🇺🇸 WordCamp Atlanta 2023

Experienced speakers from our community will discuss the latest market shifts, technological advancements, and business models, shedding light on where the WordPress economy is headed. Is there a next big wave in WordPress and can we stay ahead of that curve? Let’s chart a course for success in the WordPress Project.

Experienced speakers from our community will discuss the latest market shifts, technological advancements, and business models, shedding light on where the WordPress economy is headed. Is there a next big wave in WordPress and can we stay ahead of that curve? Let’s chart a course for success in the WordPress Project.

Join our WordPress Happiness Session at WordCamp, where new or existing business owners using WordPress in their business can tap into the expertise of seasoned entrepreneurs. An exclusive opportunity to engage with WordPress professionals who have honed their craft through years of experience. Don’t miss this chance to fuel your WordPress based business with the knowledge and inspiration it needs to thrive in todays digital age.

Experienced speakers from our community will discuss the latest market shifts, technological advancements, and business models, shedding light on where the WordPress economy is headed. Is there a next big wave in WordPress and can we stay ahead of that curve? Let’s chart a course for success in the WordPress Project.

Keeping your WordPress site SEO-friendly is a continuous process. Regular audits help ensure your site’s SEO is on point. But with the plethora of plugins and tools, which ones should you use? This talk will cover:

• The basics of SEO auditing for WordPress.
• Recommended plugins to simplify your audits.
• A few external tools that offer valuable insights.
• Tips for a straightforward audit process and consistent checks.

Walk away with a clearer understanding of SEO audits and a list of reliable tools to help maintain your WordPress site’s SEO health.

Technology is changing at a phenomenal rate. If you’re involved in any way with WordPress you see the evolutionary process coming. How do you blend the power of AI, VR and the Metaverse with WordPress. Taking you on a digital exploration of discovery and adventure as the digital worlds blend and evolve.

You’ve decided to use WordPress to build your site. Congratulations! Now you’ve got to find a hosting provider.

You’ll soon realize that there are significant (and confusing!) differences between $2.50 WordPress hosting, $250 WordPress hosting, and $25,000 WordPress hosting.

Cloud services, managed hosting, CDN, SSH, WAF, NVMe, DDoS…How are you supposed to make sense of it all?

Join one web host’s Director of IT Operations to understand the managed hosting landscape and learn which features will actually make your WordPress experience better, and which ones just look good on paper.

This is presentation on how I as a single person agency manage (and grow) 450+ websites and things I’ve learned after 20+ years of website development and business management.

In ‘How to Break the Internet: Lessons from the Support Desk’, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted nature of web development support. This presentation delves into the challenges and solutions inherent to managing WordPress sites – emphasizing the crucial role of effective customer support. Drawing from real-world case studies, we will also briefly explore the transformative potential of integrating advanced AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, into the support ecosystem. In this session, we aim to equip attendees with knowledge and ideas to elevate their support strategies in the ever-evolving worlds of our clients.

Get people excited to buy your product by speaking authentically about how it will solve their problem. Learn messaging strategies that resonate with your target audience and help you stand out from the competition.

I was able to transition because of my WordPress career. The community support, the generally accepting nature of WordPressers, and the wide range of remote work opportunities within WordPress made becoming my true self not only possible but probable.

In this talk, I’ll share how WordPress aided in my gender transition as well as outline how to create local WordPress communities that go beyond acceptance and make transgender and gender-nonconforming people feel safe and welcomed, leading to a better community experience for all involved.

The talk will kick off by providing an overview of the current landscape of WordPress and its widespread adoption for websites and blogs. We will delve into the power of WordPress in enabling individuals and organizations to create and manage their online presence.

We will discuss immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) and their potential to revolutionize how we interact with digital content as well as the influence of AI.

We will also look at who the emerging minorities are; encompassing marginalized communities and underrepresented voices and how we can amplify these voices by limiting the challenges and barriers they face in accessing and utilizing technology. Plus, we will discuss the potential of WordPress and modern technologies to bridge this gap.

By the end of this talk, attendees will leave inspired, have gained a deeper understanding of the power of WordPress, and will have ideas they can use to help WordPress democratize the web for all.

Experienced speakers from our community will discuss the latest market shifts, technological advancements, and business models, shedding light on where the WordPress economy is headed. Is there a next big wave in WordPress and can we stay ahead of that curve? Let’s chart a course for success in the WordPress Project.

Shane Bader has been the VP of Sales at Iceberg Web Design for 8 years. He has learned that the trick to closing sales is not just to focus on the website and its features, but to highlight the team and the process that will solve your customer’s problem.

In this talk, Shane will share what he’s learned from years of interactions with potential customers. He will help you learn to start using your own tried and true processes to strengthen your deals with prospective customers, and close more sales.

Learn how to use social media to generate leads for your WordPress agency. Plumbers, electricians, and landscapers are using social media to generate buzz and acquire customers, so why can’t we? I’ll share how I built an audience on social media and have generated leads for freelance web design and consulting.

Guidelines for representing your business on Google were updated on July 31st. Are you compliant or is your business at risk of being suspended or even losing your entire Google Business Profile – including your reviews?

Google’s evolving guidelines play a pivotal role in shaping your online visibility and reputation. It’s crucial for your business to stay ahead of the curve and ensure your business thrives in the ever-changing landscape of Local SEO.

In this talk, we’ll discuss:

• Key parts of Google’s Reorganization of GBP Guidelines and how they impact your business.
• Determine if your business is at a high risk for suspension.
• Top 5 reasons for a GBP Suspension and how to avoid them.
• Why Google still has “gray areas” when it comes to their GBP guidelines.

Are you using AI to streamline your proposals? SOW? OKR’s? Project Management steps and procedures? If you aren’t and are curious on how you can use generative AI to help become more efficient with your web projects with AI, this may be transformative.

The journey from being a solo freelancer to running a micro-agency is as exciting as it is complex. This transformation involves not only an upgrade in your service offerings but also in your operations, team management, and client relationships. This talk aims to equip freelancers and small business owners with the insights and tools needed to expand into a fully-functioning micro-agency, based on proven strategies and actionable advice.

What You’ll Learn:

• Team Building 101: How to transition from being a ‘one-man-show’ to leading a team.
• Operational Efficiency: Streamlining projects from proposal to delivery.
• Quality over Quantity: Why clarity about what you do and do not do will save you.
• Money Matters: Pricing strategies and financial metrics you can’t afford to ignore.
• Client Relationships: Managing expectations and communication as you grow.
• Legal Aspects: Contracts, compliance, and the legal groundwork needed for an agency.
• Marketing and Branding: Establishing your agency brand vs. your personal brand.
• Technological Scalability: The tools and software that can propel your growth.
• Culture and Leadership: Fostering a culture that keeps your team motivated.
• Tips and Recommendations: Tidbits and wisdom you’ll need to make this transition easier.

Who Should Attend:

• Freelancers looking to expand their business
• Small business owners in the WordPress ecosystem
• Agency owners looking to refine their operations
• Anyone interested in the business aspects of WordPress development and services

Wins and pitfalls of creating decoupled websites using WordPress as a content management system for front end JavaScript websites written in Gatsby, Angular and NextJS. Will be presenting lessons learned and tools used.

WordPress 6.4 is targeted to be released in early November 2023, and should be full of a plethora of exciting new features and enhancements. Let’s dive in and explore the beta features of WordPress 6.4 and all that it has to offer.

Prepare to make the journey from endpoint to endpoint of the WordPress REST API. All thru-hikers must make the proper preparations for their hike so we will go through some general basics of APIs, fill the proper permits (authentication), explore the trail and stop at several WordPress endpoints along the way, and learn how to blaze our own trail by creating custom API endpoints for your own use. This intermediate level hike assumes you have a basic understanding of development and what an API is. See you on the trail!

As AI has steamrolled its way into 2023, it’s important we understand the implications of AI (both the good and the bad) on the SEO content landscape. This session is designed to help designers, marketers, content creators, business owners, and subject matter experts understand how to factor new AI best practices into your content strategy for website traffic, visibility, brand reputation, content creation, and more.

Wpgen is a free, open source CLI utility that helps you to rapidly develop WordPress plugins. After building hundreds of client plugins throughout the years, I created wpgen to avoid common, repetitive and boilerplate tasks associated with WP development (such as managing plugin architecture, creating and querying custom post types/taxonomies, creating, saving and securing custom fields/metadata, administration screens, modelling data/relationships, REST API controllers, package/dependency management, etc).

Wpgen combines an opinion on how a plugin should be structured into a component-model based architecture alongside a series of code generators (ie: create:plugin generates the plugin structure, create:admin creates an admin options screen, component:post-type generates a custom post type, create:bb-module creates a custom BeaverBuilder module, create:api-controller, generates a REST API controller, etc). In addition, it provides an interface for rendering both simple and arbitrarily complex, reactive custom form fields. In a matter of minutes, you can generate a plugin, model/scaffold your custom data structures via components (custom post types/taxonomies/meta, etc), then get straight to actually programming your custom business logic needs.

We use wpgen to save time at ClockworkWP. While most generators are universal for WP development, some generators complement our workflow (ie, the BeaverBuilder module generator). Because of its consistent component structure, wpgen generators are compatible with other wpgen-created plugins, making it perfect for team development. Once you’ve created a plugin using the wpgen plugin strategy, you’ll feel at home working on other plugins.

The presentation will include a technical demonstration of wpgen and its features, an explanation of its architecture choices and option interfaces. By the end, we should have an example custom WP plugin, possibly designed/guided by the audience (we’ll have some planned suggestions in-case nobody has any good ideas on the spot).

Suggested audience: anyone not afraid of the terminal, who is comfortable with PHP (at minimum, you’ve played with functions.php before), and interested in building quality WordPress plugins. Skill level is not as important because of procedure, but because wpgen is built on top of WP concepts (post types, taxonomies, meta, options) you should have some experience with these WP fundamentals. wpgen is like having a calculator vs pen and paper– you still need to know your basic arithmetic.

https://wpgen.org
https://clockworkwp.com

Websites in the educational space present unique demands and challenges, especially for sizable school systems. WordPress features and customizations can solve key problems and provide strategic solutions that are scalable to content management teams. Representing one of the largest educational organizations in the Southeast, Keith Osburn, Ed. D., is the Deputy Superintendent for Technology Services and Chief Information Officer for the Georgia Department of Education. Join us for a collaborative conversation with Keith and Aaron Reimann, CEO of ClockworkWP, as we explore new and inventive ways that WordPress can be applied in large-scale operations.

The maturation of the block editor brought with it a major shift in how WordPress theme development was expected to work. For many independent developers and small agencies, this shift seemed like an huge disruption to their workflow – a once-reliable codebase now in flux, entirely new coding languages and tooling to learn, and layers of complexity added to tools (like hooks and queries) that used to be simple and accessible.

The questions seem overwhelming: How do we build something modern for our clients while ensuring its stability and reliability in the years to come? How do we find the time to learn all these new tools while continuing to produce quality work (and support ourselves or our team in the process)? Can’t I just keep doing it the way I was doing it?

Through my own experience as a full-time independent developer – building and supporting real projects with classic WordPress, the block editor, “hybrid” themes, and Full Site Editing as these features were introduced – I will share what I have learned about navigating the triumphs and pitfalls of modern WordPress theme development, and how to confidently decide which tools and features make sense for your projects.

WordPress as an Open Source ecosystem is decentralized and we all enjoy the benefits.

There are tradeoffs of decentralization, though. Strategic partnerships are the key to mitigating those tradeoffs and growing in the WordPress ecosystem.

Know some WordPress? Want to take it to the next level? Do you know what you would like to do with WordPress but unsure as to where to start and what to learn about?

In this talk we are going to over 13 years of experience, summarized as best as possible into a single session. If you want to know WordPress and would like to know what you will stumble along the way, this session is definitely for you!

Have you ever felt like you’re just running your business by the seat of your pants, making things up as you go? It’s inefficient, stressful, and more common than you might think! In this talk, Nathan will explain the importance of creating systems for your business and a low-stress approach that anyone can use to start creating systems right away.

Key Takeaways:

• How systems making your business more efficient and valuable
• How to get started creating your own systems (including a helpful tool to make it easier)
• How systems can impact your business in unexpected ways

The world of User Experience has evolved significantly over the past two decades. We people rush to take immersive classes and become professionals that shape the experiences we have on our devices (and in real life), we need to figure out what makes us different, special, qualified to lead these new creations. We need to find our own voices in a sea of opinions and clutter of people who are just grabbing at a trend vs. seriously trying to solve problems through technology. In this talk, I’ll walk through how we all find our perspective in the world fo User Experience and how we use it to create products that truly impact peoples lives for the better (or sometimes worse).

It can be challenging to be an introvert in a world built for extroverts. Many introverts have been told at some point in their career to “be more extroverted”, as though introversion is bad — but it’s not, and being an extrovert is certainly not required for success – even as a leader!

Ever wondered how the dopamine pathways in your brain affect how and when you’re able to focus? Probably not, but science can tell us a lot about how our brains work and we can learn to leverage that information to help us be the best leaders we can be.

Aaron will take both a scientific and experiential look at introversion and extroversion, how they differ, how to tell where on the scale you are, and how to employ this better understanding of how your brain works as an introvert to be a great leader. He’ll walk through his own journey of learning to leverage the strengths of his introversion and share what he does to help him navigate the parts of life and his career that are harder for him as an introvert.

In today’s fast changing digital terrain, software testing has emerged as a critical aspect of ensuring a consistent user experience. This holds even more true within the WordPress ecosystem since many websites rely on an intricate mix of third party plugins, themes, and custom code. This makes it crucial to validate a website’s performance beyond unit and integration testing conducted by developers.

We will dive into why configuring basic smoke tests using end to end (E2E) testing is important even if you have no formal QA or developer experience.

Testing semantics aside, using no code automation testing tools, stakeholders with limited code knowledge can test critical website functionality, spot issues, and ensure a website is consistently performing as expected with certain limitations. This approach aligns seamlessly with the ethos of WordPress itself – democratizing the web and making it accessible to all.

Most of us use transactional emails regularly, but may not be aware of what they are exactly or how they can be improved to help increase trust, satisfaction, and ultimately sales.

Slide decks, slideshows, and PowerPoints are tied to a time when content was static and contained in finite pages. We navigated through content by moving from slide to slide, page to page. We had to turn the page or hit ‘next. But now we have websites and digital media. So not only has content evolved drastically, but so has the way that we can interact with this content on a screen. Webpage presentations fit in with today’s visual culture. Today we can present content in a way that matches how we naturally view and experience the world.

This presentation has three parts: when, why, and how. We’ll look at the history of visual storytelling to understand why it’s time for a change. Then, I’ll discuss how to build webpage presentations using page builders, WordPress and other tools.

What if I told you that onboarding clients can be super easy? Well it can be with the proper system in place! There really is a painless way to onboard your clients and ensure you get all the information you need, before you need it. Anticipation and preparation can be the best strategy to make future you’s life so much simpler. We will discuss asking for access, resources to make the first two weeks a breeze, and systems to keep it all in place.

I hate that Google forced us all into GA4 but, as I get to know it, I’m falling in love! Give me some of your time and I’ll show you why it’s still the best tool out there for measuring your marketing efforts. I’ll also dispel some of the fear mongering about why you shouldn’t use GA4 on your website.

In this presentation, we will discuss the IndieWeb movement and how you can use WordPress to build your own IndieWeb site.

The IndieWeb is a movement to take back control of our online identities and relationships. It’s based on the principles of openness, decentralization, and ownership. This may sound familiar to WordPress users!

Understanding the WordPress block editor and how to think about what products you choose to add to your WordPress website. How to think about the products, plugins, and themes, we use as we move into the future of WordPress.

With the experience I’ve had working with users building very complex setups in WordPress involving memberships, courses, email list integrations, and more, I’ve noticed users don’t often fully explore the tools they have and what business potential they unlock for their business.

Encouraging users to develop a framework for how they go about exploring the tools they have and are considering adding to their tech stack as it relates to their business needs is something I’ve found helps my clients and customers better grasp how WordPress comes together.

Highlighting how the WordPress block editor and full site editing leans into future developments in the web at large emphasizes what opportunities it creates for WordPress users and changes the perception of “Change is hard and I don’t want to learn a new editing method”