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You Created a Plugin
Now What?
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@ S I T E L O C K@ S I T E L O C K
Who Are You?
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@ S I T E L O C K
Adam W. Warner
• WordPress Evangelist at SiteLock
• Co-Founder at FooPlugins
• Discovered WordPress in 2005
• WordPress Community Addict
• Fan of Fractals
• Lover of Meatballs
• Proud Dad!

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@ S I T E L O C K@ S I T E L O C K
History of Plugins
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@ S I T E L O C K
• WordPress Released – 5/27/2003
• Mingus – 5/22/2004- Added support of Plugins
• Duke – 12/31/2005 - Improvements for Plugin developers
• Brecker – 3/29/2008 - Improved plugin system
• Coltrane – 12/11/2008 - Auto upgrades and installation/wp-admin
• Carmen – 12/19/2009 - Batch plugin updating
• Benny – 9/4/2014 - Plugin discovery
• Dinah – 12/18/2014 - Plugin recommendations

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@ S I T E L O C K
• WP eCommerce
• Wishlist Member
• WPMUDEV - 2007
• Gravity Forms - 2008
• iThemes (Billboard plugin) – 2008
• CodeCanyon - 2010
Premium Plugins

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Should You Start?
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Cons:
Uncertain income
Health insurance
More complicated finances
Higher criteria for loans
Doing everything = stress
Remote work isolation
Considerations
Pros:
Do what you love
In total control
Better work/life balance?
More efficient than office
Pride
More $$$

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Is It a Good Idea?

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Will People Buy It?

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My Story
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How a non-developer co-founded
a premium plugin business

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It Started with a Paper Route

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Finding WordPress

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Following My Passion

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Finding a Partner

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Before You Sell
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Market Research

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Know Your Business Model

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Solve a Problem

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Don’t Reinvent – Do It Better

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Where to Sell
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Existing Marketplace

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Your Own Site

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How to Sell
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The Right Tool for the Job

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The Other Right Tool for the Job

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Marketing
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It Starts with Free

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WP.org

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The Freemium Sales Funnel
Awareness
Activation
Usage
Purchase
Advocacy

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Upgrades or Extensions

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Increasing Active Installs
(and Sales)
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Repo Meta Matters

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• Explain what and why
• Highlight features
• How to use
• Include free/pro comparison
Copy that Drives Installs

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Plugin Repository SEO

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• Title
• Excerpt (short description)
• Description (including FAQ ,
changelog, everything…)
• Tags
• Slug
• Author name
• Contributors names
Algorithm Phase One

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• Last update date
• Compatibility with the latest
core version
• Number of active installs
• % of resolved support tickets
• Average rating
Algorithm Phase Two

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• T i t l e
• E x c e r p t ( s h o r t d e s c r i p t i o n )
• D e s c r i p t i o n ( i n c l u d i n g FA Q , c h a n g e l o g , e v e r y t h i n g … )
• Ta g s
• S l u g
• A u t h o r n a m e
• C o n t r i b u t o r s n a m e s
• Tr a n s l a t i o n s
• R e l e a s i n g a n u p d a t e e v e r y 1 8 0 d a y s
• Te s t e d u p t o ( C o m p a t i b i l i t y w i t h l a t e s t c o r e v e r s i o n )
• R e s o l v i n g s u p p o r t t i c k e t s
SEO Summary

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Data Collection is GoodUninformed Decisions are Bad

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Streamlining Upgrades
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The Old Way

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The New Way

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Marketing, Marketing,
Marketing!
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• Opt-in in free plugin
• Opt-in when upgrading
• Automation
• Add value
• Ask for the sale
• Freemius webhooks + Mailchimp = awesome
Email Marketing

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• Plugin features
• Plugin settings
• Related tutorials
• Use support as inspiration
• Customer showcase
Content Marketing

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• Use data/analytics to tell you where
• Sources for content
• Schedule posts
• Reword and reuse
• Not a designer? Use this...
Social Media Marketing

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• Incentivize reviews
• Increased exposure
• Increased website traffic
• Better search engine ranking
• You control percentages
• Opens partnership doors
Affiliate Program

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Pro Tips
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Upsells

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Cross Sells

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Exit Discounts

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Recovered Carts

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Cross Promotion Partnerships

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Pricing
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What Will the Market Bear?

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Auto Renew

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A/B Testing

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Developer Tips
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• Hat tip to John Turner and Josh Pollock
• Sanitize and validate everything
• Use the WordPress Settings API and native UI CSS classes
• Prefix everything
• Namespace everything
• Properly enqueue scripts
Make Your Life Easier

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The Elephant in the Room
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Support Will Make or Break You

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Good

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Bad

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Social Proof

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Support Options

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Knowledge Base

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Encourage Self Help

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Now What?
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• Validate your idea
• Market research
• Choose a platform
• Marketing
• Marketing
• Marketing…

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Thank You – Questions?
• Follow at:
• @SiteLock
• @wpmodder
• My Blog Posts:
• http://wpdistrict.sitelock.com
• http://succeedwithwp.com
• https://fooplugins.com