Wordpress Plugin Development

Definition: This technique involves developing a new Wordpress plugin. You can get links directly from blogs that use your plugin but this doesn’t happen by default, the user of the plugin has to opt-in to giving you the link. But this isn’t the only way that this technique can get you links; you can also get links from people who review and use the plugin.

In order to benefit from this, you should be sure to have a landing page for your plugin on your own website; otherwise people will just link to the page on Wordpress.org where your plugin is listed.

Types of links you get: You do have a chance of getting lots of sitewide links if you allow people the option to link to you from the plugin itself -- mainly if your plugin is one that sits in the footer or sidebar. However, most people will not need to worry about this. In general, you will get links from websites that review your plugin, so they will be editorially given, will contain your branded anchor text and probably link to a deep page on your website.

The process: The process of developing a Wordpress plugin is quite complicated and requires a really good Wordpress developer to work. The details of creating a plugin are outside the scope of this book but I will outline the rest of the process. It is quite similar to the one used for building your own small app or tool.

★ Research your industry to find problems that people have – can you build a simple

Wordpress plugin that will help solve this problem?

★ Email a few bloggers in your industry and ask them if a Wordpress plugin would solving this problem would be useful to them

★ If the idea looks like it is of interest to people, work with your developers or hire a

developer to build out the plugin. Remember to keep it as simple as you can

★ Test the plugin with the bloggers who you contacted in step 2 and get their feedback. Iterate on this and improve if you can

★ Once completed, add the plugin to your website and add it to the Wordpress plugin

directory, where it will have to be approved

★ Make sure you do outreach to bloggers who may be interested in using the plugin, ask them for a review and within this, and see if they will link to you