Getting Started

Artikul SEO is an AI-powered content optimisation plugin for WordPress. It scores your content across eight dimensions, generates and improves articles with six AI providers, analyses your SERP competitors, manages internal links, monitors content health, and handles redirects — all from inside your WordPress dashboard.

Requirements

  • WordPress 6.0 or higher
  • PHP 7.4 or higher
  • A modern web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge)
  • An API key from at least one supported AI provider (for AI features)

Quick Start

  1. Install and activate the plugin (see Installation).
  2. Go to Artikul SEO > Settings and enter your license key if you have one.
  3. Add an AI provider API key under the AI Provider tab.
  4. Open any post or page and look for the Artikul SEO metabox in the editor sidebar.
  5. Enter a focus keyword and click Score Content to get your first analysis.
Tip: The Free tier includes content scoring, the Content Hub, Content Health dashboard, Settings, and the main Dashboard — no license key required.

Installation

From the WordPress Plugin Repository

  1. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins > Add New.
  2. Search for Artikul SEO.
  3. Click Install Now, then Activate.

Manual Upload

  1. Download the contentengine-pro.zip file from your account or the purchase confirmation email.
  2. In WordPress admin, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
  3. Choose the zip file and click Install Now.
  4. Once installed, click Activate Plugin.

Via FTP / File Manager

  1. Unzip contentengine-pro.zip on your computer.
  2. Upload the contentengine-pro folder to /wp-content/plugins/ on your server.
  3. In WordPress admin, go to Plugins and activate Artikul SEO.
Note: On activation the plugin creates its database tables automatically. No additional setup steps are needed beyond entering your settings.

License Activation

Artikul SEO works on a tiered licensing model. The Free tier is fully functional without a license key. Pro and Agency tiers unlock additional features.

How to Activate

  1. Go to Artikul SEO > Settings.
  2. On the License tab (the first tab), enter your license key.
  3. Click Activate.
  4. The page will confirm your tier and display the features available to you.

License Tiers

Free — No key needed. Includes:

  • Content scoring engine (all 6 dimensions)
  • Content Hub
  • Content Health dashboard
  • Settings
  • Dashboard

Pro — Everything in Free, plus:

  • AI Content Studio (generate, fix, refresh)
  • SERP Domination Planner
  • Internal Links manager
  • Bulk Operations
  • Redirect & 404 Manager
  • Content Ideas
  • Google Search Console integration
  • SERP search (included with license)

Agency — Everything in Pro, plus:

  • Multi-site management
  • White-label branding
Note: Each license key can be activated on a limited number of sites depending on your plan. To deactivate a site, return to the License tab and click Deactivate.

Content Scoring

The scoring engine is the heart of Artikul SEO. Every post and page is evaluated across eight weighted dimensions to produce a single score out of 100.

The Eight Dimensions

Dimension Weight What It Measures
Quality 25% Word count, heading structure, media usage, internal/external links, meta description
Keyword 22% Keyword placement in title, headings, body, URL, meta description, density
E-E-A-T 22% Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness signals
Technical 13% Schema markup, canonical tags, image optimisation, heading hierarchy
Readability 9% Sentence length, paragraph length, reading level, passive voice usage
Freshness 4% Time since last meaningful content update (not just a save)
Mobile 3% Coming soon
Core Web Vitals 2% Coming soon
Note: While Mobile and Core Web Vitals dimensions are not yet active, their weights are automatically redistributed across the six active dimensions so your scores always add up to 100.

How to Score a Post

  1. Open a post or page in the WordPress editor.
  2. In the Artikul SEO metabox (right sidebar or below the editor), enter a focus keyword.
  3. Click Score Content.
  4. The metabox will display your overall score, a grade, and a breakdown of each dimension with specific issues and recommendations.

Multi-Keyword Support

You can target up to five keywords per post. The primary keyword carries the most weight, while secondary keywords are checked for presence and placement. Add additional keywords in the metabox by clicking + Add Keyword.

Grade System

  • Excellent (80–100): Content is well-optimised and ready to publish.
  • Good (60–79): Minor improvements possible but solid overall.
  • Fair (40–59): Several areas need attention before publishing.
  • Poor (20–39): Significant issues that will hurt rankings.
  • Critical (0–19): Fundamental problems — rewrite or overhaul recommended.

The Metabox

The editor metabox shows your score at a glance, a breakdown by dimension, and an expandable list of individual issues. Each issue is labelled as either AI-fixable (can be resolved automatically) or manual (requires your input). If AI-fixable issues exist, an AI Fix All button appears at the top.

AI Content Studio

The AI Content Studio lets you generate entire articles, fix scoring issues, and refresh stale content using your choice of AI provider. This is a Pro-tier feature.

Supported AI Providers

  • Anthropic (Claude)
  • OpenAI (GPT-4o)
  • Google (Gemini)
  • DeepSeek
  • Grok
  • Mistral

Setting Up Your API Key

  1. Go to Artikul SEO > Settings > AI Provider.
  2. Select your preferred provider from the dropdown.
  3. Paste your API key into the field.
  4. Click Test Connection to verify it works.
  5. Save your settings.
Tip: You can configure multiple providers and switch between them at any time. Each provider has its own API key field.

Generating a New Article

  1. Go to Artikul SEO > Dashboard or the Content Hub.
  2. Click Generate Content.
  3. Enter a topic or keyword.
  4. The AI generates a content brief with a proposed outline.
  5. Review and customise the outline — add, remove, or reorder sections.
  6. Click Write Article to generate the full content.
  7. The article is saved as a draft post, auto-scored, and you are redirected to the editor.

AI Fix

When you score a post and issues are marked as AI-fixable, you can click AI Fix All in the metabox to resolve them in one pass. The AI will rewrite or add content to address each issue while preserving your existing text and voice. You can also fix individual issues one at a time.

AI Refresh

For content that has gone stale, AI Refresh analyses what has changed in your topic area and updates the article with current information, improved structure, and fresh examples — without starting from scratch.

Important: AI content generation can take up to 2–3 minutes for longer articles. Do not navigate away from the page during generation.

SERP Domination

The SERP Domination Planner analyses the top Google results for any keyword, scores each competitor page using the same six-dimension engine as your own content, and generates an AI-powered action plan to outrank them. This is a Pro-tier feature.

How It Works

  1. Go to Artikul SEO > SERP Domination.
  2. Enter a keyword and click Analyse.
  3. The plugin fetches the top 10 Google results (search is provided centrally with your Pro/Agency license).
  4. Each competitor page is scored across all six active dimensions (Quality, Keyword, E-E-A-T, Technical, Readability, Freshness).
  5. You get a competitive overview: average score, difficulty rating, and a page-by-page comparison.
  6. The AI generates a detailed action plan explaining exactly how to beat the competition.

Two Modes

Post mode: When you score a post that has a focus keyword, SERP Domination runs automatically as part of the scoring process. Results appear alongside your content score so you can see exactly where you stand against the competition.

Keyword-only mode: Use the standalone SERP Domination page to research any keyword before creating content. This helps you assess difficulty and plan your approach before writing.

Generate Content from Analysis

After running an analysis, click Generate Content to send the competitive intelligence directly to the AI Content Studio. The generator uses the SERP data to create an article specifically designed to outperform the existing top results.

Note: SERP Domination requires a Pro or Agency license. Search infrastructure is provided centrally — no separate API keys needed for SERP analysis.

Strong internal linking helps search engines understand your site structure and distributes page authority. The Internal Links manager scans your site and provides actionable suggestions. This is a Pro-tier feature.

Overview Tab

Shows site-wide linking statistics: total internal links, average links per post, posts with no outbound internal links, and posts with no inbound internal links. Click Run Site-Wide Scan to refresh the data.

Orphan Pages Tab

Lists pages that have no inbound internal links from other content on your site. These pages are effectively invisible to search engines crawling through your link structure. For each orphan page, the plugin suggests related posts that could link to it.

Suggested Links Tab

Select a post to see suggested internal links based on keyword matches and topic relevance. For each suggestion you can:

  • Preview the suggested link in context.
  • Accept with one click to insert the link directly into your post content.
  • Dismiss if the suggestion is not relevant.
Tip: Internal link suggestions also appear in the editor metabox when you are editing a post, so you can add links without leaving the editor.

Content Health

The Content Health dashboard gives you a bird's-eye view of your entire site's content quality. Available on all tiers including Free.

Dashboard Overview

  • Score distribution: A visual breakdown of how many posts fall into each grade band (Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, Critical).
  • Dimension averages: Your site-wide average for each scoring dimension, highlighting your weakest areas.
  • Needs improvement: Posts with the lowest scores that would benefit most from attention.
  • Most stale content: Posts that have not been meaningfully updated in the longest time.

All Content Table

Browse every published post and page with their score, grade, and last scored date. Use the filters to narrow down by post type, grade, or scoring status. You can also exclude specific posts from health reports if they are intentionally minimal (such as landing pages or legal notices).

Note: The Content Health page shows both scored and unscored content. Unscored posts display a Score button so you can analyse them directly from the table.

Redirects & 404s

The Redirect Manager handles URL redirections, logs 404 errors, and scans for broken links across your site. This is a Pro-tier feature.

Creating Redirects

  1. Go to Artikul SEO > Redirects.
  2. Click Add Redirect.
  3. Enter the source URL (the old path) and the target URL (where visitors should go).
  4. Choose the redirect type: 301 (permanent), 302 (temporary), or 307 (temporary, preserves method).
  5. Click Save.
Tip: To redirect a URL to your homepage, tick the Redirect to homepage checkbox below the target URL field. This auto-fills "/" and locks the field.

Automatic Redirects

Artikul SEO automatically creates 301 redirects when:

  • You change a post's URL slug.
  • You move a post to the trash.

This prevents 404 errors without any manual work on your part.

404 Log

The 404 log captures every "page not found" error on your site, showing the requested URL, the referring page (if any), the number of hits, and the date. You can create a redirect directly from any 404 entry with one click.

Broken Link Scanner

The scanner crawls your content looking for links that return errors (404, 500, timeouts). For each broken link found, you can:

  • Create a redirect from the broken URL to a working page.
  • Update the link in the source post to point to a new URL.

CSV Import & Export

Export your entire redirect list as a CSV file for backup or migration purposes. You can also import redirects from a CSV file, which is useful when moving from another redirect plugin or migrating between sites.

Search Console

Connect your Google Search Console account to see real search performance data inside WordPress. This is a Pro-tier feature.

Connecting Your Account

  1. Go to Artikul SEO > Settings > Google APIs.
  2. In the Search Console section, click Connect with Google.
  3. You will be redirected to Google's OAuth consent screen. Sign in and grant access.
  4. After authorisation, you are redirected back to WordPress. The connection status will show as active.

Traffic Overview

See your site's total clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position at a glance. Each metric shows the change compared to the previous period so you can spot trends quickly.

Low-Hanging Fruit Keywords

These are keywords where your site ranks on page 2 or the bottom of page 1 (positions 8–20) with reasonable impressions. A small improvement in these rankings can deliver significant traffic gains. The plugin highlights these opportunities and suggests which posts to optimise.

Declining Pages

Pages that have lost traffic or rankings compared to the previous period are flagged here. Early detection lets you refresh or update content before the decline becomes severe.

Auto-Indexing

When you publish or update a post, Artikul SEO automatically pings Google's Indexing API to request crawling. This helps new and updated content get indexed faster.

Important: Search Console data typically has a 2–3 day delay. The data you see reflects performance from a few days ago, not real-time.

Settings

The Settings page has eight tabs covering every configurable aspect of the plugin.

License

Enter and activate your license key, view your current tier, and see which features are available. See License Activation for details.

AI Provider

Select your preferred AI provider and enter your API key. Use the Test Connection button to verify the key works. You can configure keys for multiple providers and switch between them as needed.

Google APIs

Set up Google Search Console OAuth credentials for the Search Console integration. SERP search is provided centrally with your Pro/Agency license and requires no additional configuration.

Scoring

View information about how the scoring engine works and what each dimension evaluates. The scoring weights are calibrated for optimal SEO performance.

Content

Set your default content language (15 languages supported), target country, writing tone, and brand voice. These settings are used by the AI when generating and refreshing content.

Schema

Configure automatic JSON-LD structured data generation. Supported schema types include Article, FAQ, HowTo, and Breadcrumbs. Enable or disable each type and set default values.

Redirects

Toggle automatic redirect creation on slug changes and post deletion. Configure 404 logging behaviour and set a retention period for log entries.

General

Miscellaneous options including which post types to score (posts, pages, and any custom post types), dark mode toggle, and data cleanup options for uninstallation.

Troubleshooting

If something is not working as expected, check the common issues below before contacting support.

API Key Not Working

Go to Settings > AI Provider and click the Test Connection button. This sends a small test request to the provider and reports whether the key is valid. Common causes of failure:

  • The key was copied with leading or trailing whitespace.
  • The key has been revoked or has expired.
  • Your account with the AI provider has insufficient credits or has exceeded its rate limit.
  • Your server cannot make outbound HTTPS requests (firewall or hosting restriction).

Scoring Seems Wrong

The most common cause is a missing or incorrect focus keyword. The Keyword dimension (22% of your score) depends entirely on having the right keyword set. Check that:

  • A focus keyword is entered in the metabox.
  • The keyword matches what you actually want to rank for.
  • The keyword appears naturally in your title, headings, and body text.
Tip: If you change your focus keyword, re-score the post to get updated results. Scores are not recalculated automatically when the keyword changes.

SERP Analysis Failing

SERP Domination requires:

  • A Pro or Agency license (check Settings > License).
  • An active internet connection — the plugin connects to the central search service.
  • An AI provider configured (for the action plan generation step).

Content Generation Timeout

Generating long-form articles can take 2–5 minutes depending on the AI provider, article length, and server response time. This is normal behaviour. If generation consistently fails:

  • Check that your PHP max execution time is at least 300 seconds.
  • Try a different AI provider to rule out provider-side issues.
  • Check your hosting provider's timeout settings (some shared hosts limit long-running requests).

Search Console Not Showing Data

After connecting your Google account, it can take a few minutes for data to appear. If nothing shows after 10 minutes:

  • Verify the site is verified in Google Search Console.
  • Check that the connected Google account has access to the correct Search Console property.
  • Remember that Search Console data has a 2–3 day delay — very new sites may not have data yet.

Getting Help

If none of the above resolves your issue, contact support with the following information:

  • Your WordPress version and PHP version.
  • The exact error message or unexpected behaviour.
  • Steps to reproduce the problem.
  • A screenshot if applicable.