🇺🇸 WordCamp Montclair 2024

Creating high-quality and engaging content is essential for driving traffic, engaging visitors, and achieving your business goals on WordPress. In this session, we’ll dive deep into content creation strategies and best practices that will captivate your audience and elevate your WordPress site to new heights.

Units tests are extra lines of code that check to see whether or not the rest of the code we’ve written behaves the way we want it to. While it might seem paradoxical that writing more code can reduce development time, it’s true. Writing unit tests has made me a better developer. Not only does it help me catch bugs, but it has taught be how to write better code. We’ll look at unit testing, how you can start using it today without a formal testing framework, and also how to write your code to make it easier to unit test.

Passwords are hard. Convincing non-technical users that they should be using strong or random passwords that are different for each site is a challenge. The recent attacks on LastPass show that even if we follow “best practices” we can still get bit. Luckily, Apple, Google, Microsoft and the W3C have been working for years on a plan to kill the password, passkeys!

Passkeys are simpler, faster, and more secure than passwords. In this talk we’ll go over how passkeys work and how you can use them on your WordPress website right now to position your brand as an innovator.

I’ve been a website and consultant for decades for a client who hates technology. He hates tech so much that he has a bag over his head in his Social Media profile.

In this talk, I’ll share how I’ve learned to communicate the value of SEO and get the feedback I need

First, I will start with soft skills. These include building trust and considering the customer’s time and communication preferences. Then I’ll show examples of reports and strategies I’ve used to get a response from busy people. Finally, I’ll share strategies for reporting bad news or disappointing outcomes.

This is for anyone who has to share search data with people who are less excited to dig into that data than we are.

WordPress is evolving, and so should we. The Interactivity API opens up new possibilities for building interactive, dynamic, and engaging websites without sacrificing performance. In this session, we’ll explore what this API is all about, why it matters, and how to get started with it. By the end, you’ll have a solid understanding of the Interactivity API and be ready to implement it in your projects.

AI meets WordPress,
In code, they both express,
Future of progress.
— ChatGPT, probably

Many of us have played with Dall-E or ChatGPT to create images, ask questions and even write haikus. It’s often obvious that the bland results are created by AI, which — for the time being, at least — can’t compete with the human brain when it comes to truly inspiring writing.

But could AI help you better showcase this writing, leaving your company’s creators, critics and copy editors with more time to hone their uniquely human talents?

At PMC, we are exploring different use cases for what we’re re-labeling assistive AI. We’re doing it on behalf of the writers and editors who excel at producing trenchant reviews and informative news stories but maybe find generating SEO to be drudgery. AI can step in to take on this and certain other responsibilities, including creating catchy headlines and doing certain kinds of editing.

This talk will outline the corporate policies surrounding AI and delve into why we decided to develop our own ChatPMC and how it is currently being used. We will also look at additional plugins currently available that can help you with SEO, titles and editing.

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 are the best resources to actually understand what’s needed to make a website accessible? How do you know what you can “ignore”?

Perceivable, operable, understandable, robust. Sounds good, right? But what does that actually mean? As a designer, what do you need to know? A content writer, a developer. What parts are important to know at what times? Are there other ways to organize these guidelines to better represent the different parts of website building, rather than through these principles that drive the WCAG?

We’ll dive into some tools that help us understand these guidelines, and how we can think about these concepts in ways that are a little easier to understand.

This session will dive into the subtle skill of team leadership by identifying the personalities a leader can expect to meet and learning the language necessary to communicate effectively. With that foundation, we’ll learn effective ways to ensure your company’s Key Initiatives are conveyed clearly and appropriately digested, clearing the road for your team to operate nimbly and efficiently. Lastly, we’ll learn some tips on how to engage with technical teams, specifically.

The Great Wall of China, internet freedom scores, shadowbanning. As the world wide web becomes a more closed, fragmented, and siloed place, WordPress has an important role in keeping it open and accessible. This talk will explore the current state of internet censorship, case studies in different countries, and what business owners, marketers, and developers need to be aware of while creating WordPress sites on an increasingly censored internet.

You are new to WordPress and need some lessons on creating a webpage. There is a new release and you need to know what is available. This workshop is for you. I will walk you through the Learn WordPress site and explain the resources available from tutorials to lessons to videos.

I am a proponent of art for art’s sake, but Late Capitalism almost demands that you turn your passion into profit. In this talk, we’ll explore a variety of monetization strategies tailored for content creators, from affiliate marketing and selling digital products to setting up membership sites and managing sponsored content. Learn how to seamlessly integrate these revenue streams into your WordPress site, optimize your site for monetization, and engage with your audience. Whether you’re a blogger, artist, or educator, we’ll share practical tips and tools to monetize your content effectively and sustainably. Join us to transform your creative endeavors into a thriving online business.

Whether you’re freelancing, starting a new company, or working for others, developing your personal brand is important not only to your personal success, but to the success of the places you work and volunteer.

It’s 2024, and you work in tech – so, of course, your information is on the web. You probably have at least one social media account. And you’re on a business About Us page. And maybe you also have a blog. Or volunteer somewhere (or multiple places).

So you have a brand out there already. But what does it look like? Is it well-organized? Does it lead to the places you want it to? Does it represent you well? Or is it a chaotic mess of whatever pops into your head at any given moment?

There’s a strategy to building a brand that helps you get ahead – and in turn helps any organization you’re attached to, whether that’s your own or not.

This talk will outline how to put together a strategy to help you move ahead with building a brand that will lead to higher success.

Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?

All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.