🇺🇸 WordCamp Rochester

Building WordPress websites for a living can become a soul searing experience. In the beginning, you think it’s great that you are doing something you love. In the end, you’re miserable, frustrated and unfulfilled with the process.

If this is your story come join me as I explain what career path I took by accident that is providing some of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I will show you how to take 4 things you already know to build your next career.

Attendees will learn how to leverage what they already know about WordPress into new career possibilities that will change how they feel about themselves and the work they do.

Yes, there is life after web design and development.

Discover how custom blocks can reshape your WordPress experience. We’ll explore creating both static and dynamic content blocks that cater to your site’s specific requirements.

From setting up your development environment to crafting interactive and responsive blocks, this workshop will give you a primer on making your own blocks, stripping away some of the starting pains. Get ready to be inspired and start building your very own custom blocks!

Attendees should try setting up a local development environment to write custom code on their computer before attending the workshop. This includes a local server, such as WordPress Studio or LocalWP, as well as a code editor such as VS Code.

https://developer.wordpress.com/studio/
https://localwp.com/
https://code.visualstudio.com/

Quite often as developers, whether a freelancer, or a member of a agency, we inherit code that we did not write. There are many keys to having a successful website – from performance, accessibility, and security. This is also true for fresh builds we are doing from scratch.

Come learn tips, tricks, and tools to analyzing and prioritizing fixes, enhancements, and best practices.

Take your WordPress development to the next level by learning some (not so difficult) techniques specific to WordPress. We’ll discuss and review (at a high level) techniques you can learn and features you can employ to build better and smarter themes or plugins which also provide a richer experience for your visitors. To get the full benefit from this session you should be familiar with PHP and already writing custom code for WordPress.

In the fast-paced world of freelancing and WordPress development, it can be easy to get caught up in deadlines, client demands, and the constant push for success. But what if you could achieve not just professional fulfillment, but also personal joy in the process? This talk will explore how More Room For Joy’s principles—self-management, interconnectivity, automation and purpose-driven work—can transform your freelance career and elevate your contributions to the WordPress community.

Drawing on nearly 30 years of experience in professional fields and personal life lessons, Christine Baker Marriage will share actionable strategies to help freelancers and developers design workflows that bring them not only efficiency but also fulfillment. From intentional time management to balancing personal well-being with client satisfaction, this session will empower attendees to find purpose in their work while building sustainable careers.

Key Takeaways:

1. Purposeful Planning – Learn how to design your days and projects with joy and purpose, creating space for both personal growth and professional achievement.

2. Self-Management and Balance – Understand how to avoid burnout by incorporating holistic self-care practices into your workday, ensuring productivity without sacrificing well-being.

3. Creating Interconnectivity – Build deeper, more meaningful relationships with clients and the WordPress community by aligning your work with a greater purpose and focusing on authentic connection.

Whether you’re a seasoned freelancer, a WordPress developer, or just starting your entrepreneurial journey, this talk will give you the tools and mindset shifts needed to align your business with a life of joy, purpose, and fulfillment.

A deep dive into the capabilities of Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), showing how developers can create highly customized and flexible WordPress sites. This session will cover ACF’s full potential, from basic field setups to complex conditional logic and custom theme integration.

Key Points:
– Introduction to ACF: Brief overview of ACF, its features, and why it’s a must-have tool for custom WordPress development.
– Basic Field Setup: How to create custom fields and apply them to different post types, pages, or taxonomies.
– Repeater Fields & Flexible Content: Examples of dynamic content creation with repeater fields, flexible layouts, and their integration into WordPress themes.
– Conditional Logic: How to use ACF’s conditional logic to show or hide fields based on user input, allowing for more intelligent content entry.
– Custom Theme Integration: Practical walkthrough on how to display ACF data in custom theme templates, emphasizing dynamic content management.
– Extending ACF with Custom Post Types and Taxonomies: How to use ACF alongside custom post types and taxonomies to create complex site structures without relying on external plugins.
– ACF JSON: How to use ACF’s JSON feature to store field group data and sync across environments, making collaboration between team members easier.

A Content Security Policy (CSP) is a great tool for helping keep your site’s users safe from common forms of front-end attack types including cross site scripting, packet sniffing, and click-jacking. During this talk you will learn:

* What are content security policies are?
* How do I implement a content security policy in WordPress?
* How to monitor your site’s content security policy reports

H5P is an open-source platform (https://h5p.org) that allows folks to create, share, and reuse interactive HTML5 content directly on their website. The platform provides a wide variety of content types, including interactive videos, presentations, quizzes, games, and more.

H5P is primarily for educators, but anyone with a WordPress website can design interactive materials like presentations, games, and “quizzes” to get visitors to engage.

I’ll demonstrate a few of the interactive activities and show you how you can design your own.

When site owners go to the plugins section of WP-Admin, they are met with a cryptic list. What are all these things supposed to be doing, and how did they get there?

Do you really need “Mario’s Magic Slideshow”? Will your site break if you deactivate it or delete it? Or worse, is it malware?

In this talk, I’ll show you how you can make informed decisions about your plugins. I’ll also present alternatives to commonly used plugins, and ways to trim your plugin count down, resulting in a leaner, cleaner site.

Your website is live—what’s next? In this session, we’ll explore the five key actions to take after launching your website to ensure it is secure and visible. We’ll compare and contrast different tools for each critical step, giving you the flexibility to choose what works best for your needs.

Learn how to set up backups using options like UpdraftPlus or WP Timecapsule and securing those backups in a cloud environment like Dropbox or AWS, and review update strategies with tools like BlogVault. We’ll also discuss the importance of using staging environments such as InstaWP or Local by Flywheel to safely test updates before applying them to your live site.

On the security front, we’ll cover options like AIO Security and SolidWP, and show how to implement captchas on forms and enforce two-factor authentication (2FA). You’ll also gain insights into monitoring your site’s performance using Google Analytics and Tag Manager.

For SEO, we’ll examine popular plugins like AIO SEO and Yoast, helping you optimize your site for search engines. Additionally, we’ll talk about the importance of getting your website listed in key directories like Google Business Profile, so you can start appearing in local and organic searches.

Whether you’re new to website management or looking to refine your processes, this talk will provide practical insights into securing and optimizing your site using a variety of tools.

In the fast-paced world of WordPress development and freelancing, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by deadlines, client demands, and the constant pressure to do and be better in your work. This talk will explore how incorporating mindfulness practices can help WordPress professionals—from full-time freelancers to side hustlers—reduce stress, improve focus, and enhance creativity.

In this talk we’ll dive into practical mindfulness techniques tailored specifically for WordPress workflows, including mindful planning, creating with intention, and developing healthy work boundaries while balancing a remote work life.

We’ll explore how small shifts in daily routines can lead to big improvements in productivity, well-being, and increased connection with your clients (through a deeper connection to yourself). Whether you’re looking to prevent burnout or find more balance in your WordPress journey, this session offers actionable strategies and exercises to help you work smarter, not harder.

In this presentation I’ll talk about how I set up a WooCommerce t-shirt shop on WordPress with fulfilment provided by Printful and payments via Stripe. I’ll discuss why I picked the service providers I did and how I like them so far.

Further discussion will include:

• Installing and configuring the WooCommerce, Printful, and Yoast plugins for product management and SEO,
• Customizing my store’s appearance,
• Obtaining a Tax Certificate of Authority from the State of New York,
• And I’ll wear one of my products.

Not getting the results you want form your newsletter? you might be making some simple, easy-to-fix mistakes!

In this session, I’ll show you what NOT to do when sending a newsletter, and 5 things you should do instead so you can maximize engagement.

Then, if you stick around till the end of the session, learn how you can automate some simple newsletters to put engagement on autopilot.

After working in the web development space for over a decade and following hot dramas within tech, the decision to finally speak out and connect with the WordPress community didn’t start until late 2023. This talk covers a 1-year journey into the power of community. Once the bandaid came off, doors opened, opportunities came, new friends were made, and lessons were learned. Come and see how you can join the community and thrive. It’s never too late!

How we use WordPress for Digital Media Arts and how we upload our projects and blog posts and explore the different themes on the website as part of a college educational program.

Educating others about WordPress isn’t just about teaching technical skills—it’s about empowering individuals to become active contributors and leaders within the WordPress community. By sharing knowledge and lowering the barriers to entry, we create a ripple effect that strengthens connections, fosters collaboration, and builds lasting relationships. Whether you’re a seasoned developer, content creator, or just passionate about WordPress, this talk will show you how a focus on education can unlock growth for both the platform and the people who use it.