Summary: So you want to create a WordPress plugin but don’t know where to start? WordPress plugins allow you to add custom features to your website. There are thousands of them available for free and you can even create your own custom WordPress plugins. In this guide we will show you how to create a WordPress plugin, and how to begin your WordPress plugin development journey. About Creating Your First WordPress Plugin WordPress plugins are like apps for your WordPress website. Just like apps on your phone, you can install plugins in WordPress to add new features. To learn more about WordPress plugins, see our guide on WordPress plugins and how do they work? You’ll need basic knowledge of coding languages like PHP, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to write a plugin. Sounds like a lot of learning, right? Don’t worry, you can still follow our tutorial. We’ll walk you through the process step by step, and by the end of it you will have enough understanding of WordPress programming to create a simple WordPress plugin. Note: This tutorial just shows how to write a basic plugin. To keep things simple, we will not dive into advanced WordPress coding skills. What Do You Need to Create Your First WordPress Plugin? First, you’ll need a local development environment to test your WordPress plugin on your computer. To set this up, see our guide on how to install WordPress on your Windows computer or Mac). You can also test your plugin on a staging website. However, if an error occurs, then you may end up breaking your website which will make it inaccessible. See our guide on how to fix common WordPress errors to tackle those issues. You will also need a plain text editor to write your code. Notepad or TextEdit will work fine. However, if you want to try something more advanced, then check out these code editors for developers. With those ready, let’s get started. Creating Your First WordPress Plugin The first step is to create a new folder on your desktop or documents folder, and name it something like wpb-plugin-tutorial or my-first-plugin. Next, you need to create a new file in your text editor and save it inside your plugin folder as wpb-plugin-tutorial.php or my-first-plugin.php. The important thing is the .php extension, but you can name the file what you wish. You’ll need to open that PHP file with your text editor. The first thing you need to add to your plugin file is the plugin header. This comment block simply tells WordPress the name of your plugin, version, website, plugin author name, and more.
