A promotional image featuring the text "How I Would Optimize Your Plugin READ ME" in neon style lettering with a smiling man on the right, against a gradient background of dark to light blue, with the logo and name "Matt Cromwell" on the bottom left corner.

How I Optimize Plugin README’s for Better Search Results

These are the steps and tactics I do for every free plugin I optimize on the WordPress Plugin Directory.

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Shiny New Plugins: #DoingItWrong, Slow Traction, and a Pay-what-you-want monetization strategy!?

In this round-up, I get reflective about the freemium model and how we generate reviews, and highlight some bad trends in some new plugins.

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Shiny New Plugins: Tables, and Video, and Flies, Oh My!

What’s a shiny new plugin without a sense of whimsy? Whether its AI or just a fly on your page, you’ll want to see these shiny new plugins.

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Graphic banner with a colorful gradient background, featuring neon-style text saying "Shiny New PLUGINS" with a stylized power plug icon above a cube at the left, and the text "Reintroducing" at the top.

Reintroducing Shiny New ̶T̶o̶y̶s̶ Plugins

“Shiny New Plugins” is a blog series where I cover some of the newest plugins on the WordPress Plugin Directory.

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Revisiting Plugin Activation Behavior

Being smart about the experience your users get directly after plugin activation is important and vital to your product getting good adoption. Here’s some methods and thoughts and tools for you.

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The Significance of WordPress Plugin Download Counts and How to Automate Getting Them

What’s the value of daily downloads for WordPress plugins and themes? And how can you automate getting them? Here’s my take.

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The Case for the WordPress Plugin Freemium Model

Despite increased competition in the WordPress plugin landscape, I’m still a strong believer in the freemium model and the power of the WordPress Plugin Directory. Here’s why.

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On Disparities Between the WordPress Community and Core Product Direction

How can we bridge the disparity between what WordPress is building and what we want it to be?

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How to Pronounce GIF

This is how and why I pronounce GIF the way I do. Have you ever asked yourself why?

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Empathy is the Best Anti-Itch Solution for Product Developers

Chris Lema says one of the biggest mistakes product developers make is scratching their own itch at their users expense. It got me thinking about how GiveWP started as an itch-scratcher too.

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