Custom Meta Box in WordPress

Although it might seem a little scary at first, adding a custom meta box to the back-end of a WordPress site is actually very simple.

If you want to know more about meta boxes, check out the WordPress meta box documentation.

//---- Register meta boxes
function register_meta_boxes($post) {
    // Will only show on posts, below the editor
    add_meta_box('meta_box_1', 'Test', 'build_meta_box', 'post', 'normal', 'low');

    // Will only show on pages, in the sidebar
    add_meta_box('meta_box_2', 'Test', 'build_meta_box', 'page', 'side', 'low');
}

add_action('add_meta_boxes', 'register_meta_boxes');

//---- Output of meta box
function build_meta_box($post) {
    echo 'Some simple text!';
}

Note: You’ll see in the build_meta_box() function we have access to the $post variable, from this we can grab anything we want about the post, like the title or custom post meta.