No longer limited to research and science fiction, artificial intelligence has charted its way into almost every industrial sector. Many examples depict the presence of AI in our daily lives—smart home devices, movie and music recommendation services, automated weather forecasts, and most recently, self-driven cars. AI is effectively taking over every task to make it more efficient, thus helping people to keep up with the increasing pace of life.
While the earliest instances of AI date back to the early 1940s with the invention of the programmable digital computer, development in the field has since expanded to a variety of new possibilities. So much so, that enrolling in an artificial intelligence course can now open up unexplored pathways for anyone who wishes to partake in up-and-coming innovations. Web development, for instance, is now increasingly employing AI in the form of plug-ins and gadgets to make the user experience more animated and engaging. WordPress, one of the major web development and blogging platforms, is now using AI in many productive ways that not only improve the overall outlook but also assists in site management.
Virtual Assistance:
One of the most recent applications of AI in web development, virtual assistants, can now be utilized in WordPress sites as well. The plug-in WP A.I Assistant allows WordPress developers to install virtual assistants on their websites, without having to develop the entire architecture from scratch. The plug-in comes with a smart visual mapping tool that helps developers create complex AI applications easily. What makes WP A.I Assistant different from other tools on the web is that it’s flexible and allows developers to re-program actions on their sites. This gives users a highly customized experience, thus significantly improving the quality of interactions on the site.
Automated replies:
One of the features that defines WordPress is its use as a blogging platform. With 76.3 million blog posts published each month by as many blog site owners, the site attracts a massive number of inquisitive readers. For a busy blogger, it gets difficult to answer every query, especially when readers span across different time zones. AI holds a solution to this problem through its auto-reply bot that can be connected to the Facebook Messenger. This bot can automatically answer visitors’ questions in real-time, even when the site owner is not online. It can be programmed to answer questions on a variety of topics, ranging from product queries to support, and can even look for specific information on the website.
SEO Support:
For any online business, the content must be backed by well-researched SEO-keywords to make sure that the site attracts the right user segment. However, not everyone is a SEO-strategist, and many do not have the time to master the skill. WordLift is a Wordpress plug-in that takes care of this very need. This AI-powered tool analyses articles and related content on the website, and then transforms it into machine-friendly text that significantly improves engagement, thus increasing the organic traffic.
WordLift also builds an internal vocabulary that is unique to every site it hosts, which then acts as both a search magnet and a reference for the site’s visitors. For content creators, it goes a step further, and suggests media and contextual facts that would help them in creating more engaging and richer content, while optimizing it for search on the go.
Descriptive user insights:
While WordPress provides site owners with user insights, Kindred Posts provides site owners with a whole gamut of performance results. This plug-in uses artificial intelligence to study how website visitors interact and surf through the site and then, recommends content ideas based on their favorite interests. The plug-in requires minimal setup and can be activated by just dragging the widget in the site theme. Kindred can also be integrated with Google Analytics, thus allowing site owners to further monitor which recommendations readers find most engaging.
Measuring emotional response:
WordPress developers can even use AI to determine how their content emotionally impacts their readers. The plug-in Watsonfinds uses sentimental analysis to map an emotion-diagram for the site’s visitors. It adds an icon to the WordPress text editor that can be activated by the click of a button to scan posts, product descriptions, and consecutive comments. Each scan delivers insights into how content elicits emotions of joy, sadness, appreciation, anger, fear, and disgust in visitors. It also measures the depth of each emotion across a scale, ranging from mild to intense. These insights can thus be used to modify content in a manner that accurately conveys the intended message.
Protection against malware:
The fear of getting one’s site attacked by malicious entities plagues almost every website owner. Quttera Web Malware Scanner allows WordPress developers to scan their site for trojans, worms, backdoors, malware, spyware, shells, and other threats, with one single click. This widget uses AI, cloud, and machine learning to recognize possible threats in real time. It also identifies other black hat activities, like malicious iframes and code injection, JavaScript and malevolent code obfuscation, hidden eval code, and redirects, thus protecting the site from being attacked by unethical entities.
The induction of AI into web design has not only made websites more interesting for users, but it has also provided site owners with a variety of exciting engagement options that weren’t available to them before. When it comes to WordPress web development, the sheer number of AI-powered plug-ins have the potential of transforming a website from a basic interface to one that is a design outlier.
Author Bio:
Abhinav Rai is the Data Analyst at UpGrad, an online education platform providing industry oriented programs in collaboration with world-class institutes, some of which are MICA, IIIT Bangalore, BITS and various industry leaders which include MakeMyTrip, Ola, Flipkart etc.