How to Save Time for WordPress Plugin Development

If you are a WordPress plugin developer then you must have planned different ways to optimize time for WordPress plugin development. Because frankly, a developer always wants to concentrate on building beautiful plugins or themes. However, the truth is he or she has to keep a lot of things in mind while coding.

Plugins are self-contained modules that exist outside the WordPress core code so that they can be modified and updated as needed without affecting the website’s overall structure and theme.

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So, we can understand how complex and intricate it is to build plugins. While developing, developers don’t want to focus on anything other than how to make the code easier. Sadly, only building plugins is not enough. There are a lot more things related to it. Which ends up adding more time to making a plugin.

Today we are going to talk about how you, as a developer can save time in building a plugin. But first, let us discuss what is stopping you from fully focusing on development.

We Know You Are Struggling

When WordPress was first released in 2003, there have been almost 55,487 plugins that have been released. All the plugins have unique functions and features that will help the users in many ways. But very few know the behind the scene. This number would have been much higher if developers had the opportunity to focus on WordPress plugin development.

They faced many hindrances while making the plugin eventually slowing down the process. Because of the conventional way of making a plugin is getting boring. Let’s see

Not Having Clear Knowledge of Customer Demands

Customer is king.

As a developer when you make a plugin, you are making it for the customers. So, that they can use it to make something fruitful for their business. That is why you can’t just go on and add features to your plugins. Understanding customers will give you a proper opportunity to give them a good service and turning it to strong customer relationships.

But understanding the customer’s psyche is not an easy task. It requires thoughtful analysis to know they’re preferences or purchase patterns. It will help you anticipate and exceed their expectations. However, you can understand that it will take a lot of time to track down these data.

You need to invest a hefty amount of time if you want to know if your plugin is meeting the customer’s expectations.

Barrier of Language

People from all over the world are using WordPress. Obviously, every WordPress user doesn’t speak the same language. Though English is the preferred language, everyone wants to learn in their own language.

If you make a plugin with keeping in mind only one or two languages then it might affect the sales. Because maybe you are selling the wrong plugin in the wrong place. So, you need to know which people prefer your plugin. That is one thing you need to keep in mind while developing WordPress plugins.

Deactivation Rate Increased, Reasons: Unknown

No one wants to make a bad product. Everyone tries their best to deliver. The same goes for the developers also. However, it is often seen that the plugin is not performing as it should have. The deactivation rate has suddenly increased. But you don’t know the reason.

So, what are you going to do? Stop the development and try to find out the reasons behind this sudden spike? This will obviously slow down the plugin making process. And it will eat up the time that could have been used in WordPress plugin development.

Pushing Pro Updates Takes a Lot of Time

One of the big responsibilities of a WordPress plugin developer is to release the new version of the plugin with the latest features and updates. In order to make the release successful, there are a lot of steps to follow. One mistake and it can all go haywire.

So, a pretty chunk of time from development has to be dedicated for the release purposes. This will hamper the flow of the programmer and also eat up a lot of time.

Whether you have a pro plugin or a free plugin you need to push updates to keep your customers satisfied. The conventional way takes about 39 steps to upload a plugin in the WordPress repository. You need time to upload and update your Pro plugins as well. That will churn about 2-3 hours minimum. That’s not all. After the release, you need to deal with the bugs and fixes your clients will demand.

License Management, A Big Headache

If you have a plugin, you obviously want it to reach as many people as you can. That is why there are different kinds of platforms available to sell your product, EDD, WooCommerce, Envato. But the problem is you need different kinds of licenses if you want to sell your plugin from those platforms.

However, you can sense that this will be really difficult for you to handle. Sometimes it may feel like unnecessary stress to take while you are busy in plugin development. Because different platforms will have a different set of rules to manage licensing. For, example if you take EDD, it has a long and technical process to manage your license.

It is a process that you can’t even ignore otherwise how you are going to sell your premium plugins. And whether you like it or not it will slow down the development of your plugin.

These are some of the problems you will face while developing WordPress plugins in the traditional way. You must be thinking that “I can’t avoid these steps and process while developing a plugin”. Well, you are wrong. Gone are the days of this boring way of developing a plugin.

Yes, now there are solutions that will help you fully automate this process helping you solely focusing on development. We are going to talk about that now.

This Is How We Can Assist You With A Reliable Solution

We talked about some problems that will hinder the process of plugin development. But where there is a problem there is bound to be a solution.

That solution’s name is Appsero.

Yes, you heard it right. Appsero is the solution that will make all the processes automated resulting in saving a lot of time.

When it was released in February 2020, it created a storm in the WordPress industry. Because it showed us a new way of managing and selling a plugin or a theme. It has some extraordinary features that are sure to leave you in awe!

Let’s talk about some of the features and you can decide for yourself whether we are telling the truth or not.

Insightful User Analytics Data

If you want to provide proper service and value for your customers then you need to understand the way they think. It will help you in a lot of ways.

• To understand your customers
• Know which feature is liked more
• Get more familiar with your own product
• Making better decisions
• Regions of your preferred users
• Planning for future updates and features.

These are some important terms. And Appsero provides exactly that. You will get the number of active installs, installation growth, downloads, competitor analysis, most used languages, WordPress versions, PHP versions and etc.

This way you can ensure proper data analysis for your plugins.

Know The Deactivation Reasons

Between the time of developing a plugin and releasing them, one question must have crossed your mind ” Why plugins get deactivated?” There may be different reasons but one thing is for sure if your product is not serving your customer’s demand than it will not add value to them.

But Appsero will help you find the other reasons as well. It will capture the deactivation reasons and present it to you with beautifully printed charts. Whenever a customer deactivates your plugin, an automatic form will appear that will engage him/her to share the reasons.

Also, Appsero has a Deactivation Auto-Responder feature that will send a personalized email to your users after deactivating.

It will easily skyrocket your WordPress plugin growth.

One License For Every Platform

Yes, you read that right. Remember we told you that different platforms have different kinds of licenses to sell your plugins. Well, with Appsero you don’t need to worry about that. Appsero cuts down the licensing process in almost half.

It lets you manage the software licensing for all the popular systems from just one place. You will have only one license that you will use to sell your premium or free plugins and theme from any of the above-mentioned platforms like EDD or Envato. You can integrate your license under 5 minutes. Smooth right?

Push Your Pro Updates In A Flash!

If you are providing free plugins or themes, you don’t need to worry about regular updates. WordPress.org automatically takes care of that.

However you need a system in place if you want to deilver regular updates for premium plugins or themes to your paid users.

When you are done developing the new update, you can either deploy it directly using Git (GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket) or you can release the pro version from the Appsero dashboard directly. It will save you a lot of time on WordPress plugin development. Therefore, you can put all your focus on developing the plugin not releasing it.

Also, you don’t have to worry about managing your free plugin in WordPress.org repo.

All you have to do is connect your Git account, then map your Git project with your WordPress.org account. After that, you can release updates to your users under 30 seconds using a command like the following.

git tag -a v1.4 -m "my awesome plugin update version 1.4"

Some Cool Integrations

As Appsero has a one for all license management, it has integrations with  Easy Digital Downloads, WooCommerce, and Envato. So you can sync all your existing licenses in a single click. Then you don’t have to face any issues while selling from these platforms. Also, there are some other integrations like,

• MailChimp Integration
• weMail Integration
• Mailjet Integration

This will help you build your email list.

These are some of the exclusive features of Appsero. This will help you cut down the time on other things and you can focus on your development. The problems we talked about in the beginning can easily be solved. Also a gentle reminder,

It’s completely free!

Yes. Appsero is in beta right now so you can easily sign up and start selling your plugin right away.

Final Words on WordPress Plugin Development

WordPress plugin development is a complex task. It requires focus and dedication. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. So, if the developers waste it in tasks that can be automated, it will divert all the focus from the development. Also, it will break the rhythm of the coder.

That is why a solution like Appsero exists. It will take a lot of work out of the developer’s hand by automating the processes regarding plugins or themes.