times of root sitemaps in similar sites.

Finally, considering that the ‘ has_published_posts ‘ => true argument was already used in a later stage of the sitemap generation, the change itself should have little to no negative impact on the actual functionality of the feature.

Reduce loading times of the author sitemap on sites with many users

For Yoast SEO to render author sitemaps, it needs to calculate the eligible users. On sites with many users, this can be a very heavy operation. Aside from the above optimization, we noticed that while Yoast SEO was calculating eligible users, it also added a meta query to check whether the user_level of each user was over 0.

It turned out that this was a remnant from old times, because the user_level framework had been deprecated by WP core since version 3.0. While this didn’t break things in our sitemap feature, it unnecessarily added an INNER JOIN in the resulting query without much purpose and in sites with very big user and usermeta tables that was degrading performance. So we went and removed the unnecessary JOIN: 

INNER JOIN wp_usermeta AS mt1 ON wp_users.ID = mt1.user_id 

... 

AND ( mt1.meta_key = 'wp_user_level' AND mt1.meta_value != '0' )

Since the user_level framework was deprecated a long time ago, we made the deliberate call to drop support for it, especially since doing so would make our feature smoother. In fact, we are comfortable shipping this optimization and expect minimal disruption as a result, exactly because of how old that deprecation is.

Prevent unnecessary expensive database queries in admin pages

In order to timely notify admins that they need to perform the necessary actions for their site data to be indexed optimally in our internal storage, Yoast SEO used to run a database query daily while admins navigated throughout the backend. For big sites, that database query had the potential to run for several seconds, slowing the rendering of admin pages periodically.

Specifically, the following function: 

Limited_Indexing_Action_Interface::get_limited_unindexed_count()

This can run complex queries like the ones below, which were running periodically on admin pages, slowing rendering on larger sites.  

SELECT Count(P.id) 
FROM   wp_posts AS P 
WHERE  P.post_type IN ( 'post', 'page' ) 
       AND P.post_status NOT IN ( 'auto-draft' ) 
       AND P.id NOT IN (SELECT I.object_id 
                        FROM   wp_yoast_indexable AS I 
                        WHERE  I.object_type = 'post' 
                               AND I.version = 2)

We managed to re-arrange the logic of the code responsible for the notification that told admins about pending actions in such a way that those heavy queries now run only once, at the moment it’s first detected that such a notification should be created.

That way, we effectively cache the results of the

Limited_Indexing_Action_Interface::get_limited_unindexed_count()

and rely on cache invalidation that existed before our changes, but weren’t properly utilized. As a result, a potentially very heavy database query went from being triggered daily (and, on very busy sites with lots of concurrent users, once per 15 minutes) to being triggered only once in most sites. 

Optimize expensive database queries in admin pages

Related to the above query-preventing change, not only did we manage to avoid running that aforementioned heavy database query more than once per site, but we also managed to optimize the query itself. An added benefit from that is that we made the SEO optimization tool much faster in sites with lots of posts.

Specifically, we went from: 

AND P.ID NOT IN ( 
    SELECT I.object_id FROM wp_yoast_indexable AS I 
    WHERE I.object_type = 'post' 
)

To: 

AND NOT EXISTS ( 
    SELECT 1 FROM wp_yoast_indexable AS I 
    WHERE I.object_id = P.ID 
      AND I.object_type = 'post' 
)

Since NOT IN (subquery) builds the entire list of object_ids, while the second query short-circuits the moment one row matches, the query runs considerable faster in sites with multiple thousands of posts.

Reduce roundtrips to the database

As a rule of thumb, roundtrips to the database are considered to be expensive operations that should be reduced to a minimum whenever possible. Our reviews discovered instances where we were retrieving data for multiple posts in sequential SELECT queries where we could have done a single batched SELECT query to gather data for all posts at once. 

For example, a piece of code that looked like this: 

$indexables = []; 

foreach ( $post_ids as $post_id ) { 
	$indexables[] = $this->repository->find_by_id_and_type( (int) $post_id, 'post' ); 
}

was refactored into something that looked like this: 

$ indexables = $this->repository->find_by_multiple_ids_and_type( 
	array_map( 'intval', $post_ids ), 
	'post', 
);

That meant that for a chunk of 1000 posts, instead of performing 1000 SELECT queries that yielded a maximum of one row, we now perform a single SELECT query that yields a maximum of 1000 rows. Naturally, we made sure that the posts that will be requested each time do not exceed a certain threshold, to avoid reaching MySQL usage limits.

As a result, sites with e.g. 1000 posts would save 960 roundtrips to the database for certain operations like part of their SEO optimization or part of the output of the schema aggregation feature.

Improve post editor performance by preventing unnecessary re-renders

The WordPress editor re-renders Yoast’s sidebar panels whenever the data they pull from the store appears to have changed. Unfortunately, “appears to have changed” is decided by reference equality (JavaScript’s ===) not by comparing values. A selector that returns { items: [‘foo’] } looks identical to a human, but if it’s a fresh object literal each time, React treats it as new and re-renders the panel. And if we multiply that by a busy editor that dispatches state updates on every keystroke, the result is panels that re-render constantly for no reason.

With the 27.8 release, we identified multiple instances where data that weren’t actually changed triggered unnecessary re-renders in the post editor and patched them, making our editor integration much more robust and performant.

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What is agentic commerce? A peek into the future of buying (with caveats)

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Table of contents

Commerce has undergone several major shifts over the past few decades. What started with localized physical stores evolved into borderless, internet-driven ecommerce experiences.

Now, with the rise of AI, it is believed that commerce could be heading toward another transformation: agentic commerce, where AI agents help consumers discover products, compare options, and even complete purchases on their behalf.

Yet despite the excitement, many questions remain. Will consumers trust AI agents with buying decisions? Will businesses see enough return on investment to justify the costs? And does autonomous shopping solve a real problem, or simply add another layer of complexity to the buying journey?

Still, the technology is advancing rapidly. Imagine a shopping experience where consumers no longer jump between tabs, compare dozens of products on different websites, or manually research every purchase. Instead, AI agents understand intent, evaluate options, compare prices, and act within predefined rules to help users make purchasing decisions. What once sounded futuristic is already beginning to take shape.

In this article, we’ll explore what agentic commerce is, how it works, the technological developments driving it forward, and some of the challenges that could shape its future adoption.

Key takeaways

  • Agentic commerce represents a shift where AI agents assist consumers in product discovery, comparisons, and purchases
  • AI agents execute tasks based on user intent, simplifying the shopping journey and enhancing efficiency
  • Consumer interest is growing, with over 60% expecting to use AI in their shopping experiences by 2026
  • Technological developments like the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) and Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) are crucial for enabling agentic commerce
  • Despite its potential, agentic commerce faces challenges related to consumer trust, security, and the need for business investments.

What is agentic commerce?

In simple terms, agentic commerce refers to a commerce model where AI agents act as decision-makers on behalf of customers.

Instead of manually searching for products, comparing options, filtering results, and completing purchases, users can rely on AI agents to handle these tasks based on their intent, preferences, constraints, and buying goals.

To paint a clearer and practical picture, here’s how Alex Moss explained agentic commerce in the SEO Unplugged: Agentic Commerce with Alex Moss podcast:

So everything’s connected.

I could literally say into the into a phone to my agent, go and buy me some new shoes with that jacket I bought last week, and that’s it.

And it would go away.

It would do the research.

And of course, you can have a say in an approval in terms of part of the journey.

At its core, agentic commerce works like a digital shopping proxy. Humans define the intent or goal, while AI agents execute the process behind the scenes. While the AI handles the heavy lifting, users still remain in control of the final decision-making process.

Also read: Ensuring continuous discoverability with agentic AI for SEO

Agentic commerce is the next big thing in ecommerce

The concept of agentic commerce may still sound futuristic, but the shift has already started. Consumer behavior, AI adoption, and industry forecasts all point to a future in which AI agents become an active part of the buying journey.

Here are some numbers that highlight why agentic commerce is emerging as the next major evolution in ecommerce.

Consumers already use AI in their buying journey

Consumers have already started relying on AI-powered tools to discover products and make purchasing decisions. According to a McKinsey & Company report, more than 70% of AI-powered search users ask top-of-the-funnel questions about categories, brands, products, or services.

tofu product research on claude
Example of a TOFU research performed on Claude

The same report also found that nearly 50% of consumers already use AI-powered search experiences today. As AI increasingly becomes part of product discovery, traditional search-driven traffic may face growing disruption. In fact, the study suggests that businesses could see 20–50% of their traffic shift away from traditional search experiences over time.

This highlights an important shift: consumers are no longer just searching; they are increasingly asking AI systems to guide their decisions.

Shoppers are expecting agentic commerce

Consumer interest in AI-assisted shopping is also growing rapidly. The 2025 report titled “Agentic Commerce: From Brand Loyalty to Bot Logic” explored how shoppers feel about AI agents in retail experiences.

The report found that more than 60% of shoppers expect to use agentic AI in 2026. The findings also revealed a major behavioral shift: consumers increasingly prioritize convenience, speed, pricing, and trust over platform loyalty.

Instead of browsing individual retailer apps, shoppers may rely on AI agents that can compare products across multiple platforms, evaluate reviews, identify the best deals, and complete purchases more efficiently. This changes the competitive landscape from retailer-versus-retailer competition to AI-driven discovery ecosystems.

Analysts predict explosive growth for agentic commerce

Industry analysts also expect agentic commerce to become a massive economic opportunity over the next few years. Another McKinsey report suggests that agentic commerce could fundamentally reshape the shopping experience.

Based on the growing adoption of AI-powered discovery tools and increasing merchant readiness, the report estimates that by 2030, the US B2C retail market alone could unlock an orchestrated revenue opportunity of $900 billion to $1 trillion. Globally, that opportunity could range from $3 trillion to $5 trillion.

How does agentic commerce work?

At its core, agentic commerce combines human intent with AI-driven execution. Instead of manually browsing websites, comparing products, and completing purchases, users can delegate much of the shopping journey to AI agents. These agents understand goals, evaluate options, make decisions within defined constraints, and even complete transactions on behalf of users.

What makes this different from traditional AI assistants is the ability to act. While assistive AI tools mainly provide information or recommendations, agentic AI can independently execute tasks across the shopping journey.

Also read: What is the user journey in SEO?

Here’s a step-by-step look at how agentic commerce works:

Agentic commerce step-by-step working diagram

Step 1: Capturing the intent

Every agentic commerce journey begins with intent. Instead of typing short keywords into a search bar, users interact with AI agents conversationally.

For example, a shopper might say:

  • “Find me a durable pair of running shoes under $150.”
  • “Restock groceries for a vegetarian dinner party.”
  • “Buy a formal shirt that matches the trousers I purchased last month.”

At this stage, the AI agent focuses on understanding the user’s goals, preferences, budget, delivery expectations, and constraints. If the request feels too broad, the agent may ask follow-up questions to refine the intent before moving forward.

Step 2: Autonomous instruction execution and brand discovery

Once the intent becomes clear, the AI agent begins executing the task autonomously. Instead of searching a single website, it scans multiple ecommerce platforms, marketplaces, product catalogs, reviews, pricing databases, and inventory systems simultaneously.

This is where agentic commerce begins to change traditional product discovery. Rather than showing endless product pages, the agent narrows down the most relevant options based on the shopper’s needs.

At the same time, brands with better-structured product data, accurate inventory information, transparent pricing, and machine-readable content are more likely to be discovered by AI agents.

Do read: Taxonomy SEO: How to optimize your categories and tags

Step 3: Evaluation and decision-making

After gathering options, the AI agent starts evaluating products and comparing tradeoffs. It may analyze factors such as:

  • Price and discounts
  • Product specifications
  • Customer reviews and ratings
  • Shipping timelines
  • Return policies
  • Brand trust and reputation

Instead of simply listing products, the agent reasons through the options and explains why certain products better meet the shopper’s requirements than others.

Users can also refine the decision-making process further by adding conditions such as:

  • “Only show products with free returns.”
  • “Prioritize faster delivery.”
  • “Exclude refurbished products.”

This creates a feedback loop where the AI agent continuously improves its recommendations based on user preferences.

Step 4: Purchase

Once the shopper approves a product or sets predefined rules, the AI agent can move forward with the transaction. Using APIs, commerce protocols, and secure payment systems, the agent can add items to carts, apply discounts, authenticate payments, and complete purchases.

In some cases, the purchase may happen instantly. In others, the AI agent may wait for specific conditions, such as a price drop, stock availability, or faster delivery options, before completing the transaction.

Even though the AI handles execution, users still remain in control through permissions, approval settings, and spending limits.

Step 5: Post-purchase support

The role of AI agents does not end after checkout. Agentic commerce also extends into post-purchase experiences.

AI agents can continue assisting users by:

  • Tracking deliveries
  • Managing returns or exchanges
  • Monitoring refunds
  • Sending delivery updates
  • Reordering recurring products
  • Recommending complementary products or accessories

This turns shopping into an ongoing and intelligent experience rather than a one-time transaction.

Technological developments

Agentic commerce is not powered solely by AI models. Behind the scenes, it depends on a growing ecosystem of protocols, frameworks, APIs, and payment systems that help AI agents interact with digital commerce platforms securely and efficiently.

One important concept shaping agentic AI is the Model Context Protocol (MCP). In agentic AI, MCP enables AI models to connect with external systems, tools, databases, and applications via a standardized communication layer.

Instead of building separate integrations for every AI model and every software platform, MCP creates a common framework that allows AI agents to access information and execute actions more consistently. Think of it like creating a shared operating language between AI systems and digital tools, so they can work together without requiring completely custom connections every time.

As agentic commerce evolves as a use case of agentic AI, similar commerce-focused protocols are now emerging specifically for shopping ecosystems. These protocols help AI agents understand product information, communicate with merchants, compare inventory, and securely complete transactions on behalf of users.

Here are some important developments supporting agentic commerce:

Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)

One of the most important developments in this space is the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open standard introduced by Stripe in collaboration with OpenAI.

ACP is designed to help AI agents interact more naturally with ecommerce systems by creating a standardized framework for product discovery, checkout, and payment execution. In simple terms, it provides the infrastructure that allows AI agents to move beyond simply recommending products and actually complete purchases securely on behalf of users.

The protocol is still in its early stages, but its first real-world implementations are already emerging. For example, ChatGPT users in the United States can already purchase products from Etsy merchants directly within the chat experience through Stripe-powered checkout. Shopify integrations are also expected to follow.

This matters because it signals a shift from AI-assisted discovery to AI-enabled transactions happening inside conversational interfaces themselves. Instead of redirecting users across multiple websites and checkout flows, ACP aims to make the entire shopping journey more seamless and agent-friendly.

Another important aspect of ACP is its open-standard approach. Rather than creating a closed ecosystem tied to a single platform, Stripe and OpenAI position ACP as a framework that developers, merchants, and ecommerce platforms can adopt more broadly as agentic commerce evolves.

Looking ahead, protocols like ACP could become foundational infrastructure for AI-driven shopping experiences, especially as more businesses begin to optimize their product catalogs, payment systems, and checkout experiences for AI agents rather than only human users.

Also read: Boost your checkout page UX: Vital tips for online stores

Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

As more AI agents enter the shopping journey, a new challenge emerges: how can these agents communicate with thousands of retailers, marketplaces, payment providers, and service platforms without requiring a custom integration for each one?

This is the problem that the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) aims to solve.

Introduced by Google, UCP is an open standard designed to create a common language for agentic commerce. Rather than building separate connections between every AI agent and every commerce platform, UCP provides a shared framework that allows them to communicate more efficiently throughout the shopping journey.

Think of it this way: if agentic commerce becomes mainstream, millions of AI agents could research products, check inventory, compare prices, place orders, and manage returns every day. Without a standardized framework, retailers and AI platforms would need to create and maintain countless one-to-one integrations. UCP aims to remove this complexity by providing a common set of rules for all participants to exchange commercial information.

What makes UCP particularly interesting is its broad scope. Unlike protocols that focus mainly on purchasing, UCP is designed to support the entire commerce lifecycle, including:

  • Product discovery
  • Product comparison
  • Purchasing and checkout
  • Order tracking
  • Returns and post-purchase support

Google has also designed UCP to work alongside other emerging AI standards, including Agent2Agent (A2A), Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), and Model Context Protocol (MCP). This allows businesses to adopt agentic commerce without completely replacing their existing systems.

The initiative already has significant industry backing. Google co-developed UCP with major commerce companies, including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart. It has also received support from companies such as Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, and American Express.

Platforms that support Google's Universal Commerce Protocol
Platforms that support Universal Commerce Protocol

While agentic commerce is still in its early stages, UCP represents an important step toward a future in which AI agents, merchants, and payment providers can operate within a single ecosystem rather than through isolated platforms. In many ways, it provides the foundational infrastructure needed to make agentic commerce scalable across the broader digital economy.

Mastercard Agent Pay

While protocols like ACP and UCP focus on communication and interoperability, Mastercard Agent Pay focuses on one of the most critical challenges in agentic commerce: trust and secure payment execution.

As AI agents gain the ability to discover products, compare options, and make purchasing decisions, they also need a secure way to complete transactions on behalf of users. Mastercard Agent Pay was introduced to provide the infrastructure for exactly that.

The platform is designed to allow AI agents to execute payments while operating within user-defined permissions, authentication requirements, and spending controls. Rather than giving AI systems unrestricted access to payment credentials, Agent Pay focuses on creating verified, traceable, and authorized payment flows for agent-driven commerce.

One of the most significant developments came through its collaboration with PayPal, where Mastercard Agent Pay is being integrated into PayPal’s wallet infrastructure. It allows AI agents to securely complete transactions on behalf of PayPal users while maintaining the security and trust mechanisms that consumers already expect from digital payments.

This partnership is particularly important because it moves agentic commerce closer to real-world adoption. Instead of existing only within experimental AI environments, agent-driven payments can potentially operate across a much larger ecosystem of merchants, consumers, and payment networks.

Together, ACP, UCP, and Agent Pay are helping lay the foundation for agentic commerce. While ACP focuses on enabling AI agents to interact with merchants and complete purchases, UCP creates a common language that allows agents, retailers, and platforms to work together at scale. Agent Pay adds the trust layer by enabling secure, authorized payments, bringing AI-driven shopping one step closer to reality.

FAQs: What is agentic commerce?

What are the benefits of agentic commerce for enterprises and users?

Agentic commerce benefits both businesses and consumers by making shopping more efficient and personalized.

For users
AI agents can reduce research time, provide tailored recommendations, monitor prices, and automate routine purchases.

For enterprises
Agentic commerce can streamline operations, improve personalization, automate repetitive workflows, support faster decision-making, and help products reach customers more quickly. Together, these benefits create a more convenient shopping experience while improving operational efficiency.

Are agentic AI and agentic commerce the same?

No, they are not the same. Agentic AI is the underlying technology that enables AI systems to understand goals, make decisions, and complete tasks autonomously. Agentic commerce is a specific application of agentic AI in shopping and commerce. In other words, agentic AI is the foundation, while agentic commerce is one of its real-world use cases.

What’s the difference between traditional commerce and agentic commerce?

In traditional commerce, the shopper remains the primary decision-maker and executor throughout the buying journey. Even when AI is present, its role is largely limited to recommending products or improving search experiences. In agentic commerce, AI agents actively participate in the shopping process by researching products, comparing options, and executing tasks on behalf of users, guided by predefined goals and preferences.

Can you share some practical, real-world use cases for agentic commerce?

Several companies are already experimenting with agentic commerce. For example, Amazon has introduced its “Buy for Me” feature, which allows AI agents to purchase products from third-party websites when items are unavailable on Amazon.

Similarly, Google is testing AI-powered shopping experiences that can monitor prices and automatically purchase products when they meet user-defined conditions. Beyond consumer shopping, businesses are also using AI agents to monitor inventory levels and automatically reorder supplies when stock runs low.

Agentic commerce still faces important questions

While the technology behind agentic commerce is advancing quickly, widespread adoption is far from guaranteed. Many consumers may not feel comfortable giving AI agents the authority to make purchasing decisions or access payment methods on their behalf. Others may question whether autonomous shopping solves a real problem or simply makes it easier to buy more things, more often.

Businesses face their own uncertainties. Supporting agentic commerce may require investments in new protocols, structured data, integrations, and AI-ready commerce experiences. Whether those investments yield measurable returns remains unclear, especially given that consumer adoption is still in its early stages.

There are also broader challenges to solve, including security, fraud prevention, AI bias, platform dependency, and the potential loss of direct relationships between brands and customers. Agentic commerce may represent an exciting new direction for digital shopping, but its long-term success will depend on whether it can create value for consumers, merchants, and the broader ecommerce ecosystem, not just the AI platforms powering it.

The post What is agentic commerce? A peek into the future of buying (with caveats) appeared first on Yoast.

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How to get blog post ideas: Tips to find inspiration

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What do you do when inspiration for your umpteenth blog post is low? What’s the solution to writer’s block or a general lack of ideas? Every writer will encounter a lack of inspiration from time to time. You’ll be staring at your screen, not knowing what to write about. Nevertheless, you are determined to write those blog posts regularly. Today, AI tools like LLMs or Yoast AI Content Planner can spark ideas when you’re stuck. Luckily, there are many other ways to get inspired!

Table of contents

Key takeaways

  • Use audience feedback as a source for blog post ideas, especially questions that need elaboration.
  • Check the Google Search Console’s Performance report for search queries that might inspire new content.
  • Consult your keyword research for long-tail keywords; they can point to potential blog topics.
  • Explore platforms like ChatGPT and Pinterest, and use tools like the Yoast AI Content Planner for fresh blog post ideas.
  • Draw inspiration from current events, your daily activities, and maintain a list of ideas to combat writer’s block.

Getting new blog post ideas on your site

Inspiration from your audience

If your blog has a comment section for your audience to leave comments or you have a contact form, you’ll receive feedback. While most of the reactions you get will just be positive or negative statements, you might receive questions as well. Perhaps some of these questions are easy to answer in a reply, but other questions will be off-topic or need elaboration. You can also send a questionnaire to your readers to gather input and feedback. Those kinds of questions are excellent starting points for your next post. You could try keeping a list of relevant questions whenever you come across them, so you have a place to look when inspiration is low. 

Read more: How to handle comments on your blog »

Find blog ideas in Google Search Console

Google Search Console is still one of the best tools to find new blog post ideas. It shows you the exact search terms people use to find your site. This helps you spot topics your audience cares about, but you haven’t fully covered yet.

The Performance Report is where you’ll find these insights. It lists the search queries that bring visitors to your site, along with clicks, impressions, and average rankings. Look for queries where your content ranks but doesn’t fully answer the question. For example, if people find your site by searching “how to keep toddlers busy without screens” but you don’t have a dedicated post on that topic, it’s a clear sign to write one.

If you use Yoast SEO with Google Site Kit, you can access Google Search Console data directly in your WordPress dashboard. This integration saves time because you don’t have to switch between tools. Just open the dashboard, click on the Yoast SEO tab, and open the General section. You’ll see your top search queries and performance metrics right there.

While tools like Ahrefs or Semrush offer deeper competitive analysis, Google Search Console provides direct data from Google. It’s free, reliable, and still one of the best ways to find information about what your audience is searching for. Use it alongside Yoast SEO’s tools to ensure you cover all the topics that matter to your readers.

Use the Yoast AI Content Planner

You know you need to publish, but deciding what to write about can sometimes take forever. To help you overcome this, we built the Yoast AI Content Planner. It scans your existing content, identifies gaps, and suggests five relevant blog ideas.

When you open a new post, Yoast SEO analyzes your site’s content and generates ideas tailored to your niche. These aren’t generic suggestions because they’re based on what your audience is already reading and what’s missing from your blog. For example, if you run a food blog and have written about meal prep but not quick vegetarian lunches, that might suggest that topic.

Once you pick an idea, Yoast SEO creates a structured draft with a suggested title, headings, and even a meta description. You get a clear outline so you can start writing immediately. If the first set of ideas doesn’t feel right, you can generate a new batch with one click.

Yoast AI Content Planner is included in all our Yoast SEO Premium products. It’s designed for anyone who writes regularly and wants to publish consistently without running out of fresh ideas. This tool helps you create content that fills real gaps for your audience. Give it a try the next time you’re stuck for ideas.

Yoast AI content planner feature suggestions list
Tailored content suggestions generated by Yoast AI Content Planner

Dig deeper into your keyword research

Your keyword research document contains many potential blog ideas. But don’t just pick a keyword and start writing, because digging deeper helps you find the best angle.

What’s the search intent behind a keyword? Are people looking for a how-to guide or an opinion piece? Tools like Yoast SEO’s Semrush integration, or Google’s autocomplete can help you figure this out. Don’t forget to check what appears in Google’s AI Overviews or AI Mode answers when you research these keywords and topics.

For example, if your keyword is “best running shoes for flat feet,” ask:

  • Are people looking for affordable options?
  • Do they care about durability or style?
  • Are they comparing specific brands?

Each of these could be its own post:

  • “Best budget running shoes for flat feet in 2026”
  • “Most durable running shoes for flat feet (tested and reviewed)”
  • “Nike vs. Brooks: Which running shoes are best for flat feet?”

This way, you’re not simply writing about a keyword, but answering the exact question your audience is asking. Plus, if you set up Wincher in Yoast SEO, you can track how well your posts perform for these keywords over time.

Finding ideas for blog posts on the internet

Pinterest

Pinterest is still a useful place to find inspiration, especially if your blog covers visual topics like food, DIY, fashion, travel, or home decor. But it’s not just for pretty pictures, because you can use it to spot trends and gaps in your niche. Search for keywords such as [blog post ideas], [blog ideas], or [what to blog about]. To get even more inspiration fast, include your niche in your search. For example: [blog post ideas for parents], or [blog post ideas for lifestyle bloggers]. Be sure to check the top-pinned post for the topics.

It’s a good idea to be cautious as well, because Pinterest is clickbait heaven. Falling into the trap of quantity over quality is easy. Keep your focus, or you’ll lose track of time.

Content Idea Generator

To be clear, the Content Idea Generator won’t give you ready-to-go article ideas. At best, it will point you in the right direction; at worst, it will provide you with a few good laughs to clear your head. For example, you can enter the term [house plant]. Content Idea Generator could give you the following title: ‘The 15 biggest house plant blunders’. A content idea about [wine]: ’17 unexpected uses for wine’. Enter [baby] and a suggestion that might come up: ‘20 ideas you can steal from babies’.

So, while the Content Idea Generator won’t give you what you want immediately, it’s sure to get your creativity flowing. Taking the previous examples, you could expand on that and get the following blog ideas:

  • ‘The 15 biggest house plant blunders’: a post about common mistakes people make when caring for the plants in their homes
  • ‘17 unexpected uses for wine’: a post about using wine for cooking, cleaning, baking, etc.
  • ‘20 ideas you can steal from babies’: could inspire a blog post about babies’ habits adults should adopt, such as getting enough sleep, dressing up warmly, expressing your emotions, etc…

Use AI and chatbots for inspiration

AI tools and chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini can help when you’re stuck. But don’t just ask for generic ideas, and always provide context about your blog and your audience. Here’s how to get the most out of them:

Ask for specific angles, so instead of “Give me blog ideas about parenting,” try:

  • “What are five unique angles on ‘screen time for toddlers’ that most blogs miss?”
  • “What are three common mistakes new bloggers make when writing about SEO?”

Always try to refine vague ideas, so if you have a broad topic, ask AI to narrow it down. For example:

  • “Give me five blog post ideas about ‘healthy snacks for kids’ that aren’t just recipes.”
  • “What are three easy-to-apply SEO tips for small e-commerce stores based in India?”

Reverse-engineer competitors by feeding AI a competitor’s blog URL and asking:

  • “What gaps does this blog have? Give me five post ideas they haven’t covered.”
  • “What are three topics this blog covers poorly? How could I do them better?”

Try to avoid producing commodity content, because AI often suggests ideas that feel generic or overdone. Always add your own perspective, your experience, or data, as this can truly make your content stand out from the crowd. For example, if AI suggests “10 tips for better sleep,” make it unique:

  • “The science behind sleep: What actually works, according to research”
  • “How I improved my sleep in 30 days (with data)”
  • “Why most sleep tips don’t work for parents (and what to try instead)”

Days Of The Year

Days Of The Year is a website that offers inspiration for all kinds of blogs. This website collects all the fun, bizarre, and nice holidays the world has to offer. You can easily lose a couple of hours while scrolling through that site. Keep your pen and notepad at hand, though, because it is bound to give you tons of inspiration. There are days available for every niche. Are you a fan of mythical creatures? April 9th is ‘Unicorn Day’. There’s also a ‘Leprechaun Day’ and a ‘Howl at the Moon Day’. May 25th is ‘Towel Day’, which can give travel bloggers and lifestyle bloggers ideas for posts. Think of blog posts such as: ‘How to keep your towels soft’ or ‘With this information you will never buy the wrong towel again’. 

Other blogs and fellow bloggers

The internet is full of inspiration for blog ideas, and there are many places to look. Perhaps you follow other bloggers who inspire you. A great way to come up with blog post ideas is to read other posts or just scroll through post feeds. Similarly, you can join Facebook groups related to your niche or for bloggers. Discussing ideas with fellow bloggers will surely get your creative juices flowing! Make sure you do not copy people’s ideas, though, and give credit where credit is due.

Get blog post inspiration from your life

Current events

Current events can give you great blog ideas if you connect them to your niche. The trick is to link the news to what your audience cares about in a way that feels natural. For example, if you run a parenting blog, a new study on screen time could inspire a post like “How much screen time is too much? What the latest research says.” If you write about personal finance, a change in tax laws might lead to “Three ways the new tax rules affect your savings (and what to do about it).” The key is to add value, so don’t just repeat the news, but explain what it means for your readers.

Set up Google Alerts for keywords related to your topic to stay updated. When something relevant pops up, think about how it affects your audience. For instance, if you blog about sustainable living, a new recycling policy could lead to a post titled “How to adjust your recycling habits under the new rules.” Avoid sensitive topics unless you can handle them thoughtfully. If you do cover them, focus on helping your readers, not just exploiting the trend. The goal is to turn news into high-quality content that fits your blog’s purpose.

Your daily life

Situations from your own work could also be great inspiration for blog posts. You can write about things that happen in your day-to-day life, and how you go about them. Or even about what you do if your clients or colleagues are faced with a certain problem. It’s quite possible that others encounter the same problem and are seeking input. 

If you write about real-life situations, you should always make sure that you respect the privacy of your clients, friends, or colleagues and ask for permission to use their cases on your blog. For example, a therapist with a blog offering mental health tips might want to use examples from their practice. In that case, it’s vital to change names and details to protect clients’ privacy and the practice’s future!

Clear your head to find fresh ideas

Sitting at your desk for too long can drain your creativity. If you’re staring at a blank screen, step away and do something that shifts your focus. A short walk, or even washing the dishes, can help reset your mind. The goal isn’t to force ideas but to give your brain space to wander. Often, the best thoughts come when you’re not trying too hard.

If you need a more structured break, try a ten-minute brainstorming sprint. Set a timer and ask yourself: “What are twenty blog ideas about [your topic]? Make five weird, five practical, and ten in between.” Don’t overthink it and just write down whatever comes to mind. When the timer goes off, pick the most interesting idea and freewrite about it for another five minutes. This exercise forces you to think outside your usual patterns and often leads to unexpected angles. When you return to your desk, you’ll likely feel more focused and inspired.

Keep a list of ideas

The solution can be very simple: some days, you have plenty of blog post ideas, some days you don’t. So, prepare for days when you have no inspiration and keep a list of blog ideas. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a list on your mobile phone or on paper. Every time you have a good idea, write it down. You can use these ideas on days you’re feeling uninspired.

Wrap up with fresh ideas

Don’t let a lack of inspiration derail your publishing schedule. Whether you use Yoast AI Content Planner or take a break to clear your head, there are always ways to find new topics. The best approach combines structure and creativity, using tools to generate ideas, then refining them with your own insights and voice.

The next time you’re stuck, pick one method from this list and give it a try. Maybe it’s deep-diving into your keyword research or setting a timer for a quick brainstorming session. Each of these strategies can help you break through writer’s block and keep your content flowing.

Keep reading: SEO copywriting: the ultimate guide »

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New: Track your brand visibility in Claude with Yoast AI Brand Insights

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Yoast AI Brand Insights, part of the Yoast SEO AI+ plan now lets you scan how your brand appears in answers generated by Claude. You can see your Claude data alongside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, all in one dashboard. 

Why Claude is worth paying attention to

Think about how your own customers are making decisions right now. They’re not just Googling anymore. Nearly half of consumers used AI to research purchases in 2025, and 64 percent plan to use it in 2026, for everything from big investments to everyday buys. At the same time, the businesses they’re choosing between are catching on too. AI adoption among small businesses tripled in just two years according to the JPMorganChase Institute. 

What that means for your brand is that the conversation is happening across more places than ever. Your customers are using ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and now Claude, often for different reasons and in different contexts. Each platform forms its own view of the brands it mentions, drawing on different sources and applying different reasoning. So the same question about your business can get a very different answer depending on where it’s asked. 

With Claude now added to Yoast AI Brand Insights, you can see how all four platforms describe your brand, in one place. 

What’s new

You can now:

  • Run brand visibility analyses in Claude, in addition to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini
  • Compare how all four platforms describe your brand, with a built-in historical view
  • Track brand mentions, sentiment, and citations across every platform in one place
  • Monitor changes over time in your AI Visibility Index

How to get started

If you’re already using Yoast SEO AI+, nothing changes in how you work. Log in through MyYoast and Claude will appear as a new option in your dashboard at your next analysis, at no extra cost.

If you’re not yet on Yoast SEO AI+, upgrading gives you access to AI Brand Insights along with on-page SEO tools, content optimisation, and AI-powered insights, so you can see how your brand is mentioned and act from the same workflow.

Get Yoast SEO AI+ to start scanning your brand across Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

The post New: Track your brand visibility in Claude with Yoast AI Brand Insights appeared first on Yoast.

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Build a blog that drives real results

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A blog can grow your audience and build trust, but only if you do it right. AI search now answers questions before users click, so your posts need to stand out, not just rank. Where do you start? What should you write? How do you keep readers coming back? This guide covers everything from finding inspiration and writing great posts to optimizing for search, building an audience, and even making money.

Table of contents

Key takeaways

  • Blogging boosts SEO and serves as a powerful marketing tool, enhancing brand visibility and reader engagement.
  • Regular content creation helps improve Google rankings and allows targeting of new keywords.
  • Effective blogging requires careful planning, keyword research, and understanding search intent to draw an audience.
  • Original and readable posts attract readers; tools like Yoast SEO help optimize content for search engines.
  • Engagement through comments and social media is crucial for maintaining a blog’s visibility and attracting traffic.

Why blog?

If you have a website of any kind, you must blog occasionally. It doesn’t matter whether you have an online shop, a personal website, or a portfolio. Besides being great fun, blogging is one of the best things you can do for SEO. Not only that, thanks to a high-quality, unique blog, you can turn your site into a powerful marketing tool.

Google’s AI Overviews/AI Mode and other AI search platforms favor blogs that answer questions clearly and thoroughly. If you’re not blogging, you’re missing a great way to get seen in search and connect with your audience.

Blogging for SEO

Adding content regularly should be a part of every sustainable SEO strategy. If you write regularly, Google will see your site as active, alive, and relevant. These signals help your pages rank better in both traditional and AI-powered search. This also gives you more chances to appear in AI-generated snapshots, where Google summarizes answers for users.

In addition, blogging allows you to rank for new keywords and to keep ranking for those you’re already being found for. Since AI search favors fresh, well-structured content, regular updates ensure your site stays competitive. Your blog also gives you another way to target search intent, whether users are looking for answers, comparisons, or solutions. We’ll discuss that in more detail later on.

Blogging as a marketing tool

A blog is one of the best marketing tools for any website. It helps readers get to know your brand and products beyond just sales pitches. People remember stories, not ads, so share behind-the-scenes details or real customer experiences to build trust. Not everyone visiting your website is already committed to you or your products. A quality site will work in your favor in those cases: if you can offer people useful information in a post, they’re more likely to remember and convert in the future. Today, this kind of authentic engagement matters more than ever, as AI search prioritizes brands that users already know and trust.

Read on: To blog or not to blog »

A blog isn’t valuable just because it exists. It becomes valuable when it helps your audience solve problems, understand something better, or see your expertise in action. In today’s search landscape, the goal isn’t simply to publish, or even to publish more. It’s to create content worth being found, cited, and remembered.

Carolyn Shelby – Principal SEO at Yoast

Setting up a new blog

If you’re starting a new blog, preparing beforehand is important. A little planning now prevents headaches later, especially with AI search favoring well-organized, intent-driven content. Take some time to think about your niche and do proper keyword research. Remember, don’t just chase search volume. Focus on topics your audience actually cares about, like questions they’re asking or problems they need solved.

Please don’t forget to set up a clear and manageable structure for your blog. A logical layout helps both readers and search engines navigate your content, which improves engagement and rankings. If you give some thought to how you want to set up your blog before you start writing, it will save you a lot of work later. These include tasks such as mapping categories, setting up cornerstone topics, and developing an internal linking strategy. A strong foundation makes it easier to adapt as AI search evolves.

Keep on reading: How to start a blog »

What should you blog about?

You can only blog with ideas, so you’ll need many to keep a successful blog going. Whether blogging is your site’s main purpose or you use your blog as a marketing tool, you must consider which topics you want to cover. Don’t forget to think about what your audience needs to read. Where do you look for inspiration?

Keyword research

You’ll have to decide which terms you want to be found for before you start writing your content. To decide that, you need to get inside people’s heads and find out which words they use while searching for your type of business. Think beyond single keywords. Consider phrases, questions, and even conversational queries people might ask AI search tools. When you write, use these exact terms in your content to signal relevance to both search engines and AI-powered results. Keyword research is the first step in SEO copywriting and an essential part of any successful SEO strategy, even as search itself evolves.

Targeting the right search intent with your blog

As you’re doing keyword research, it’s important to know not only which keywords your audience uses but also what they’re looking for. People use search engines with a specific goal, so they have a particular intent for each query. The results pages provide some insight into a query’s intent. AI search tools like Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode now prioritize content that directly matches what users are looking for, whether they want to learn, compare, or buy.

In many cases, people are looking for information, so search engines favor informational pages. This is where your blog shines. For example, if you run an online shop, your product pages target commercial or transactional intent, but informational blog posts can attract a much larger audience. Write relevant, helpful articles to pull people into your site early in their research phase.

Which intent to target depends on your niche and goals. Are you trying to educate, entertain, or convert? Either way, aligning your content with intent is non-negotiable today.

Read more: Keyword research: the Ultimate Guide »

Where do you get inspiration for your posts?

If you’ve done your keyword research properly, you’ll end up with a long list of keywords and keyphrases to write content about, and you know which intent you want to target. A keyphrase is not yet a topic, though. You’ll need an angle or a specific story around a keyword to write a decent blog post, as well as a keyword.

Current events, your own work, and comments from your readers are just some things that could inspire new posts. For example, if customers keep asking the same question, that’s a sign you should write about it. Reading a lot is also a good way to find inspiration for your articles. Read magazines, newspapers, and other posts.

Of course, AI platforms and LLMs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, or Anthropic’s Claude can help, while Yoast AI Brand Insights can help you find out how you appear in chatbots.

Looking at your site’s stats or browsing the internet can also lead to inspiration. Which posts get the most traffic? Which ones keep readers on the page longest? Double down on what works. Pay attention to trending topics in your industry, but don’t just copy what’s already out there. Always ask yourself, how can you make this better or more engaging?

Be sure to keep a list of ideas for new posts on your mobile phone. Inspiration strikes when you least expect it.

Keep reading: How to get blog post ideas: 11 tips to find inspiration »

Beat writer’s block with Yoast AI Content Planner

Yoast AI Content Planner, available to Yoast SEO Premium users, helps you overcome frustrations about what to write next. It scans your existing content, identifies gaps, and generates five tailored post ideas. Each proposed post comes with a ready-to-use draft framework. Just pick an idea, and Yoast SEO provides a title, outline, focus keyphrase, meta description, and section notes to jumpstart your writing. If the first set of ideas doesn’t fit, refresh for new options. It’s all built into the WordPress editor, so you can go from blank page to first draft quickly.

Yoast AI Content planner feature example, showing possible article ideas for a travel site
An example of content suggested by the Yoast AI Content Planner

How to write a high-quality blog post

Writing requires some skills, and it’s more difficult for some people than for others. We’ll give you some tips to make writing easier for you later on, but first, let’s discuss two important aspects of high-quality posts: originality and readability.

Original content

Your posts should always be fresh, new, and original. Each one should stand out from other articles on the same topic. Today, this matters more than ever. Google’s AI search tools now filter out generic, repetitive content, so your posts need to offer something unique. Focus on what makes you different, even in a crowded niche. Your content should also be something people want to read. With competition fiercer than ever, good isn’t enough, so you need to go further.

Avoid commodity content. These kinds of posts rehash what’s already out there without adding value. Google recently warned that AI-generated summaries and search results prioritize content that stands out, not just repeats the same ideas. If your post doesn’t offer a new perspective or a fresh take, it risks being ignored. Don’t forget to ask yourself if this post teaches or solves a problem in a way others don’t.

With AI-generated content flooding search results, Google prioritizes human expertise and unique insights. These are the things AI can’t fake. Your blog can provide those, if you do it well.

Read on: The importance of original content for SEO »

Readable content

After writing a post with original content, you should ensure your article is easy to read. Readability is vital for your audience. If your text is well structured and clearly written, people will understand your message. Readability also impacts SEO, as Google’s AI tools favor content that’s simple to scan and digest. If your post is easy to read, with a clear structure with subheadings and logical paragraphs, chances are it’ll rank higher in the search engines, too.

Keep on reading: Does readability rank? »

Practical tips on how to write high-quality blog posts

Plan before you write

Before you start, take a little time to think about what you want to write. Who is your audience, and what do you want to tell them? What should they know, understand, or do after reading your post? Which topics will you cover, and in what order? Answering these questions upfront saves time and keeps your writing focused.

Read more: How to write a blog post »

Write clear paragraphs

Start each paragraph with the most important sentence, then explain or expand on it. This way, readers and AI systems can grasp your main points just by skimming the first sentences. Keep paragraphs short; seven or eight sentences is plenty. Think about the order of your paragraphs and ensure they flow logically. Avoid complex words when simpler ones work. Your goal is to be clear, not to confuse readers with jargon.

Keep reading: Practical tips to set up a clear text structure »

Get help and ask for feedback

Our Yoast SEO plugin helps you write readable posts. For example, the readability analysis checks for long sentences and suggests transition words. This is especially useful today, as AI search tools prioritize well-structured, easy-to-read content. If you use Yoast SEO Premium, you’ll also get AI features like Yoast AI Optimize to refine your writing.

However, tools aren’t everything. Always have someone proofread your post. A fresh pair of eyes catches typos and ensures your message is clear. If your proofreader struggles to understand your post, your audience will too.

Need more guidance? Here’s a step-by-step guide to crafting the perfect blog post!

Read on: 5 tips to write readable blogposts »

Optimize posts for search engines

After you’ve written a blog post that’s both original and readable, you should make sure your content is optimized for search engines. You should maximize the likelihood that Google will pick up your content. Don’t try to game the system, but make sure your article is genuinely good for search engines and readers alike. You must take this final step after you’ve written your post, though. SEO should never compromise your idea’s originality or the readability of your text.

the yoast seo premium analyse for a post about site structure, which has two red traffic lights, one for keyphrase in subheading use and one for competing links
Yoast SEO helps you optimize your blog post

How Yoast SEO helps

Yoast SEO gives you the tools to fine-tune your post without guesswork. We call this process “Yoast your post.” It’s about making small, smart adjustments to improve visibility.

  • The red and orange traffic lights highlight areas that need attention, like keyword placement or readability.
  • The plugin might suggest adding your focus keyword in the first paragraph or a heading to signal relevance.
  • It also helps you craft a compelling Google preview, which includes the titles and descriptions users see in search results.

Don’t just set it and forget it. Use Yoast SEO to spot opportunities, make improvements, and give your post its best shot at being discovered.

Keep on reading: Use Yoast SEO to make your content findable »

Blog engagement

Blog engagement is an important SEO factor. If your audience leaves comments on your posts and you respond, Google will see that your blog is very much alive and active. If people share your post on social media or talk about it online, it will definitely drive more traffic. Engagement goes beyond just comments and shares. Citations, when others reference your content, and mentions, even without links, also signal authority and trust.

Replying to comments is important for building engagement, but it takes effort. Answering questions and joining discussions shows your audience you value them, which encourages more interaction. Positive feedback is easy to handle, but negative comments require care. Please just stay professional and keep the conversation constructive.

For more tips, check out our guide on handling comments.

Marketing your blog

If you’re writing posts, you need an audience. Nobody wants to perform in an empty room! Ranking well in search engines through flawless SEO will, of course, help. But there is always more you can do.

Read more: Marketing your blog »

Social media and newsletters

Social media is a powerful way to connect with your audience and drive traffic. Start with a Facebook page and an X or Reddit account, but don’t stop there. If your audience is younger, Instagram and TikTok are essential for engagement. Short-form video content, such as Instagram Reels or TikTok videos, can help your posts reach a wider audience.

A newsletter is another great way to keep readers coming back. Collect email subscribers and send regular updates with your latest posts, exclusive insights, special discounts or gifts, or behind-the-scenes content. This builds a direct line to your audience, independent of algorithm changes.

Keep reading: Does social media influence SEO? »

Monetizing your blog

Growing your audience doesn’t automatically mean growing your income. Many bloggers focus on goals beyond money, like building a community or sharing expertise. But if you do want to monetize, here are the most effective strategies:

  • Advertising: Display ads like Google AdSense can generate revenue, but they work best with high traffic.
  • Affiliate marketing: Promote products you trust and earn commissions on sales made through your links.
  • Sponsored posts: Brands may pay you to write about their products or services.
  • Sell your own products or services: Use your blog to drive traffic to your online shop, courses, or consulting services

If you have an online shop, your blog can boost its rankings by attracting organic traffic and linking to your products.

Read on: Monetizing your blog »

Maintaining a blog

Starting a blog is easier than maintaining one. Writing blog posts regularly can be a lot of work. You don’t need to blog daily, but you should decide on a frequency and stick to it so your audience will know what to expect. Consistency builds trust, and trust keeps readers coming back. Blogging does require some discipline.

As your blog grows, you’ll probably face new SEO problems. How do you keep coming up with new content and keep your old content up to date? How do you manage different authors? What do you do when traffic to your blog is decreasing? And how will you keep your blog’s structure in shape?

Some challenges and how to solve them

As your blog grows, new problems pop up. Here’s how to tackle them:

  • Running out of ideas. Repurpose old content, and update outdated posts with new data or insights. Use the Yoast AI Content Planner to generate fresh topic ideas from your existing content. Don’t forget to listen to your audience, as their comments, emails, and social media threads can contain questions to answer.
  • Keeping old content fresh. Please audit your blog every six months, fix broken links, and refresh outdated advice. It might make sense to add “Last Updated” dates to show readers and Google that your content is up to date. AI search tools prioritize fresh content, which can revive traffic for old posts. If you have a lot of similar content, you can merge posts and combine thin or overlapping articles into a single comprehensive guide.
  • Declining traffic. Please check Google Search Console regularly to see which posts have lost rankings and why. Then, you can improve this underperforming content by adding depth, updating keywords, or merging with stronger posts. Promote strategically, and share old but valuable posts on social media or in newsletters.

Site structure

As your blog grows, it’s important to regularly analyze its structure. Organize your categories, subcategories, and tags well. As your blog grows, its structure will change and evolve. To keep your site structure clean, you can organize by topic clusters. Group related posts under pillar pages, like “SEO basics” linking to “Keyword research,” “On-page SEO,” et cetera. Don’t forget to update internal links. When you publish new posts, link to 2-3 relevant older ones. If your site becomes unwieldy, prune low-value content. Delete or redirect posts that no longer serve your audience. As long as you stay on top of that, your structure will remain SEO-friendly!

Keep on reading: Why you should add links to a new post as soon as possible »

Content planning

As your blog grows, writing shifts from spontaneous posts to strategic planning. Without a system, teams risk duplicate topics, inconsistent tones, or missed opportunities. A clear plan keeps your content organized and aligned with your goals, whether that’s driving traffic or conversions. Use tools such as editorial calendars, topic clusters, and the Yoast AI Content Planner to streamline the process. Assign roles and document guidelines for voice, style, and formatting to maintain consistency.

Planning saves time and reduces last-minute stress. An editorial calendar maps out topics, deadlines, and authors in advance, while topic clusters group related posts to boost SEO and reader navigation. Regular audits help you spot gaps and adapt to trends, keeping your blog relevant and valuable.

Read more: Content planning for a (growing) blog: 6 easy-to-use tips »

Avoiding content cannibalization

If you’ve been blogging in a certain niche for a long time, you’re bound to address the same topic more than once in your blog posts. That’s not necessarily a problem, but do make sure you’re not eating into your own ranking chances. Keyword cannibalization occurs when you have several different articles that could rank for the same and similar keyphrases. When a search engine can’t tell which article should rank highest for a certain query, it’s likely both will rank lower. The solution: stay on top of this by regularly doing an SEO audit of your blog posts to find and fix keyword cannibalization.

Conclusion

Blogging is great. It’s one of the most powerful tools for growing your website, whether it’s an online shop or personal blog. It boosts your search visibility and turns visitors into followers. But to get the best results, you’ll need more than just good writing.

Start with a good keyword strategy to target what your audience is searching for. Keep your content original and structured for AI search. Google’s algorithms, and your readers, reward clarity and depth. As your blog grows, stay organized with planning tools and engage with your audience to stay in the flow. Use our tips to build a blog that ranks and delivers real value. Now, go write something great!

Keep reading: WordPress SEO: The definitive guide to higher rankings for WordPress sites »

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