Lessons Learned from Getting Banned on WordPress.org
The article shares the author's experience of getting their first paying customer for a WordPress plugin, but also getting banned from the WordPress.org forums for self-promotion.
Why it matters
This story highlights the challenges and pitfalls that developers can face when trying to market their products, even when their intentions are good.
Key Points
- 1The author mass-DMed people about their AI plugin, but got no replies
- 2They started answering questions on the WordPress.org forums and mentioning their plugin
- 3This strategy worked, and they got their first paying subscriber
- 4However, the author was then banned from the WordPress.org forums for self-promotion
- 5The author learned that the WordPress.org forums are not a marketing channel
Details
The author built a WordPress plugin and initially tried mass-DMing people about it, but got no responses. They then decided to genuinely help people on the WordPress.org support forums by answering questions they knew the answers to. At the end of their helpful posts, they would mention their plugin. This strategy worked, and they got their first paying subscriber. However, a moderator on the forums flagged the author's posts as self-promotion, linked their new forum account to their main one, and disabled both. The author's plugin submission was also rejected before it could be reviewed. The author learned that while they were genuinely trying to help people, they were also promoting their product, and those two things don't mix on the WordPress.org platform. Now the author is in a difficult position, having a working product with one customer, but no presence on the platform where most WordPress users discover plugins.
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