Sessions

Ah, clients—we need them, we crave them. WordPress consultants and freelancers mostly live in attraction mode, constantly building a vibrant roster of sweet-spot clients. But not every client is a good client. So while you’re courting new relationships, beware of the challenging types of clients almost never worth the trouble.

After this session attendees will be able to:
– Identify danger signals before engagement
– Learn 5 steps for handling difficult clients
– Discover how to politely fire a challenging client
– How to prevent future nightmare clients

In this talk, I will walk through specific techniques and tools that will increase scores on Google PageSpeed Insights. We’ll discuss caching, plugins that help minify your code, and best practices when building custom themes.

Participants will walk away from this workshop feeling that social media mastery is within their grasp. They will learn how to build a high quality social media campaign.

Have you ever launched a website only to return to find some annoying SEO has come after you and destroyed it? Has some obnoxious marketer bugged you for lots of little changes- outside the client’s scope and budget? I’m sorry. That might have been my fault. Let’s work together to help our clients. I’ll share my secrets on setting up a WordPress site for SEO success. While this won’t guarantee SEO results, but it will set up your clients for optimal Google love.

As web designers, our clients regularly turn to us for what they consider “traditional” design expertise–things like color and movement on a website. But what often gets overlooked is the critical role that content organization and page structure play on a website. While many people consider design largely aesthetic in nature, it would be naive to ignore or downplay the importance of content. In order to design effectively for end users, designers must consider the implications that content can have on the overall user experience.

A content-driven approach should be used to inform website structure, page layout, and overall design. In this session, I’ll talk about the importance of leading clients through a comprehensive content-driven web design process and how doing so can help exceed their expectations every time.

WordPress can be used to start a blog, make a site for a club, or power a business, large or small. WordPress can also be used as a way to document your life, and save important things for later. You can bridge WordPress to other parts of the web that you use to store all of your data in one place, without having to worry about an app, hardware maker, or social media site going out of business and taking all of your content with it. I considered myself an interloper into the IndieWeb movement, until I realized that the movement — just like the technology that powers it — is decentralized. My habit of copying data created on other sites, as well as creating a website for my lifelogging, is part of what this community is about. Come learn about how you can use WordPress to power and amplify your voice online, and reclaim the web from the walled gardens for the user!

When a website is inaccessible, it is not just an issue of compliance, it is just bad practice on display. People with disabilities ranging from blindness, deafness, dyslexia and others may navigate and consume content in different ways with assistive technology (like screen readers, captioning or joy sticks). Therefore it is not that difficult to understand why lack of accessibility negatively impacts SEO. Web accessibility is not just for developers, it is just as important for marketers to make it part of their digital marketing to ensure that opportunities for success aren’t missed.

You can’t just install a couple of security plugins and call it a day when it comes to safeguarding your WordPress website. Plugins are a great start. The door to your website now has a lock on it. But how about adding a dead bolt? A door chain? A peep hole? Titanium reinforcement? A pet dragon hiding inside? Plugins help with the 5th layer of security. Did you know there are 4 more layers that you are most likely not protecting? Huh? Did he say 4 more? Come learn how to safeguard the other 4 layers so that even with the best of plugins, you drastically reduce your (and your client’s) chances of getting hacked. Just as you would add layers of security to protect your home and family, your WordPress security needs a multi layered approach. Come learn how to build a wall, a moat, and some additional lookout towers to keep the bad guys away from your castle. Oh, and dragons? We’ll talk about them too, if we have time.

My topic will delve into the depths of psychological principals, such as the Von Restorff effect, Occam’s Razor, the Serial Position effect, and how they relate to UI design and user experience.

This won’t be a hands-on talk, but more of a philosophical look into why we make some of the decisions we do on the web, and how these psychological principals backup a lot of the common sense design techniques we typically already know as designers.

Come ready to think, learn, and apply these cognitive psychology principles and how they relate to your UI/UX work.

Congratulations! You’ve managed to become your own boss. You are living the dream, except that in your dream, you weren’t doing Every. Single. Thing. Yourself. April will share practical tips on how to decide who your first hire should be and how to successfully delegate those things you’d rather not do.

Do you have a particular question that your struggling to understand that relates to WordPress? – Ask our Panel of Speakers from this years WordCamp. Topics can range from Programming to SEO, or Social and Design, etc