Best practices from building a premium plugin

Leaflet Maps Marker Prowww.mapsmarker.com

Vienna WordPress Meetup, 24.09.2013

@MapsMarker / @RobertHarm

Plugin description

Helping you to share your favorite spots and tracks

Leaflet Maps Marker allows you to pin, organize and share your favorite places & tracks through your WordPress powered site easily. You can use maps from OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, Google Earth, Bing Maps or custom maps and additionally display your spots in innovative ways like through augmented-reality browsers.

http://demo.mapsmarker.com

http://www.mapsmarker.com/showcases

A short dev history

‣ 08.10.2011: Open Data Hackathon Vienna

‣ 01.01.2012: Leaflet Maps Marker 1.0 released

‣ 31.12.2012: 40 releases, 50.000 downloads (current: 126.000), 18 translations (current: 33)

‣ 22.07.2013: Leaflet Maps Marker Pro 1.0 released

‣ 09.09.2013: Affiliate program launched

Unique visitors www.mapsmarker.com

Automatise everything

‣ SPBAS (self-service) www.spbas.com

‣ Licensing (domain based, free trial validation)

‣ Customer management

‣ Helpdesk

‣ Payments

Upgrade from free to pro version

‣ Integrated into free plugin („teaser pro version“)

‣ Triggers download and install of pro plugin

‣ Automaticaly deactivates free plugin

Demo site

‣ Allow users to also test the admin pages

‣ database is reset every 12 hours

http://demo.mapsmarker.com

Pay gateway

‣ Don´t offer paypal as your single payment method

‣ „random account freezes“

‣ acceptance and distribution worldwide?

MapsMarker.com uses the Austrian Payment Service Provider www.payunity.com

Paypal

Mastercard

Visa

American Express

Sofort Überweisung (Germany)

more available if needed

Plugin updates

Pro plugins are not allowed on wordpress.org; you need to build your own infrastructure:

‣ server module: https://github.com/YahnisElsts/wp-update-server/

‣ client module:https://github.com/YahnisElsts/plugin-update-checker

Reviews

‣ 186 five-star-ratings

‣ 112 reviews

ask your a review after giving free support on wordpress.org forums

embed reviews on your website ( google ranking) http://www.mapsmarker.com/reviews/

Translations

‣ 33 available translations (free+pro compatible strings)

‣ Use web based tool, not poedit

‣ Offer backlinks & attributions (+ free pro licenses)

‣ Glotpress recommended (also used by WordPress):

http://translate.mapsmarker.com/projects/lmm

Affiliate Program

‣ 25% commission for each sale delivered

‣ Up to 50% commission through performance awards

‣ 2-tiers with 5% commission on each level

‣ Integrated into free version replace default backlink

‣ Marketing material in different languages

‣ iDevAffiliate - https://www.mapsmarker.com/affiliates

Sign up

now ;-)

Mixed dev best practices

‣ Use WordPress APIs!

‣ Settings API crucial for Leaflet Maps Marker

‣ Focus on security (sql injections, xss…)

‣ Try to fix other plugin on conflicts; if this fails, show a warning when plugin is active

‣ Load scripts/css only on your own plugin pages

‣ Update routine is crucial when using custom tables and settings

‣ Multisite tests!

‣ Use SSL where possible

‣ test test test…

Thanks for your attention!

Any questions?

@MapsMarker

@RobertHarm

www.mapsmarker.com

www.facebook.com/mapsmarker

www.mapsmarker.com/+