Adding an AI chatbot to WordPress used to mean exporting your content, uploading it to a separate service and keeping the two in sync by hand. It doesn’t have to work that way any more. A chatbot that reads your published pages directly can be live in a few minutes and stays up to date on its own.
This guide walks through the whole process: what to prepare, how to install and connect the plugin, the settings worth changing on day one, and how to check the answers before you tell anyone about it. The steps use GoChatterBot, but the preparation and testing advice applies to any website chatbot.
Before you start: three things to check
You’ll save time later if you check these first.
- Your WordPress version and access. You need WordPress 6.0 or later, PHP 7.4 or later, and an Administrator account that can install plugins.
- The pages people ask about. Open your site and look at the pages that answer the questions you get most by phone or e-mail: opening hours, prices, policies, how to book or apply. A chatbot can only answer from what is published, so if those answers only live in someone’s inbox, write them up first.
- Content in the wrong format. Important details trapped in images, or in scanned PDFs without a text layer, can’t be read by a chatbot or by search engines. Our guide to making PDFs readable explains how to fix that.
Step 1: Create an account
Go to the Get Started page and enter your name, e-mail address and, optionally, your website. We send a verification link; open it, choose a password, and you land in your dashboard. The Starter plan is free and needs no credit card: it covers 1 website and 100 chatbot replies a month.
Step 2: Create an API key for your site
An API key connects one WordPress site to your account. In the dashboard, click Create New Key and enter the website address where the chatbot will run; the key only works on that site. Copy the key when it appears: it’s shown once. Treat it like a password and don’t paste it anywhere public. The API keys guide covers editing and replacing keys.
Step 3: Install the plugin
Click Download Plugin in your dashboard to get a zip file. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the zip, click Install Now and then Activate. A GoChatterBot menu appears with Overview, Conversations and Settings. Future updates show up on your Plugins screen like any other plugin, and each one is signed and checked before it installs.
Step 4: Connect and test
Open GoChatterBot → Settings → Connection, paste the key into API key, click Save changes and then Test the connection. When it says “Connected.”, the chat button appears on your site. If the test fails, the usual causes are a partly copied key or a key created for a different address; the troubleshooting guide lists the fixes.
Step 5: Change the settings that matter on day one
The defaults work, but a few minutes here makes the chatbot feel like part of your site.
General
- Name and welcome message. Use your organization’s name and a welcome line that says what the chatbot can help with, for example “Ask me about opening hours, classes or membership.”
- Speaks as. Choose “Your organization (we, our)” if the chatbot represents you, or “A guide to this site (they, their)” if it should describe the organization from outside.
- Suggested questions. Add three or four questions people really ask and tick Show them as buttons in the chat. First-time visitors often don’t know what to type.
- AI notice. A short line such as “You’re chatting with an automated assistant” sets expectations honestly.
Content
Tick the content types the chatbot should read. With nothing ticked it reads every public type, which is fine for most sites. If key details live in custom fields, such as event dates or prices, share those fields in the Fields card and give them readable labels. See Content settings for the details.
Appearance
Set your accent colour, the side of the screen and a light, dark or automatic colour scheme so the chat matches your theme. The chat widget page has a live preview.
Step 6: Test it the way a visitor would
Open your site in a private browser window, so you see what a logged-out visitor sees, and ask the chatbot ten real questions. Mix easy ones (“What time do you open?”) with harder ones that need two pages to answer. For each answer, check three things:
- Is it right? Compare it with the page it cites.
- Are the sources sensible? Every answer lists the pages it used. If a source looks odd, the page itself may be unclear.
- Does it admit gaps? Ask something your site doesn’t cover. A grounded chatbot should say it couldn’t find that on the site rather than guess. Our article on grounded answers explains why this matters.
Every test conversation appears under GoChatterBot → Conversations, with the sources used for each answer, so you can review them afterwards.
Step 7: Decide where the chat appears
By default the chat button shows on every page. If you’d rather keep it to a help or contact page, turn off Show the chat button on every page and add [gochatterbot] to the pages that should have the button, or [gochatterbot embed] to place the chat inside the page itself. The shortcode guide lists the options for the embedded version.
Your first-week checklist
First week
- Read every conversation for the first few days. It’s the fastest way to learn what visitors want.
- Note any answer you’d have worded differently, then improve the page it came from rather than the chatbot.
- Add the questions you see most as suggested questions.
- Set a retention period under Access and privacy so old conversations are cleared automatically.
- Mention the chatbot in your site’s privacy policy.
After that, a weekly look at the Overview screen is usually enough. Our guide to finding content gaps with chatbot analytics shows what to look for.
Common questions
Do I need to train the chatbot?
No. It reads your published content when someone asks, so a page you publish or edit counts straight away.
Will it slow my site down?
The chat loads alongside your page and answers are fetched only when a visitor asks something, so it doesn’t sit in the way of your content.
What does it cost?
Starter is free for 1 website and 100 replies a month. Growth is $39 a month for 1 website and 3,000 replies, and Pro is $199 a month for 5 websites and 50,000 replies. Our article on what a WordPress AI chatbot should cost helps you work out which you need.