How to Use SiteGround to Rewrite Meta Descriptions With AI

The short answer: if a few hundred posts have missing or overlong meta descriptions, SiteGround's AI Agent for WordPress can rewrite them one category at a time, and GrowBig, at $4.99 a month for the first prepaid year and $29.99 at renewal, is the cheapest plan with the staging copy and on-demand backup that SiteGround's own tutorials ask for first (plan cards, checked on 26 October 2026). The steps: list the posts, back up, copy the site to staging, connect the agent as an Editor, prove the prompt on one post, run the category in Power Mode while reading every line, switch Power Mode off, repeat the tested prompt on production, and check click-through four weeks later.

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Before the first prompt:

1. What the safer tier costs. For example, GrowBig instead of StartUp is $4.99 - $2.99 = $2 a month in the first year, or 12 x $2 = $24, for staging and on-demand backups; at renewal the gap is $29.99 - $17.99 = $12 a month, per the plan cards.
2. The SEO plugin you already run. The agent writes into the title and description fields of Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO or SEOPress, and with no such plugin it has nowhere to write, per the on-page SEO tutorial.
3. Your click-through baseline. Export clicks, impressions and click-through rate per page for the category from Search Console's performance report, for the 28 days before you start.

Drafting the descriptions is the easy part. The work is choosing the posts, reading what the agent wrote and keeping the batch off the live site until the wording is right. Plans and prices are in the SiteGround glossary entry.

What you need

• A SiteGround GrowBig or GoGeek plan. On another host, the AI Studio trial works too, and staging depends on that host.
• WordPress administrator access, to install the AI Agent by SiteGround plugin and connect the site.
• An active SSL certificate, which the connection article requires.
• The list of posts from step 1.

Step 1: List the posts that need work

Use the SEO plugin's overview or a crawl to find posts in the category with no meta description or one longer than 160 characters, the two conditions the tutorial's bulk prompt targets.

Step 2: Take an on-demand backup

In Site Tools, open Security, then Backups, click Create New Backup, give it a name such as "before meta description batch" and wait until it completes, as the Power Mode tutorial describes. Its reason is plain: the automatic daily backup can be hours old by the time a batch goes wrong.

Step 3: Copy the site to staging

In Site Tools, open WordPress, then Staging, choose the installation, name the copy and click Create, per the staging tutorial. Staging copies run with WordPress cron disabled, so the copy sends no scheduled emails or newsletters. The tool relies on subdomains, so if your nameservers are not at SiteGround, add the A records for the staging subdomain at your DNS provider first.

Step 4: Connect the agent to staging, as an Editor

In AI Studio, open Profile, then Connectors, click Connect on the WordPress card and select the staging site; the token and limits tutorial says staging connects the same way as production. Only an administrator can install the plugin and make the connection. After that, the agent can do only what the WordPress role of the person using it allows, and the Power Mode tutorial maps content-only work to the Editor role. Meta descriptions are content work, so run this job from an Editor account.

Step 5: Prove the prompt on one post

Stay in standard mode. Adapt the tutorial's single-post prompt: "Write a meta description for the post 'How to migrate WordPress to a new host' that's under 155 characters, includes the keyword 'WordPress migration', and ends with a soft CTA." The agent proposes a description, you confirm, and it writes it into the plugin's field. Open the post in the editor and read the plugin's snippet preview before going further.

Step 6: Run the category in Power Mode

This is the agent step. Bulk edits need Power Mode, which is off by default. Turn it on in WP Admin, under AI Agent, with the Power Mode toggle, or click Enable Power Mode when the agent pauses and asks. Then send the tutorial's category prompt with your own category name: "Update meta descriptions for all posts in the 'Marketing' category that are missing one or are over 160 characters. Keep each under 155 characters and include the post's primary keyword in the first 100 characters." The agent lists the qualifying posts, drafts each description and writes nothing until you approve.

The human check is the approval. Read every line before you approve the batch. Strike any description that promises what the post does not deliver, makes a claim your legal team would not sign, or forces a keyword into a sentence, and rewrite those by hand. After it writes, ask the agent to summarise what it changed, then open three to five of the posts in the editor, as the Power Mode tutorial suggests.

Step 7: Switch Power Mode off

The Power Mode tutorial warns that it does not switch itself off: a request sent hours later, in a fresh chat, runs with it still on. Go back to WP Admin, open AI Agent and flip the toggle off before you close the session.

Step 8: Repeat the tested prompt on production

The token and limits tutorial offers two routes from staging: push the staging changes to live through Site Tools, or re-run the prompt against production once you trust it. A Full Deploy replaces the live site's files and database with the staging copy's, per the deploy tutorial, which would also wipe comments or orders that arrived after the copy was made, while Custom Deploy lets you choose what goes live. For descriptions alone, re-running the tested prompt on production, with the same line-by-line review, touches less of the site.

Step 9: Check click-through after four weeks

Compare the category's click-through rate per page with the 28-day baseline. Be clear about what a description controls: Google's snippet documentation says snippets come mainly from page content, and the meta description is used when it describes the page more accurately. Judge the batch on click-through, not on the number of fields filled.

What SiteGround's tutorials warn against

• Approving without reading. The on-page SEO tutorial names skipping the review of proposed changes as the fastest way to publish copy that does not match your brand.
• Asking it to "improve SEO". A vague prompt returns generic suggestions; the field, the limit and the target posts belong in the prompt.
• Expecting the plugin's job from the agent. Sitemaps, schema markup and redirects stay with the SEO plugin.
• Page-builder content. Block-level editing inside builders such as Elementor or Divi is outside what the agent does today, per the token and limits tutorial.

Free until the tokens run out

Every SiteGround client gets AI Studio Essential free with 20,000 tokens a month, and a site on another host gets the same allowance in a 14-day trial, per the AI agent page. Prove the prompt on one category inside that allowance before anything else. Tokens are how AI Studio gets paid: every round trip with the agent uses them, unused tokens do not roll over, and each extra 100,000 cost $15.00, so a vague prompt that sends the agent back and forth costs twice, once in wording and once on the next token bill. The tutorial's specific prompts are also the cheap ones.

FAQ

Does the agent replace Yoast or Rank Math?

No. It writes into the plugin's title and description fields, while the plugin renders the meta tags, builds the sitemap and outputs schema, according to the on-page SEO tutorial.

How many tokens does one category use?

SiteGround publishes no per-description figure. Check AI Studio's Usage section, or Client Area, Services, AI Tokens, Usage, before and after the single-post test, then after the first category, as the token and limits tutorial describes.

Will the agent rewrite the post itself?

Only if you ask. The on-page SEO tutorial says it updates the fields you name, and that large or destructive changes need Power Mode and your confirmation.