WordCamp Birmingham 2018

Get more traction with your content by increasing your SEO impact.

Learn how to configure the Yoast plugin for optimal Search Engine Optimization so that you’re fully optimizing the content on your website and that search engines can find them.

In this talk, we will dive into what you need to know to start tracking your website with Google Analytics. We will cover the basic installation on a WordPress website and then dive into the features of Google Analytics. In this talk, we will cover audience reports, acquisition reports, behavior reports, filters & segments, event tracking, setting up goals, UTMs and save some time for your questions.

Google Data Studio allows you to build beautiful custom dashboards for a variety of data and analytics. You can pull in data from Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Google Search Console and even from other products such as Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, Twitter and more. In this talk, we will walk through how to create your first dashboard and connect it to multiple sources.

Understanding your users’ behavior will help you improve the user experience of your site or product as well as how you market to new users. In this talk, you will learn how to use different types of surveys to learn about your users. We will discuss:

• Using surveys to segment your audience
• Creating survey questions without question bias
• User research surveys
• Post-sale surveys
• Experience surveys
• When to survey your audience and users
• and more…

When you walk away from this talk, you will have the tools and resources needed to begin understanding your users and using that data to improve your site or product.

Having your site load quickly is important for many reasons. Having a faster site impacts your SEO, sales, and user engagement. In fact, a 1-second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions!

In this talk, we will be discussing the reasons why your WordPress site may be slow and showing you ways to make your site faster. You will learn about different tools to test your site speed as well as how you can make the changes these tools suggest.

The new visual editor sure does inspire consternation in the WordPress community.

As with any disruption, there will be winners and losers in professional world – but what about the end-user? Can the new editor make life easier for them? And for professionals, how will Gutenberg change theme development? What about page-builders – things of the past?

Instead of focusing on launch and transition issues, I’ll describe how we think the fundamentals of the WordPress experience will change (for the better) for both the end-user AND the professional.

From idea to developing a product delights you as a developer. But how do you get it out there for others? How do you market and sell your product? How do you know what to price it at or how to support it? Enter the world of product management and in any software business this is a fundamental necessity to making your new product into a successful venture.

In this workshop session, we will focus on the basics of copyright and intellectual property, internet commerce, and best practices for the website user and privacy policies. This will not be legal advice, but rather offer general information.

Building a website can’t hurt anyone, right? Well, Maybe.

Failing to protect yourself and your business adequately could cost you more than your business, it could cost you your house! We’ll talk about the top 5 legal liability risks that can arise when building a website for yourself or for clients and provide some concrete actions steps and some things to consider in making sure you’re protected.

The discussion topics will range in areas of:

1. The difference between your and the public’s perception of how valuable and relevant your content is as a content creator.
2. How to connect across generational lines for increased engagement.
3. Defining and understanding the dynamics of SoLoMoCo Social engagement, Local activism, Mobile digital technology, Community perceptions and expectations.
4. Accepting diversity in gender, culture, generational usage of technology and age is a good thing.
5. Applying new learning to be a digital leader on and offline.
6. Don’t rely just on SEO, conventional marketing, and analytics.

The ability to connect with the diversity of Social Media can mean increased exposure, new clients, expanding your content into diverse markets, broadening the scope of your Brand. Content creators and digital innovators must be aware of the perceptions of others that are viewing, reading, digesting, comprehending and enjoying content.

Social Media is designed to be engaging, fun and embracing the diversity of thinking.

Everyone has the potential to be awesome on social media because of their authentic content.

As someone who builds WordPress websites for clients, you’ve probably learned that offering (or requiring) monthly maintenance contracts is smart business. It’s likely you’re including core software, plugin and theme updates as part of your maintenance plan, which ensures a steady income stream you can rely on and helps with your financial forecasting. But are you including website security as part of your project proposal and scope?

The security of your clients’ websites is often not a priority or is left till the end of a project (or sale?) as an optional add-on for the client to consider after going live. The value of a strong website security posture can be difficult to explain to clients, but when put in the context of their business and possible loss of revenue, it can become an integral part of your offering that separates you from the rest.

In this session, Adam will cover simple website security best practices that you can implement immediately for your own site and those of your clients. In addition, he’ll also offer advice and examples on how to best present the importance of website security during the proposal, scope, and maintenance package stages to your clients. Not only does this ensure your maintenance plans offer what every website needs, but also presents an additional revenue stream opportunity for your business.

Leveraging Your WordCamp Experience for Better Social Media Engagement

WordCamp is a great experience for the WordPress novice, expert and everyone in between. But, how exactly does one apply all the great information they’ve learned from the conference? This talk will explore the reasons why one should attend WordCamp and how-to effectively apply WordCamp skills, knowledge and information for better Social Media engagement.

Choosing a Project Management system can be an overwhelming and daunting task. As a project manager, I get asked frequently which project management software they should use for their company, or even which system is my favorite.

This talk will discuss why I chose different setups for different companies I have worked with over the years, and the pros and cons to each.

What does it look like to deliver value in the first week of developing a new product or service? Instead of waiting months to see something working, how can we offer something “by Friday”? I’ll provide a practical example of what it looks like to build something new while continuously delivering value at each step of the development process.

Project communications are tricky. That’s the bad news. The good news is you don’t have to figure it all out from scratch. I’ll share templates, email examples, and communication cheatsheets that’ll help you run your next project with confidence. All you have to do is listen.

Warning: May improve project outcomes.

Learn the basics to creating a great WordPress website! You’ll learn how to create Pages and Posts by adding text and images. Organize your content by adding Categories and Tags. We’ll configure the basic settings of your site including your site title, setting your home page and controlling comments. We’ll wrap up with setting a theme and learning how to customize it.

This will be an informative, hands-on workshop to get you started on building your WordPress website.

Ready to learn the basics of Gutenberg?

Learn the ins and outs as well as useful tips and tricks for publishing content using WordPress’ new editing experience.

When you launch a website, do you know what works? You don’t; you’re guessing. Your guesses may be based on experience and education, but with good A/B testing you can also make decisions based upon data.

For example, do you know that even the way a duck’s face points (left versus right) could increase your conversions by 40%? As a case study, one of our clients, an insurance company, increased leads by making just a small 2px change.

In this talk, we will spend some time review the A/B checklist I personally use to guide you on your journey to discover what things to test, testing methodology, and the best tools to use for your clients sites.

Growing your business is about building trust and whats more trusting then your voice? Where writing a blog post may not come easy to people, speaking is very natural, and intimate.

Podcasting is growing (once again) and it’s not that hard to do! In this session, I’ll show the workflow, best practices and ways to monetize.

An intro course to navigating the command line using bash and wp-cli. From simple to complicated, with examples!

Learning how navigate via cli, how to improve efficiency by completing common (often time consuming tasks) via the command line and some useful code examples to understand how to write bash scripts. Nerdy goodness 🙂

Working for yourself is hard. Knowing the right answer is fleeting. So I invite you to learn from my many many mistakes I have made over the course of 10+ years working for myself.

Gutenberg, the new WordPress text editor, is currently under development and will be released into WordPress core soon. The goal of this workshop is to prepare you with a solid understanding of how Gutenberg works, how to write Gutenberg blocks, and considerations for theme development.

We’ll start with the technologies that Gutenberg leverages and the APIs that WordPress provides on top of those. Then, we will explore in detail how to build a simple Gutenberg block. There are a few different types of Gutenberg blocks you can create and WordPress provides different components you can leverage, so we will cover that as well. For those who are theme developers, we will make sure you are aware of best practices for integrating with Gutenberg.

In order to optimize your learning, please observe these requirements:

• Familiarity with basic HTML, CSS, and JS or PHP
• Laptop computer
• A local copy of WordPress installed (https://getflywheel.com/layout/local-wordpress-development-environment-how-to/)
• A code editor. We strongly recommend PHPStorm (https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/download/), but Atom (https://atom.io/) will work if you can’t purchase (or the 30-day free trial runs out)

Please try to have WordPress and a good code editor already installed and running on your computer before the workshop. If you are unable to do so, we will do our best to provide help before the workshop but cannot make any guarantees.

1200 Days blogging in a row and still going . . .

If the idea of blogging on a regular basis is elusive and/or how you sustain blogging ideas, then this WordCamp Birmingham Presentation is for you – “12 Lessons from Daily Blogging for over 1200 Days & Still Counting” by Helen Rittersporn, PMP.

We will look at insights of what Helen has learned one really needs to understand with navigating the WordPress Dashboard along with having something to blog about – the goal is to minimize staring at a blank screen when blogging!

This presentation adds insights since her previous WordCamp Wilmington Presentations “Top 9 Lessons from Daily Blogging for over 900 Days & Still Counting” from 2017, and “Lessons from daily blogging for over 600 days & still counting” from 2016.

Her blog, Anchored Scraps, encourages old-style correspondence letter writing.

Helen will be celebrating her 1,200 daily blog post of consecutive posting on June 9, 2018. Her Third Year Anniversary of blogging daily was on February 26, 2018, since launching AnchoredScraps on February 26, 2015!

Whether you are a first time WordCamp attendee or a returning WordCamp enthusiast this presentation will help inspire you to increase your blogging frequency with confidence!

The freelance world can be an exciting life of waking up unemployed every morning, having a different view every week, and finding interesting clients.

When freedom is important, WordPress can allow you to live the life of your dreams with some of the best clients in the world. We will talk about the ups and downs of life on the road, finding clients, mixing fun, travel and code, how we get paid on the road, how we stay connected to the internet, and much more.

If the fear of public speaking is greater than the fear of dying, the fear of asking for the sale cannot be far behind. Many business owners languish in low volume when, with a little bit of knowledge and practice, they can be kicking their sales into overdrive.

We will cover classic sales techniques and update them for the digital age. We will also dig into the psychology that not only keeps some of us under-pricing but keeps us from closing the deal, at all. You don’t have to be cheesy, sleazy, or greasy to be a great salesperson.

You will learn to sell with style and walk away with increased confidence to go out and make more money.

Do you struggle writing project proposals to clients? Not sure what to include? Your proposal should set you apart from the rest of the herd while providing the client with all the pertinent details of the project. It should outline discovery though solution while protecting you against scope creep, abandoned projects, countless revisions, etc.

I’ll walk you through the templates and tools I use to quickly write custom proposals that win me projects time and again.

I’ve been a internet marketing consultant for several years. Three on my own. Five within agencies before that. While working at an agency, I was the go-to manager for difficult clients.

Over that time I’ve learned the most important thing clients need to hear: “No.”

I’d like to share with WordPress designers/developers why clients need to hear them say, “no”. I’ll explain how saying, “no” not only helps the client, but helps you provide greater value to them.

I’ll also talk about strategies on how to say, “no” without coming across as an arrogant jerk.

Some day you may need to make the decision to leave full-time work. Maybe it’s because of a chronic illness, or maybe you have become the caretaker for a family member. Whatever the situation, there are things to consider before — and after — turning in your resignation.

Two years ago, Kerry Putman stopped working full time as a web developer due to health issues. It was a huge change that she was not wholly prepared for. In this talk, Kerry will offer practical advice and self-care tips for dealing with the transformation from full-time employee to freelancer.

Advice, tips, and tricks that I have learned!

Let’s be real with one another, BUSINESS is HARD!

So you want to start a web design business? I aim to go over the things that I have learned from starting my business from day one all the way up to where I am today!

Some of the things that we will discuss are what I refer to as the hills and valleys of being an entrepreneur; trust me, there are plenty. How I landed my first client and manage to get new ones. How gathering feedback will improve your business and much more.

I think you will leave with a golden nugget or two, along with saying “Why didn’t I think of that!”

Web accessibility refers to the inclusive practice of removing barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites by people with disabilities. When your website is inaccessible, research shows you could be excluding up to 20 percent of your visitors and customers. When your website is accessible, everyone can consume your information and interact with you and your services. Visually-impaired users can visit your website using a screen reader. Those who can’t use a mouse can navigate your site using a keyboard or other input device. Designing with accessibility in mind will also improve your SEO. Join my workshop to learn more about accessibility, the importance of universal design, and how to create a high-quality user experience that is inclusive and beneficial to all.

This workshop will cover:

• Intro to accessibility, universal design, and why it’s important
• WCAG accessibility standards and legal concerns
• How to add accessibility testing to your workflow
• Common accessibility issues and how to address them
• Easy accessibility fixes that make a big impact

Get started with podcasting.

Learn the basics you need to set up and record. Create a plan for content. Develop an outline for your first recording. Walk away with a solid foundation to launch your podcast.

You have something to say – find your unique voice for your words and then develop creative and powerful ways to put your words to work

• Simple ideas for finding your voice
• Quick Tips for getting the words down
• Turn scripts/blogs into ebooks.
• Turn ebooks into print books.
• Turn blogs into to memes.
• Turn podcasts into blog posts.

Be creative in adjusting your words to work within a niche and you will find that your words work for you instead of you having to work so hard for your words.

Images! We all need them in our WordPress sites to help tell our stories. Where do you get your images? Pay big bucks for stock photography or “borrow” images from the Internet. Neither is the most optimal solution. How about learning how to get out of “auto” mode on that camera you may already have? I can teach you how to shoot products, people, landscapes, and architecture to create stunning images that will add a new dynamic level to your (or your client’s) websites, and other marketing materials.

Don’t think for a second that you can’t do it. I’ve been teaching kids (and adults alike) for years how to get more out of their cameras’. Come see, you’ll be the envy of your family and friends.

Video! If you (or your clients) already have the responsibility of adding content to that WordPress site, then video will more than double your exposure when done correctly. Video now consumes more than 80% of the eyeballs on the internet and that’s expected to continue to rise. Whether you’re on a small biz budget or can afford to go big, I’ll teach you a foundation for what it takes to do video right.