Using AI to write WordPress blog posts: what to check before publishing

You can use AI to research and draft WordPress blog posts. Give a person who knows the business the final publishing decision. Before approving a post, check that it answers a relevant customer question, supports its claims, describes your services accurately and gives the reader a useful next step.

A draft that sounds like your company can still promise a service you do not offer. Start by putting one article through the review process below, then decide how much work to delegate.

Agree what comes back with the draft

Topic suggestions, outlines, first drafts and proposed links are reasonable jobs to request from an assistant. Your brief should also ask for the research behind them, the facts that need checking and the intended next step for the reader.

Supply current service information, the intended audience and an example of writing that sounds like your business. Mark which material is approved for public use. A private client document should not become a published example just because it was available during drafting.

Use a short instruction such as:

Draft an article for [reader] answering [question], using [approved business facts]. Include sources beside claims that need evidence. Flag missing information instead of filling it in. Suggest links to existing relevant pages. Return the article for review, with a list of claims I need to approve. Do not publish or schedule it.

Treat that instruction as the brief. Separately check that the tool's actual publishing settings match it.

A person who knows the business approves service claims. An editor checks external facts, structure and clarity; in a small company, this may be the same person. If nobody can assess the subject matter, arrange a suitable reviewer before commissioning more posts. You can also keep writing yourself and delegate only research preparation or editing.

Google recognizes research and structure as useful applications of generative AI. It warns that generating many pages without adding value may violate its scaled content abuse policy. Google's generative AI content guidance.

Check the topic before editing sentences

Ask whose question the article answers and which service makes your business relevant to it. An office-cleaning company might help a buyer decide what to include in a cleaning brief. A broad article about productivity needs a separate reason to belong on that company's site.

For a keyword recommendation, request the exact query, research date, country, language and data source. Check whether any search-volume estimate belongs to that query or to a broader related phrase. A number for "office cleaning" does not establish demand for "what to include in an office cleaning brief." Missing data should stay marked unknown.

Look at the search results themselves. Instructions, provider comparisons and problem-solving guides serve different needs. Read relevant pages to see which questions they answer and what your proposed article would add. An advertising competition score is not an organic ranking-difficulty score, and a volume estimate is not an enquiry forecast.

Then check your existing pages. If a useful post already answers the question, consider improving it instead of commissioning a near duplicate.

Check evidence, then make the answer useful

Read claims against their sources before polishing the prose. Open the linked page and locate the passage that supports each consequential statement. Confirm that the wording applies to the same product, location and circumstances.

Check numbers, prices, deadlines, technical instructions and promised results especially carefully. For a statistic, look for its date, sample and definition. If those details are missing, do not make the claim more certain than the source allows. Your own service promises need approval from the business even when another company's website says something similar.

Keep a short private record alongside the draft: the claim, supporting page or approved business fact, check result and required edit. "Needs checking" should identify an exact passage and a person who can resolve it. Remove an unnecessary unsupported claim; hold the article when its main advice depends on missing evidence.

Once the facts hold up, ask what the reader can do with the answer. A comparison should explain when each option fits. Instructions should include the decision or exception that might otherwise stop someone. An example should make an unfamiliar step easier to understand.

Google's helpful-content guidance asks whether a page adds original information or analysis and helps its intended audience achieve a goal. A rewritten summary of other pages may still leave the practical question unanswered. Google's helpful-content guidance.

Add details your business can support: what a customer needs to prepare, what changes the scope of a job, or how your process handles a common exception. Use a customer example only with evidence and permission to publish it. Otherwise, label the example as hypothetical.

A hypothetical draft correction

Imagine a commercial cleaning business reviewing an AI draft about arranging office cleaning. The business and facts below are invented to demonstrate the review.

Initial paragraph:

Our expert team deep-cleans every office overnight, including carpets and high windows. Get your instant quote and enjoy a spotless workspace tomorrow.

For this example, the owner has approved four facts: the business offers routine office cleaning after agreed hours; carpet extraction is quoted separately; high-level window work is outside its service; and enquiries lead to a discussion of the premises and access. There is no overnight completion promise.

Revised paragraph:

For routine office cleaning, tell us the rooms you need cleaned, how often you need visits and when cleaners can enter the building. We agree access and cleaning times before work starts. Carpet extraction needs a separate quote; high-level window cleaning is outside our service.

This edit corrects the scope, removes an unsupported deadline and replaces the instant-quote promise with the actual enquiry process. It also gives the buyer something useful to prepare.

The review record would say: "Owner's approved scope supports the revised paragraph. Replace the booking-button text and search description too if they repeat the instant-quote promise." Check the whole page for the same error after changing the body.

Evaluate an assistant using one reviewable article

Ask a provider to show where you can inspect sources, return corrections and see the version awaiting approval. Establish who checks a revision and whether approving text also approves its images, metadata and publication date.

WPShip describes its Assistant as researching search opportunities and preparing drafts using existing content and brand voice, with headings, internal links and approval before publication. Its public example is labeled a demo. The description tells you what to ask about; it does not establish how the product will behave on your installation. Explore WPShip Assistant.

To discuss that workflow for your site, contact WPShip with your site URL, one service page and an example of a post you would like help producing. Use your review checklist to agree what you will receive and who makes the final decision.

Preview the complete post in WordPress

Read the revised post in your site's preview on a phone and a larger screen. Check that headings describe the sections, tables remain readable and the article's main answer appears in text.

Open the proposed internal links. Each destination should exist, match the link's wording and help with the reader's next question. Check the enquiry route too. A visible contact form alone does not prove someone receives submissions; use an agreed test when that route needs verification.

Compare the title and meta description, the short description supplied for search, with the revised article. Remove any claim that failed review elsewhere. Google's accuracy guidance explicitly includes metadata and image alternatives. Google's content guidance.

Inspect the images at the size readers will see. A generated illustration should not imply that it depicts a real customer, completed project or tested product. Label conceptual artwork when needed to avoid that confusion. Use meaningful alt text, a text alternative conveying the image's purpose; purely decorative images may need an empty alternative. W3C's alt-text decision tree.

Use accurate author and reviewer information. When readers would reasonably want to know how AI contributed, explain its role and the review that actually occurred. Google recommends accurate authorship information and considering automation disclosures where readers would expect them. Google's authorship and process guidance.

WordPress has distinct Draft, Pending and scheduled-publication states. Pending content awaits someone with publishing permission; scheduled content is intended to go live at a future time. Keep unapproved work in Draft or Pending. WordPress post status documentation.

Ask the person managing your site to check the assistant's integration, account permissions and automatic publishing settings. On a test site, have them demonstrate that a new article and a requested correction remain unpublished until approval. A workflow description alone cannot verify an installed tool's behavior. Agree separately how edits to already published posts will be reviewed.

Make an explicit publish or return decision

Use this checklist after reading the complete preview.

Any unresolved service promise, central factual claim or publishing-control issue means the post stays unpublished. Return it with the passage, the reason and the evidence needed. After corrections, check the changed section in context and confirm that related links and metadata still agree.

Search visibility is a separate outcome. Google says ordinary SEO practices apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode. Eligibility requires an indexed page that can appear in Search with a snippet, but inclusion is not guaranteed. No special AI file or schema is required. Google's AI features guidance.

For your first article, record the draft version, corrections, reviewer and decision. That record gives you a practical basis for the next commission: what the assistant handled, what required your attention and whether you can repeat the process with confidence.