Getting started with Blog AI

Blog AI keeps your blog going with posts that start from your own Google search data. This guide takes you from signing in to your first published post. It needs about 10 minutes of your time, plus a few minutes of waiting while Google data syncs and your first draft is written.

You don't need a card for any of it. The free plan includes the content audit, your Actions list, the performance report, one AI-visibility snapshot and one free post. What's included free lists the exact conditions.

The path at a glance

1. Sign in with Google. Go to the sign-in page and click Continue with Google. Signing in creates your account. There's no password to set, and signing in doesn't give Blog AI any access to your Google data.
2. Add your site. Open Sites and click Add site. Choose WordPress or Strapi, enter your site's details, click Test connection, then Add site and import posts. Blog AI imports your published posts and pages in the background.
3. Connect Google. On the same Sites card, click Connect Google, allow read-only access to Search Console and Google Analytics, then pick your site's properties and click Save and sync.
4. Set your writing voice. Open your site's voice page from the Sites card (Writing style and voice). If your blog has at least 3 published posts, click Learn my voice. If not, describe how you write in a few lines.
5. Write your first post free. Back on Home, click Write this one free. Blog AI picks your top opportunity from Search Console, or you can name your own topic. The draft takes about 5 minutes.
6. Review and publish. Open the draft, read it, check the Fact check panel, then click Publish now or pick a time under Schedule for.

The setup checklist on Home follows the same steps and ticks each one off as you finish it. You can hide it and bring it back later from Settings.

Step by step, with what to expect

Signing in

Blog AI only offers Google sign-in. Each Google login is one Blog AI account, so use the Google account you want to keep using for this. Signing in and your account covers the details.

Adding your site

Blog AI needs to reach your blog so it can import your posts and later publish new ones. For WordPress you create an application password: a separate password WordPress makes for one app, which you can revoke at any time. For Strapi you create an API token. The guides for each are Connect WordPress and Connect a Strapi site.

If your WordPress site uses Yoast SEO or Rank Math, also install the free Blog AI Connector plugin. Without it, Blog AI can't set the title and description Google shows for your posts.

Connecting Google

This is the step that makes everything else useful. Search Console tells Blog AI which searches already show your site, where you rank and what people click. Google Analytics adds how many visits come from search. Blog AI only asks for read-only access and can't change anything in your Google accounts.

The first sync brings in recent days within a few minutes, then keeps loading older history in the background: up to 16 months on a paid plan, 3 on the free plan. Your Actions list and performance report fill in as the data arrives. See Connect Search Console and Google Analytics.

Setting your voice

Your voice profile is how Blog AI makes drafts sound like you rather than like every other blog. When it learns from your posts, it writes a style guide, picks short example passages and lists phrases you never use. You can read and edit all of it. See Set your writing voice.

Your first post

The free post becomes available once two things are true: Search Console has finished its first sync, and your voice is set. It's one post per account and one per Search Console property. Blog AI researches the topic on the live web, writes the draft in your voice with sources cited inline, then a separate fact-check re-reads each cited source.

If a statistic doesn't match its source, the post is marked Needs review and can't be published until you resolve it. That's deliberate. Reading fact-check flags explains each verdict.

After the first post

Once your first post is live, Home becomes your starting point:

• How to get more clicks shows your top three actions, and the Actions page ranks everything worth doing next, with an estimate of the extra clicks each item could bring. See Home and Actions.
• Performance shows what your site and each post brought in from Google, compared with the period before. See Reading your performance report.
• Content audit gives every published post one recommended action, free. See Your content audit.

Writing more posts, refreshing old ones and weekly AI-visibility tracking use a plan. Plans start at $49 a month; Understanding credits explains what each action costs.

If something doesn't work

• The connection test fails. The error message says what WordPress or Strapi answered. The most common causes are a typo in the address, an address that redirects (use the exact address your site loads at) and a user without permission to publish.
• Google shows no data. A new site can take a few days to appear in Search Console at all. Blog AI can only show what Google has.
• The free post button isn't there. Check the card on Home: it says which step is still missing.

Still stuck? Contact us and tell us which step you're on.