WordPress is the largest blogging platform available on the internet today; and with the official release of version three just around the corner, it’s only going to get bigger. As such, over the next few self-contained tuts, we’re going to learn the ins and outs of WordPress plugin development, starting with the creation of our first simple plugin, “Simple Optimization.”
Step 0 Before we Begin
This tutorial is going to assume that you have at least a beginner’s understanding of PHP and the WordPress syntax. Though we’ll be covering everything, some knowledge beforehand will help you grasp the concepts much more easily. I’ll also assumes that you have a WP blog setup and ready to go.
Step 1. What our Plugin Does
The very first step, when writing a WP plugin, is to determine everything you want it to do. Since this is our first plugin, we won’t do anything too drastic. Let’s create something which will speed up our blog; our pages will render faster, and we’ll also do a little SEO to improve our search rank and findability.
“Always create a list of what you want your plugin to actually do before you write any code!”
Remove useless meta tags:
- “rsd_link” – Really Simple Discovery Link
- “wlwmanifest_link” – Windows Live Writer link
- “wp_generator” – WordPress version number
Remove unnecessary filters:
- “wptexturize” – Curly quotes
- “wp_filter_kses” – HTML in user profiles
SEO:
- Insert post tags into <head> as keywords
- Insert post excerpt into <head> as description
https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/your-first-wordpress-plugin-simple-optimization--net-11869