Author name: John

In this episode, Derek Hanson chats with Kimberly Pace Becker about AI’s intersection with language and technology, emphasizing ethics, diverse perspectives, and responsible integration in digital tools.

Transcript [00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, exploring AI’s impact in WordPress agencies. If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players. If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there. So on the podcast today we have Matt Schwartz. Matt runs Inspry, an Atlanta WordPress and Woo Commerce agency. He started it back in 2011 and has been working with WordPress even longer than that. In addition to his agency work, he also has a product called CheckView focused on WordPress testing. He’s got years of experience in the WordPress agency world, and recently he’s turned much of his attention towards the growing impact of AI. If you’ve been hearing a lot about AI but a feeling fatigued by all the fragmented conversations, this episode might well offer a different perspective. Rather than focusing on how AI creates websites or content, Matt shares a different angle, how AI can be used inside a WordPress agency to enhance processes, improve workflows, and deliver more value to clients, with much of it happening behind the scenes. We start by talking about how Matt stumbled into web design and how that led him to running his own agency. We dig into agency life, and why so many freelancers and agency owners are constantly iterating on their processes. From there, we talk about the big shift that’s happening, not just in building sites, but in how agencies can use AI to streamline their SOPs, client communication, and internal operations. Matt explains the need for intention when adding AI to an agency. He introduces the idea of an AI vision document, that helps set guardrails and guidelines for where, and how, AI should factor into your business. He also shares real examples of ways AI can save time and stress in things like meetings, proposals, debugging, support, and even helping you expand your service offerings. We also touch on the risks, ethical considerations, and the importance of keeping a human in the loop during critical agency moments. If you’re running a WordPress agency, or are curious about how agencies are adapting to the rapid pace of change, brought by AI, this episode is for you. This is part one in a two-part series, so listen to this and tune in next week for part two. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well. And so without further delay, I bring you Matt Schwartz. I am joined on the podcast by Matt Schwartz. Hello, Matt. [00:03:45] Matt Schwartz: Hey Nathan. Thank you so much for having me today. I’m excited. [00:03:48] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, you’re very welcome. We’re on the podcast today to have a chat about AI. Now, before you hit the stop button, dear listener, because AI is all the rage everywhere, we’ve talked about it a million different ways. I think there’s something a little bit different about the conversation that we’re going to have today, because it particularly plays into the WordPress agency, kind of the stuff that you are not doing with the website directly, but all of the bits and pieces that allow you to have an agency, and how AI may or may not be best placed to insert itself in those different scenarios. But before we begin that, Matt, do you mind just giving us your little bio? Maybe tell us a bit about your situation regarding WordPress agencies and whatnot. [00:04:31] Matt Schwartz: Definitely. Yeah, so I run an agency called In Inspry in Atlanta. We’ve been around since 2011. We’ve been using WordPress since 2013, and also have a product called CheckView, which does WordPress testing. But yeah, in the agency space specifically, you know, I’ve been talking to a lot of different agencies about AI. I’ve been pretty involved in it. And you’re totally right, Nathan, our goal today is not to make everyone just have to experience the verbal throw up of the word AI, AI, AI over and over again, which is, I feel like I’m sick of the word. But really going into how agencies can use it in, I think, really interesting ways, and also being candid about what AI is, and some of the pitfalls I think of it that, you know, aren’t always talked about, especially if you go on LinkedIn. [00:05:15] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so we’ll get into that in a moment, but just before we do, there’s a couple of interesting bits that I want to throw at you. And this is something that I heard in the British press not that long ago. And it doesn’t in any way, shape or form reflect on WordPress, it was just more generally about AI, and the fatigue that the general population are experiencing around that term. And it feels like we have reached maximum capacity to just hear those words, and hear the overpromising and the potentially under delivery of AI. So I’ll throw that little bit in, but also, just to say that what we’re going to talk about today is not going to be how to get the pixels on the page, and how to use AI to turn the website out. This is much more going to be the background to the agency that you run and all of that kind of thing. So before we

Many WordPress site owners keep publishing content for months but still aren’t sure if their SEO is actually working. The tricky part is that the results are usually already there but they’re just not always easy to notice at first glance. Instead of appearing in one obvious place, SEO performance shows up across different areas of your site. You can spot it through clear signals like organic traffic, keyword rankings, indexed pages, click-through rates, and conversions. In this guide, I’ll show you how to check if your SEO is working and measure your SEO progress on your site using tools like MonsterInsights, AIOSEO, and Google Search Console. 💡 Quick 2-Minute Check to See If Your WordPress SEO Is Working If you just want a quick check-up of your SEO performance, you don’t need tools or deep reports yet. Start by answering these simple questions: Are you getting any organic traffic from search engines like Google Search? Are your pages indexed and appearing in search results? Are your keywords showing up in search results at all? If you can answer ‘yes’ to at least one of these, then your SEO is already working in some way. If not, it simply means you still need to focus on the basics, and the rest of this guide will help you fix that step by step. What Does ‘SEO Working’ Actually Mean? When people ask whether their SEO is working, they’re usually expecting a single clear answer. But in reality, SEO success shows up in a few different areas at the same time. I’ve found it’s less about one big result and more about steady progress across your content and visibility. Here are the main signs that your SEO is actually working: Your Organic Traffic is Slowly Increasing: You start getting more visitors from search engines over time. It may not jump overnight, but the trend moves upward. Your Pages are Appearing in Google Search Results: This means your content is getting indexed properly and showing up when people search for related topics. Your Keyword Rankings are Improving: Your posts begin to move higher in search results for the terms you’re targeting. Even moving from page 3 to page 2 is a positive signal. More People are Clicking Your Search Listings: This is your click-through rate (CTR). It tells you that your titles and meta descriptions are compelling enough to attract clicks. Visitors are Taking Action on Your Site: This could be signing up for your email list, filling out a contact form, or making a purchase. The main thing to remember is this: you don’t need to see all of these factors improving at the same time or in big numbers. If even a few of them are moving in the right direction, then your SEO is working and building momentum over time. 5 Easy Ways to Check If Your SEO Is Working Now that you know what ‘SEO working’ actually looks like, let’s get into the practical part: how to check it on your own website. The good news is that you don’t need to guess or rely on assumptions. You can actually see clear SEO signals using a few simple tools and reports. I have broken this down into 5 easy checks that give a pretty accurate picture of what’s happening behind the scenes. These are beginner-friendly, and you can do them even if you’re not very technical: Track Organic Traffic Growth Over Time See Your Organic Traffic With MonsterInsights How to Check Organic Traffic in Google Analytics Verify Your Pages Are Indexed in Google How to Check Indexing in Google Search Console Monitor Your Target Keyword Rankings Analyze Your Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR) How to Check CTR in Google Search Console What Does CTR Tell You? Measure SEO-Driven Conversions and Goals (Conversions) How to Track Conversions in Google Analytics 💡Simple Monthly SEO Checklist How Long Does SEO Take to Work? Frequently Asked Questions About Website SEO 1. Track Organic Traffic Growth Over Time Organic traffic is simply the visitors who land on your website from search engines like Google Search without you paying for ads. So if someone searches for a topic, clicks your post, and visits your site, that’s organic traffic. This is usually the first and most important SEO signal because it tells you one simple thing:Are people actually finding your site through search? To make this easier, here’s an idea of what healthy organic traffic can look like for different types of websites: If this number is going up over time, then it usually means your content is getting more visibility, and your SEO strategy is moving in the right direction. 💡 Expert Tip: Organic search is still the main source of traffic, but search is evolving. Some websites are also starting to get traffic from AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This is part of a newer strategy called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), which focuses on making content easier for AI systems to understand and surface in answers. To prepare your site for visibility AI-generated answers, see our guide on Generative Engine Optimization. See Your Organic Traffic With MonsterInsights You can track your organic traffic using Google Analytics, which is one of the most popular and free tools for website analytics. Inside Google Analytics, you’ll need to explore reports and filter traffic sources to find your organic search data. While it’s very powerful, it can feel overwhelming for beginners because there are multiple menus, reports, and settings to navigate. That’s why I recommend MonsterInsights instead. We use MonsterInsights across WPBeginner because it is the best analytics solution for WordPress. It connects directly with Google Analytics but simplifies everything by showing your most important SEO and traffic data inside your WordPress dashboard. Once MonsterInsights is installed and connected to Google Analytics, go to Insights » Reports in your WordPress dashboard, where you will see an ‘Overview Report.’ This gives you a simple breakdown of your website traffic, including how much is coming from organic search. If

Ever wished you could double your traffic by reaching international audiences who don’t speak English? Imagine if you could click a few buttons to translate your entire WordPress site into 100+ languages without hiring a developer or professional translators.  Sadly, most website translation tools are either crazy expensive, painfully slow, or so poorly built that they damage your SEO the moment you activate them.  It simply shouldn’t be this hard to speak to your global audience in their own language. That’s why today, I’m excited to announce Universally, an AI-powered translation platform that turns your WordPress site into a fully-translated, SEO-ready, multilingual experience in minutes. Simply put, Universally is truly the “set-it-and-forget-it” translation engine you’ve always been waiting for. Background Story – Why Universally? For years, I’ve wanted to translate WPBeginner and my other eCommerce websites into multiple languages because we have users from around the world and many have even asked for it.  So, last year I decided to give it a try.  The journey of making a multilingual eCommerce website in WordPress is a lot bumpier than I would’ve hoped. And the problem extends to every mid to large content site as well. That’s because every well-known WordPress translation plugin inefficiently stores translations inside the WordPress database. I tried them all on WPBeginner, and every single one of them made our WordPress admin area so slow that the post editor was practically unusable.  When we tested them on our eCommerce sites (both Woo and EDD), we noticed that the performance impact was on our entire checkout process, and that’s not good for conversions & revenue.  Out of every WordPress translation plugin that I tried, only ONE worked, but it required converting the website into a WordPress multisite which comes with its own set of complexities and technical challenges. As I went through this process, I literally thought to myself why is this so hard? Clearly there has to be a better solution. So I looked into some well-known SaaS solutions that offered AI translations, and they worked very well. Unfortunately, the cost for us would be hundreds of thousands of dollars to use their platform for just WPBeginner alone. If I included my other brands like WPForms, AIOSEO, and others, our translation cost would likely go into 7 figures. In the age of AI, translation platforms shouldn’t be this expensive. The new AI models have gotten so much better that a small business owner who is not leveraging translations is just missing out. After going through this painful process personally over the last year, I asked our team to build an AI website translation platform that we can use for our own brands, and make it available to our community (YOU). Because in 2026, small businesses and eCommerce website owners need an easy & affordable way to translate their websites without having to compromise on website speed. That’s exactly what Universally offers. The best part is that it will work on all website platforms including WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Loveable, Replit, etc.  You simply connect your website with Universally, select the languages, and let our intelligent multilingual AI platform expand your global reach. We have already translated over 250 million words on the platform during our internal launch and private beta. Here’s a quick overview: What is Universally? Universally is an AI-powered website translation platform built for WordPress site owners, WooCommerce stores, SaaS companies, and agencies that need to go multilingual without the usual translation headaches. Once installed, it automatically detects every translatable element on your site, including blog content, button text, menu items, form labels, image alt tags, schema.org data, even your product descriptions in WooCommerce, and more.  Universally translates them into 100+ languages within minutes. Unlike traditional plugins, Universally doesn’t store anything extra in your WordPress database. No duplicate posts, bloated tables, or slowdowns. Translations live on Universally’s cloud and content is delivered from edge (cloud servers closest to the user). This means your international visitors will likely see a faster version of your website, never slower. Here’s what makes it special: Full Website Translation in Minutes, Not Months If you’ve ever worked with a translator, you know how tedious the process is… You export strings to a spreadsheet and send it to a translator. You get the translated content 2 weeks later, only to realize that the context is wrong. So, you’ll have to repeat the same process… and for every language you want to translate. Universally skips that entire back and forth. You pick your target languages once, and within minutes your entire site is live in every language you selected, including content you forgot you had (old blog posts, archived product pages, buried checkout strings). And it doesn’t stop there. Every time you publish or edit a post in your source language, Universally automatically catches the change and pushes the updated translation across every language version. You never have to remember to “also translate this” again. For quality, Universally targets 90-95% AI accuracy out of the box, with optional professional human translation available for critical pages like your pricing page, checkout flow, or legal terms. Multilingual SEO That Actually Works (Without a Developer) Multilingual SEO is where most translation tools quietly fall apart. Google has very specific rules for multilingual sites. You need hreflang tags on every page. You also need translated meta titles and descriptions, properly structured URLs, and multilingual XML sitemaps.  For Arabic and Hebrew translation, you need RTL (right to left) support to ensure those languages are properly displayed. Miss any of those rules and Google either ignores your translated pages entirely or flags them as duplicate content. Universally handles all of it automatically. It provides: Automatic hreflang tags on every language version Translated title tags, meta descriptions, Open Graph, and Twitter Card tags Schema.org / JSON-LD structured data translation Automatic lang attribute and dir=”rtl” for right-to-left languages Multilingual XML sitemaps generated automatically Internal link rewriting (your /about link becomes /fr/about on French pages… without you lifting a finger) Subdirectory,