7 Keys to Creating a Successful WordPress Plugin

7 Keys to Creating a Successful WordPress Plugin

Reader Comments (5)

  1. Great article and helpful. I don’t pretend to always know everything and learn new tricks every day. One is the plugin you just mention for Genesis theme. I have been using this theme on a few sites for a month or so and could use the additional plugin mentioned above for customization, so I appreciate you mentioning that! Thank you.

  2. Hey Sonia,

    Great article on creating successful WordPress plugins.

    Understanding user needs is the most important thing to consider while starting to build an application or plugin. A successful plugin must be lightweight and better designed with the help and suggestion from WordPress community members.

    Thanks for the important article. 🙂

  3. As usual, I love the balanced and quite extensive view of the simple and needful task at hand – the making of a successful plugin for wordpress.

    I personally deleted and disabled quite a few plugins, as much as I liked the design, function, and behavior, simply because there was no support, or because at one point the plugin was hacked (and so code was injected on the site). Having a community around you and listening to the users is very important, especially in the wordpress world.

    Still, as a wordpress developer of some sorts, I’m wondering what’s the best way to create a simple, beautiful, easy-to-use, much-needed, and – if possible – successful wordpress plugin: where do you start, from the need, the design, the requests from people, the desire for an improved functionality, etc?

    • Starting from what the audience desires is usually the most rewarding and least risky jumping-off point. Not necessarily what they need, unless they also want it. That evolves right into user experience, and then these seven steps are something of a mini road map.

      I’d take a look at the free content over on DigitalCommerce.com (http://digitalcommerce.com/free-content/), there are a lot more ideas there to get you moving the right direction.

      Chris Lema’s course in the premium version would probably be an excellent fit for you (and, ya know, cost on that goes up on Friday …), and we also have some juicy stuff from Brian Gardner, Nathan Berry and other great business creators.

  4. Some great advice here!
    I’m in the process of releasing my first plugin and this article really made me think about a few things that I didn’t have in mind before…

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