Plus, Raptive Community and smarter ways to boost search traffic  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ Raptive News JULY 22, 2026 By Cristy Posten Content Manager Hi Raptive, We’re officially into the second half of the year—can you believe it? It’s a good time to take stock of what’s working, where your audience is coming from, and which opportunities you want to prioritize next. The ways people find and engage with content continue to evolve, but you still have plenty of opportunities to strengthen your strategy. That might mean building more direct connections with readers, improving the content you already have, or using your performance data to make more confident decisions. This week, we’re sharing practical tools, tips, and resources to help you grow a more engaged audience and build on what’s already working. Here’s what’s inside: • Grow identified traffic and your subscriber list with Gated Print • Get an exciting update about Raptive Community" • Explore ways to improve your Google Discover performance • Refresh older posts with meaningful, reader-first updates What’s new Turn on Gated Print to grow identified traffic Gated Print helps you increase the value of your print-page traffic by asking readers to enter their email before accessing a printable recipe or tutorial. Those email addresses support Raptive’s identity solutions, which can make your traffic more valuable to advertisers. You can also connect Omnisend, Kit, Mailchimp, Flodesk, or MailerLite to send opted-in readers directly to your subscriber list. Newsletter sign-up is always optional for readers. To get started, head to Ad Preferences in your Raptive dashboard, open the Email section, and turn on Gated Print. The feature currently works with WP Recipe Maker, Tasty, WP Delicious, and Create. Don’t see your email service provider listed? Reach out and let us know which integration you’d like us to add next. How to turn on Gated Print → A new way to bring your biggest fans together You may have already heard about Raptive Community, which is designed to help creators and publishers build deeper, more direct relationships with their fans. Social platforms are crowded, unpredictable, and increasingly hard to control. That’s why we built Raptive Community as a dedicated, moderated space to bring your most engaged fans together around the content and passions they share. We’re starting to roll out access more broadly to Raptive creators and publishers, so stay tuned for more updates in the weeks ahead. Top resource Build a smarter Google Discover strategy Google Discover can help your content reach readers beyond traditional search, but performance can shift quickly, and it’s not always obvious why. Learn how Discover works, which signals can influence visibility, and how to better position your content to appear, all while keeping Discover as one part of a balanced audience growth strategy. Explore the Discover guide → Quick tip Refresh older posts for usefulness, not freshness “When you’re updating an older post, don’t focus on making it look fresh—focus on making it more useful to your readers. Look for opportunities to improve the title, images, structure, and information so the page better answers what readers are looking for. Our analysis shows that those meaningful changes tend to perform better than a few small edits.” Austin Mullins Director, Network SEO In case you missed it Learn what Raptive Intelligence means for creators Search, AI, and audience behavior are changing quickly. Raptive Intelligence is designed to help creators navigate that shift and unlock new opportunities built around trusted expertise, high-quality content, and real audience intent. Watch Courtney Kahn, Paul Bannister, and John Roa share how Raptive is preparing for what comes next, what creators should continue prioritizing, and how Raptive Intelligence is creating new paths for growth. Watch the recording → What we’re reading Your 30-second industry briefing Patreon is moving from asking AI crawlers not to scrape creators’ work to actively blocking training bots, giving creators stronger control over how their content is used. TechCrunch: Patreon blocks AI bots from scraping creators’ work → AI-generated product videos are flooding TikTok Shop, forcing brands to choose between the scale of open affiliate programs and the trust that comes from real creators demonstrating real products. The Wall Street Journal | Gated: AI videos are flooding TikTok Shop → AI adoption is accelerating faster than the advertising industry can build standards for trust, attribution, and compensation, leaving smaller publishers especially vulnerable as content discovery shifts to LLMs. Yahoo! Finance: AI accountability gap widens despite rapid adoption, IAB finds → Question of the week Which channel are you most focused on strengthening in the second half of the year? 🔎 Search Win more visibility ✨ Google Discover Reach new readers 💌 Email Build direct connections &#x1F465 Social channels Grow your following 🤝 Community Deepen reader loyalty Thanks for reading! Was this email helpful? You’re receiving this email because you help manage a site that works with Raptive. To ensure our emails reach your inbox, add hello@email.raptive.com to your email contacts. Want to stop receiving Raptive News emails? You can update your preferences anytime. 1411 Broadway, 32nd Floor New York, NY, 10018, US © 2026 Raptive. All rights reserved. Unsubscribe | View online