Description
SiteAssist AI Editorial Planner helps WordPress site owners build a structured publishing plan and generate AI-assisted blog articles using their own OpenAI API key.
The plugin can scan existing site content, build a brand profile, suggest article topics, organize them into a calendar, generate draft or published articles, create featured images, and estimate OpenAI API costs before content is generated.
Major capabilities include:
- Site scan and content inventory for topic planning.
- Brand profile generation and editing.
- Publishing plan controls for frequency, article length, writing style, author, and category.
- Editorial calendar with calendar and list views.
- AI-assisted topic generation.
- Article generation and post status handling.
- Basic contextual internal linking controls.
- Basic AI featured image generation.
- Monthly API cost estimate and tracked usage summary.
- Support for sites protected by HTTP Basic Authentication during scans.
- BlogPosting structured data for all published WordPress posts, with duplicate-provider detection.
- Optional IndexNow notification when a SiteAssist article is first published, with external-provider detection and latest submission status.
This plugin requires an OpenAI API key. OpenAI API usage is billed separately by OpenAI based on the prompts, tokens, and image generation settings used.
The WordPress.org plugin includes the core planning, calendar, article generation, and basic featured image workflow.
Premium Features
An optional separately distributed advanced version is available for teams that need deeper editorial workflows, including SEO campaign planning, editorial review tools, automation workflows, and advanced image controls. Learn more at WPAssist website.
Premium features include:
- SEO campaign planning and campaign-aware topic generation.
- Final Article Quality Review for direct-answer clarity, entity clarity, extractable explanations, editorial quality, AI Readiness scoring, and schema suggestions.
- Internal Link Review and CTA Alignment for stronger anchors, linked sentences, destination variety, and final CTA fit.
- Balanced and Advanced Evidence Depth controls with exact-page source matching and final claim-to-source validation in Advanced mode.
- Advanced image controls, including prompt refresh and different-concept generation.
- Automation workflows for scheduled article generation and publishing support.
External Services
SiteAssist AI Editorial Planner connects to external services only when a site administrator uses features that require them.
OpenAI
The plugin connects to the OpenAI API at https://api.openai.com when a site administrator generates or reviews content, such as brand profiles, topic ideas, article drafts, article improvements, or AI-generated images. Depending on the feature being used, requests may include site scan summaries, brand profile details, article topics, selected settings, article draft content, internal-link candidates, image prompts, and related generation context. The plugin uses the OpenAI API key saved by the site administrator, and OpenAI API usage is billed separately by OpenAI.
OpenAI Terms and Policies: https://openai.com/policies/
OpenAI Platform: https://platform.openai.com/
IndexNow
When a site administrator enables the IndexNow setting, the plugin queues the public URL of a newly published SiteAssist article for submission to the IndexNow API at https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow. The request also includes the site’s public host name and an automatically generated verification key and key-location URL. SiteAssist does not send the article content, OpenAI API key, private post data, or administrator information to IndexNow. Requests occur only when an eligible SiteAssist-generated WordPress post is published for the first time, and temporary failures may be retried in the background. Before SiteAssist sends its request, it checks whether another plugin has already submitted the same URL successfully through the WordPress HTTP API. When such a request is observed, SiteAssist avoids the duplicate and records the latest submitted URL, provider, and HTTP response for display in the SEO settings. This coordination is not limited to SEOPress or another specific SEO plugin. IndexNow is used by participating search engines and does not submit the article to Google.
IndexNow Documentation: https://www.indexnow.org/documentation
IndexNow Terms of Service: https://www.indexnow.org/terms
Freemius
This plugin includes the Freemius SDK to provide opt-in account connection, license/account screens, update handling for separately distributed paid versions, and optional usage/account communication. The SDK may connect to Freemius services, including https://api.freemius.com and related Freemius endpoints, when a site administrator opts in, activates a license, opens Freemius account screens, or uses Freemius-powered update and account-management features.
Data sent to Freemius may include plugin slug/version, site URL, WordPress and PHP environment details, administrator account/contact details supplied during opt-in or account connection, account identifiers, and diagnostic data needed for licensing, updates, account management, and support.
Freemius Terms of Service: https://freemius.com/terms/
Freemius Privacy Policy: https://freemius.com/privacy/
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the
siteassist-ai-editorial-plannerfolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory, or install the ZIP file from the WordPress Plugins screen. - Activate SiteAssist AI Editorial Planner from the Plugins screen.
- Open AI Planner from the WordPress admin menu or from the shortcut on the Plugins screen.
- Add your OpenAI API key.
- Run the onboarding steps to scan the site, generate a brand profile, configure the publishing plan, and create the editorial calendar.
FAQ
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Does the plugin include an OpenAI API key?
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No. The plugin is designed for bring-your-own-key usage. You add your own OpenAI API key in the plugin settings, and API usage is billed by OpenAI to that account.
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How do I get an OpenAI API key?
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Visit the OpenAI Platform at https://platform.openai.com/, create or sign in to an OpenAI account, and generate an API key from your developer dashboard. Keep your key private and paste it into the SiteAssist AI Editorial Planner settings screen.
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Does the plugin guarantee search rankings or AI search mentions?
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No. The plugin helps create structured, useful, internally aligned content that may support search visibility and AI-powered discovery, but it does not guarantee rankings, traffic, conversions, or mentions in AI answer tools.
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Can the plugin delete its data on uninstall?
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Yes. In Settings, enable the uninstall cleanup option before uninstalling the plugin. When enabled, uninstall removes SiteAssist AI Editorial Planner settings, the saved OpenAI API key, site scans, brand profile, generated calendar topics, usage records, and plugin-owned post metadata. It does not delete generated WordPress posts, published articles, draft articles, featured images, or Media Library attachments.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“SiteAssist AI Editorial Planner” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “SiteAssist AI Editorial Planner” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
0.17.34
- Fixed the final CTA lock so an already valid, topic-matched conclusion link is preserved instead of receiving a second fallback service link. (Pro only)
- Consolidated multiple service/action links inside the final CTA paragraph to one link and removed redundant deterministic fallback wording. (Pro only)
0.17.33
- Improved internal-link planning so exact-topic editorial articles remain available alongside service and CTA destinations. (Pro only)
- Fixed duplicate internal-link reconciliation and contextual backfilling so one best occurrence is retained and anchors never cross sentence or clause boundaries. (Pro only)
- Improved final article polish for sentence-case checklist labels, source-name capitalization, cautious diagnostic wording, repeated-section review, and quieter attribution diagnostics. (Pro only)
- Kept the final service CTA inside the Conclusion, replaced awkward fallback wording, and made CTA diagnostics report the anchor actually saved. (Pro only)
0.17.32
- Fixed Quick Answer score recalculation after manual article edits when WordPress saves the answer as direct section text instead of a paragraph. (Pro only)
- Fixed the Apply suggestion action so Quick Answer rewrites replace only the Quick Answer body and can never be inserted inside Key Takeaways. (Pro only)
0.17.31
- NEW: Added BlogPosting structured data for all published WordPress posts, with rendered frontend JSON-LD inspection that detects Article-family schema from any plugin, theme, or custom code before SiteAssist adds its fallback.
- NEW: Added IndexNow notifications for newly published SiteAssist articles, including generic observation of IndexNow requests made through the WordPress HTTP API, URL-level duplicate prevention, fallback submission, and display of the last submitted URL, provider, response status, and time.
0.17.30
- Fixed automatic topic suggestions being falsely rejected as duplicates of service pages, landing pages, and general internal-link candidates; the overlap guard now blocks only against published or planned editorial topics, excludes the calendar slot being replaced, and logs grounded rejection details.
- Added live claim-specific web search, exact-page and PDF verification, replacement discovery when evidence coverage is thin, verified-source caching, source-reuse controls, expanded evidence tracing, and stronger final evidence/CTA reconciliation. (Pro only)
- Consolidated AI Readiness and Editorial Quality into one cost-controlled Final Article Quality Review that respects the Quick Answer setting, applies targeted clarity and editorial fixes, saves AI Readiness scoring and schema suggestions, and runs after Internal Link Review but before the final Evidence Depth claim audit.(Pro only)
- Revamped Evidence Depth with claim-first source planning, exact-page usage contracts, non-quota Advanced linking, stricter deterministic matching, and a final claim-to-source audit. (Pro only)
0.17.22
- Improved automatic topic suggestions so high-overlap candidates are retried internally with the rejected title, closest matching content, and overlap reason used to force a materially different search intent.
- Started automatic featured-image queueing immediately after the WordPress draft is saved, before premium follow-up reviews, and refreshed the calendar image state as soon as the background job is detected.
0.17.21
- Added a numbered-title structure override and post-generation count validation so titles promising a specific number of checks, signs, steps, mistakes, questions, or similar items receive one distinct numbered section per item.
- Added a stricter evidence-source repetition and fit guard with hard cooldowns for recurring generic vendor sources and stronger topic matching for WordPress articles.
- Improved featured-image prompt fidelity by preserving the article-specific subject, action, and setting, exposing the final generation prompt, and preventing variety or Website Image Guide instructions from replacing the core concept.
0.17.20
- Added semantic topic-overlap review before generated, suggested, or manually entered topics are placed on the calendar; high-overlap topics are blocked or regenerated while related topics with distinct intent remain allowed.
- Added a topic-entry overlay for empty calendar dates and Suggest Topic actions, allowing users to enter an exact title or generate a topic automatically.
- Improved high-quality featured image startup by dispatching queued jobs through an immediate token-protected background worker while retaining WP-Cron as a fallback.
- Removed the standalone Automation Activity Log and its high-volume cron-check entries; Automation Status remains available for queue and run information.
- Added a Website Image Guide section to the Images tab with editable site-level style, avoid, and preferred-concept fields.
- Auto-populates the Website Image Guide from the Brand Profile/onboarding context when the fields are empty.
- Applies the saved Website Image Guide to generated image prompts, prompt refreshes, and different-concept generation so generic scene templates do not override the site visual identity.
- Added Evidence Depth presets (Standard, Balanced, Advanced) to control source strictness, link specificity, and claim support without adding multiple user-facing settings.
- Added Evidence Depth to manual article generation and kept Writing Style as a site-level Publishing Plan setting.
- Improved authority source selection to reduce weak generic links and repeated source families for advanced evidence content.
- Changed manual article generation to launch through a background AJAX worker instead of a direct WP-Cron callback, reducing header/output conflicts during long generation jobs.
- Improved background job status handling so non-fatal PHP warnings are not shown as article-generation failure messages.
- Added background status polling so the article shows ready only after required image generation is complete.
- Deferred automatic featured image handling from manual article generation so featured images are queued after the draft is created instead of blocking article creation.
- Added internal anchor readability checks to remove incomplete, awkward, too-short, or grammatically broken internal link anchors.
- Wrapped generated Quick Answer and Key Takeaways sections in stable article-section div containers for styling and post-generation controls.
- Added generated article settings controls for author box, article author, Quick Answer, and Key Takeaways.
0.16.99
- Added background processing for featured image generation so image requests are queued and the gallery refreshes automatically when the image is ready.
- Improved image-generation polling so manual generation, regeneration, and different-concept actions keep checking the article state until the gallery updates or a failure is confirmed.
0.16.98
- Added generated image galleries so new image generations are saved as selectable candidates instead of replacing previous generated images immediately.
- Enhanced premium external source validation with final saved-HTML checks, source-name/domain mismatch cleanup, and evidence-safe link top-up after review and normalization.
- Updated readme documentation with a dedicated Premium Features section.
0.16.97
- Improved featured image prompt guidance to avoid cluttered, literal prop-heavy scenes for abstract support topics.
- Updated the free featured image workflow to use the Premium Image Model by default.
- Fixed calendar view so it opens to the current month when the current month exists in the queue.
0.16.96
- Adjusted article export CSS and JavaScript handling to follow WordPress enqueue best practices.
0.16.95
- Expanded Help tab guidance with more practical setup and review tips.
- Improved Plugin Check compatibility for redirects, export output annotations, core content filters, query parameters, and developer debug filters.
0.16.94
- Added a Help tab with concise setup guidance for site scans, brand profiles, publishing settings, SEO settings, images, and article quality review.
- Added contextual Help guidance for additional workflow areas when available.
0.16.93
- Updated the plugin name, slug, and text domain to SiteAssist AI Editorial Planner / siteassist-ai-editorial-planner for WordPress.org guideline alignment.
- Improved featured image regeneration behavior to use fresh image filenames and reduce stale cached image URLs after regenerating images.
0.16.92
- Added article export options to download a PDF or HTML version of generated articles.
- Improved link diversity, anchor text cleanup, and featured image concept variety for generated articles.
0.16.91
- Fixed Plugin Checker file deletion and query warnings in shared code.
- Fixed a fresh-install settings warning when saving publishing plan options.
0.16.89
- Updated readme documentation for the optional separately distributed advanced version.
0.16.88
- Refined shared admin styling, package separation, and documentation wording.
- Improved calendar cost display and draft preview link handling.
0.16.87
- Refined generated package separation, admin navigation, and documentation wording.
- Removed third-party cache purge hook calls from the package.
- Confirmed main plugin globals continue to use the WPAEP/wpaep prefix.
0.16.81
Improved admin stylesheet organization.
0.16.80
- Aligned free content quality markup and crawlability labels with shared readiness styling.
0.16.77
- Added translator comments for dynamic admin strings to improve internationalization compatibility.
0.16.76
- Version increment for packaged release.
0.16.75
- Standardized build guard naming to improve generated package consistency.
- Improved admin output escaping and uninstall cleanup annotations for Plugin Check compatibility.
0.16.74
- Code cleanup to simplify shared admin and planning files and refine shared calendar styles.
- Improved packaging consistency for generated builds.
0.16.73
- Refined admin and planning code organization to improve build separation and packaging consistency.
- Improved packaging consistency for generated builds.
0.16.72
- Improved onboarding prompts and calendar refresh behavior after setup changes.
0.16.71
- Refined admin asset loading and shared planning code organization.
0.16.70
- Code cleanup to simplify admin data preparation and improve packaging consistency.