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We're seeing Purple. 💜 Purple is our new WooCommerce block theme, built for the Site Editor and modern online stores, and it's now in beta. It comes with commerce-ready templates and curated patterns for everything from product pages and filterable shop views to cart and checkout. Plus, 10 color palettes and 10 font pairings to mix and match. Whatever you sell, Purple can help you freshen things up and get a head start on peak ecommerce season. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think. Starting a store or refreshing an existing one? Try the Purple beta: https://lnkd.in/eBzpCT6e

Bestselling author Neal Stephenson joins Zander Rose live to discuss his latest novel, D: Heavy Water, a story of spies, science and the race to secure a substance critical to building atomic weapons as the world approaches the Second World War. We’ll explore the history behind the book, discuss what the future might hold, and take your questions live. This is the first conversation in Wide Margins, a new series from WordPress.com, open to everyone. 📚 Explore Neal’s books: https://lnkd.in/e48jvGnU

If your entire online presence still lives solely on social media, this one's for you. You can build and ship a website on WordPress.com for free, and it's easier than you might think. In his latest demo video, Wes Theron builds a barbershop site from start to finish on the free plan. First, create a WordPress.com account and choose a free .wordpress.com address. From there… 🛜Select and customize a free theme 🛜Add pages using blocks and patterns 🛜Write a blog post and add a featured image 🛜Customize your homepage and publish Every step is on screen, so you can follow along with your own site. Watch the full walkthrough and try it for yourself today. 👇

AEO, GEO, AIO, LLM visibility…what does it all mean? AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the most common term for making your content easier for AI tools to understand, cite, and recommend. The good news: AEO isn't an entirely new discipline. It's largely an extension of what already makes content great—clear answers, useful information, and good writing. The difference is a lower barrier to entry that gives smaller brands and experts an opportunity to compete with big names. In our latest WordPress.com blog post, we broke down how to build your AEO strategy and measure how well it's working. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gGYdfMPx

Monetizing your blog doesn’t have to mean turning it into a full-blown business. In our latest blog post, we break down small ways you can start earning from your blog without turning it into a serious side hustle—including creating a virtual tip jar, setting up affiliate links, or selling that one thing your audience keeps asking for. If you started a blog to document your garden, show off your sourdough starter, or detail your weekend hikes, start by deciding what "enough" looks like. You may find a simple, low-effort way to cover your hobby's costs without the extra overhead. We’ve rounded up a few low-effort ways to help your blog start paying for itself in our latest WordPress.com guide. Check it out now: https://lnkd.in/ewkteNyt

Your online store just got a whole new look! 🛍️ Our Head of YouTube, Jamie Marsland, just dropped a demo video on how just a few prompts to Claude can redesign your WooCommerce store. He rebuilds product pages, adds a sticky buy box, and even creates a fully interactive 3D product page, all without writing code. Setup takes about a minute, and it works with ChatGPT and self-hosted sites via Jetpack too. Watch the full video and try it for yourself: https://lnkd.in/en93TJ4G

AI can now spin up a website in minutes. What it can't do is keep it secure, on-brand, and running six months from now—that's still on you. Automattic for Agencies just wrapped a webinar on AI and WordPress, and our AI Product Lead Ronnie Burt had one line that stuck: these models know WordPress better than almost anything else, aside from us. We broke down what stood out from the webinar, including a Friday night save most agencies will recognize. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/eaGhasYG

Google isn't sending as much traffic as it used to, and that's hit new sites especially hard. Here's the thing: organic traffic isn't gone; it's just split across more channels than before. We put together 8 practical ways to pick some of it back up. A few to start with: 📌Answer the real questions your customers are already asking, before they even land on your site.  📌Build pages for people who are close to buying, not just broad topics.  📌Get more mileage out of each piece of content instead of publishing it once and moving on. The full guide includes five more, including how to show up when people ask AI about your space. And don't feel overwhelmed—you don't need to do all eight. Pick two or three and give them real time before judging whether they work. Read the full guide to see all of them: https://lnkd.in/e7bsMc3Q

Sometimes the right help is a real person. About 1 in 4 support conversations end with a human helper, and roughly half the time, the WordPress.com Support Assistant suggests it. Here's how that works:   Before every reply, the Assistant runs a quick check: "Have you asked for a human? Have you already contacted support about this? Is this something a bot shouldn't handle alone?" That's how conversations escalate straight to a Happiness Engineer. And when a handoff happens, the full chat and a summary go with you. You never explain it twice. Learn more about our support process: https://lnkd.in/eCEgCpvs

Every few weeks we ship a batch of improvements to WordPress.com. This one’s all about getting the clutter out of your way. 🛠️ The new Hosting Dashboard keeps your navigation in place as you move between sites, so you don’t have to find the same settings over and over. You can now connect ChatGPT or Claude to your site and let it handle the busywork, including drafting, categorizing, and comment moderation. You still approve each change before it goes live. Plus, WordPress 7.1 is already live, complete with shareable post revisions and a quieter moderation queue. See everything that’s new in our latest Changelog: https://lnkd.in/ethpU7MX