ArtDirect: Documentation

Download the free plugin with the button on this site. In WordPress open Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the ZIP, install and activate. As soon as ArtDirect is listed on wordpress.org you can also search for it there. ArtDirect needs WordPress 6.5 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer.

For Pro, download the ZIP from your account and upload it the same way. The free plugin stays active, Pro builds on it.

Open Google AI Studio, sign in and create an API key. Billing must be enabled in the Google Cloud project for image generation.

In WordPress open ArtDirect → Settings and paste the key. On WordPress 7 you can also store it once under Settings → Connectors, ArtDirect picks it up automatically. Developers can define the constant ARTDIRECT_GEMINI_KEY in wp-config.php.

Open ArtDirect → Studio or use the ArtDirect link in the post list. Pick a post and an image slot.

Click Write brief. ArtDirect reads the post and suggests a description. Adjust it if you like, choose format and number of variants and click Generate.

Pick a variant and click Use image. The image, alt text and caption are replaced. Under History you can restore the previous state at any time.

Copy your license key from the email or from your account. In WordPress open ArtDirect → Settings → License, paste the key and click Activate.

The plugin checks the license once a day. If our server is unreachable, Pro keeps working for 30 days. To move the license, click Deactivate first or remove the site in your account.

ArtDirect prepares every new image so that Google Images and AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini can understand it. You find all options under ArtDirect, Settings, Files, SEO and AI search.

• File name: built from the focus keyword of Yoast, Rank Math, SEOPress or AIOSEO and the image content, for example garden-shed-wood-rain.webp. You can change it in the studio before you use a variant.
• Format and size: WebP by default, JPEG on request, scaled to at most 2048 px wide. Smaller files mean faster pages and better Core Web Vitals.
• Alt text: one descriptive sentence of at most 125 characters in your site language, with the keyword only where it fits what is visible.
• Metadata in the file: IPTC and XMP with alt text, title, credit, copyright and the source type trainedAlgorithmicMedia. Google reads this field for the label “AI-generated”.
• Structured data: schema.org ImageObject in JSON-LD for AI images on your posts, so search engines and AI assistants know what an image shows, who published it and how it was made.

With Pro the image tools check your whole media library, rename meaningless files such as IMG_4711.jpg with redirects, convert old JPEG and PNG files to WebP and build social media images.

Under Settings → Brand kit set your accent colour, a short description of your topic and up to three reference images. Every image then follows your look.

Image worlds let you assign a visual setting to each category, for example dashboards and charts for marketing posts and workshops for training posts.

With Pro, ArtDirect finds images and backgrounds in Elementor, Divi 4 and 5, WPBakery, Themify Builder, Beaver Builder, Bricks, Breakdance, Oxygen 6, SiteOrigin and Avada layouts and replaces them inside the builder data. Afterwards ArtDirect clears the builder cache of that page. If a page still shows the old image, clear the cache of your caching plugin. Images inside text and HTML modules count too. The free version already lists all these images and lets you edit their alt text.

On Brizy and classic Oxygen pages you change the featured image in ArtDirect and the other images in the builder.

For WooCommerce products the featured image and every gallery image appear as separate slots.

Open ArtDirect, Image tools. ArtDirect first checks your media library and shows an image SEO score from 0 to 100.

• Audit: counts missing alt texts, meaningless file names, files that are too large, old formats and images wider than needed. Missing alt texts are written with one click.
• File names: suggestions from alt text, focus keyword or image title. ArtDirect renames the file and all sizes, updates links in posts, pages and page builders and redirects the old address with 301.
• Optimize: converts to WebP and scales down. The original stays as a backup and can be restored with one click.
• Old posts: creates featured images for posts that have none, with your house style and brand kit. Each image counts towards your monthly budget.
• Social images: link preview 1200 × 630, Pinterest pin 1000 × 1500 and Instagram post 1080 × 1350 from the featured image, with title and brand colour. Works with Yoast SEO, Rank Math and All in One SEO.

On Nginx servers, check that requests for missing images reach WordPress, otherwise the redirect for renamed files cannot work.

Google bills usage to your key: about 0.07 USD per 1K image and 0.10 USD per 2K image. ArtDirect shows the estimated costs of the current month on the overview.

Set a monthly budget in the settings. When it is reached, generation stops until the next month. With Minimum role you decide whether authors, editors or only admins may generate.

• API key not valid: create a new key in Google AI Studio and check that billing is enabled.
• Quota exceeded: Google limits new projects. Wait a minute or raise the limit in Google Cloud.
• Image does not change on the page: clear page cache, CDN and builder cache.
• License says limit reached: remove an old site in your account.
• No update shown: open the license section and click Check now.