What are Wordpress plugins & how to create them if you are not a developer?

Lesson Details:

I: Introduction

This is a guide for people who want to make money online by building wordpress plugins. I will be writing this guide from the perspective of an amateur developer, so it might not be 100% technical. If you are a developer, you can just skip all the little tips and suggestions.

WordPress is a very popular content management system (CMS). It has over 50 million active installs and around 60 million websites use it as their platform. WordPress is used for blogs, news sites, company websites, personal websites and even for ecommerce. There are millions of plugins on the wordpress repository that you can install on your website. Some of these plugins are free, while others are premium.

WordPress has gained popularity because of its ease of use and flexibility. It is very easy to setup and run a blog using WordPress. If you are not technically advanced, this makes WordPress an obvious choice for you. Lately, there has been a huge increase in the number of themes and plugins available for WordPress, which makes WordPress an attractive option for developers as well.

WordPress plugins can be developed by anyone. A plugin is essentially a PHP file with some functions that extend the functionality of WordPress. The ease of developing plugins along with the large number of users has led to hundreds of thousands of people developing plugins for wordpress. These developers get paid when their plugin’s source code gets downloaded by someone else. The revenue comes from the ‘Premium’ tag on the plugin’s page. A premium plugin’s source code is uploaded to the repository, where people can download it.

If you are not a developer, you can still make money by creating the frontend of the plugin. This means you create the visual elements of the plugin like the theme layout, buttons etc. You can also develop themes for wordpress. However, in order to do this, you need to be good at design and understand how wordpress works.

There are two ways in which you can make money by creating wordpress plugins:

Sell the source code/theme Sell only the theme/source code/plugin

The latter requires less development work but no one will pay you if they don’t have something to sell in return. So in most cases, people who earn money by selling things usually make them for free and sell the source code or the complete package. If you are selling only the theme, your customers would have to hire someone else to develop the source code. So it’s better for them to just buy the source code from you instead of hiring another developer to create it.

If you choose to go with option 1, that means that you are selling your source code/the pluging itself instead of only selling the backend services. This requires good knowledge of programming in PHP and OOP concepts in general.

II: Body

There are essentially three steps to developing a wordpress plugin:

Choose a niche Find out what features are missing from existing plugins Create your own plugin based on those requirements

I have already written a post about choosing a niche – Choose a Niche – Why it is Important? – How To? – With Examples – Step By Step – Selecting a Niche – Choose a Niche – Examples – Your First Niche – Which Niche? – Hiking Shoes – Choosing a Niche – What is a Niche Website? – How To Choose a Good Niche? – Developing a Niche Site – Choosing a Niche – Keywords – Long Tail Keywords – Best Keyword Research Tools For Your Niche Website – Long Tail Pro vs Long Tail Platinum – Long Tailed Keywords – How To Find Long Tail Keywords? – The Best Keywords Research Tools For Your Niche Websites – Wordtracker – KeywordSpy – Market Samurai – Google Adwords Keyword Tool – The Best Keyword Research Tools For Your Niche Websites – What Are Semantic Relationships? – Semantic Relationships In Google AdWords – Semantic Relationships In Bing Ads – Semantic Relationships In Google Analytics – Semantic Relationships In Yahoo! Site Explorer – Semantic Relationships In Google Webmaster Tools – How To Use Semantic Relationships In Google AdWords For Better Targeting Of Your PPC Campaigns – Semantic Relationships In Google Analytics – Semantic Relationships In Yahoo! Site Explorer – Semantic Relationships In Google Webmaster Tools – Semantic Relationships In Bing Ads – Semantic Relationships In Majestic SEO – Semantic Relationships In Ahrefs SEO Tool – The Best Free SEO Software For Finding Negative SEO Targets & Competitors Backlinks Online – Automated Backlink Checker Tools From SEO Tools HQ – My Top 5 SEO Tools For Link Building & Link Prospecting Online & FREE To Use By The Way! – Backlink Checker Tools From SEO Tools HQ – My Top 5 SEO Tools For Link Building & Link Prospecting Online & FREE To Use By The Way! – Downloadable SEO Tools For Link Building & Link Prospecting Online & FREE To Use By The Way! – Free SEO Software That Actually Works! (Backlink Checker)– Free SEO Software That Actually Works! (Keyword Research)– Free SEO Software That Actually Works! (On Page Optimization)– Free SEO Software That Actually Works! (Off Page Optimization)– Free SEO Software That Actually Works! (SEO Audit)– Free SEO Software That Actually Works! 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