Sessions

Way back in 2009, PHP 5.3 was released to the world and with it brought support for PHP namespaces — a way of easily separating your code from other developers’ code, which has since become the de facto way of encapsulating functionality across the PHP ecosystem.

With namespaces, multiple packages could use the same class and function names without conflict, because each one would operate in their own PHP namespaces. Unfortunately, many PHP developers who focus on WordPress development may be in the dark on this extremely useful language feature.

This talk aims to shed light on PHP namespaces, especially targeted at WordPress developers who haven’t yet encountered them. Attendees will leave the talk with a firm grasp on PHP namespaces, how they work, and how they can be implemented in plugins and themes.

Calling all freelancers! Whether you focus on design, development, content creation or marketing, there’s more to freelancing than just being good at your trade. In order to be able to service your clients, you have to keep YOUR business running and that means getting those finances in order. We’ll talk about the basics (fixed vs. hourly, time tracking, invoicing and profit to name a few) as well as more advanced topics (like IRAs and planning beyond this month). There will be spreadsheets.

Discover The who, what , where, why, and how of WordPress. Even if you have a general idea of what WordPress is come join us as we go over the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, the WP Dashboard.  We’ll discuss backups and why you need them as well.  Bring your questions!

We’ve been hearing for years about WordPress’s famous 5-minute install. The plugin ecosystem makes sites infinitely extensible, and WP-CLI provides additional flexibility for the platform. What if we introduced another modern tool to the mix? In this session, I will discuss Composer, a command-line utility used to easily pull in code that your project needs, including WordPress itself.

Our success as freelancers is built upon the lessons we’ve learned from our biggest mistakes. In this talk, Nathan draws on more than 20 years experience in the web business to share 10 important lessons (or less depending on time) he had to learn the hard way and common mistakes we all can avoid. Each lesson is summarized in a succinct, proverbial statement and then unpacked with examples that will make you laugh, cringe and think.

What does a Theme do?  What does a Plugin do?  We’ll demystify themes and plugins and show you how to find plugins and themes you can trust.  We’ll also demo creating a child theme, as well what does a basic theme or plugin need to qualify as either item.

Are you tired of getting advice from larger small businesses when you are a company of one, freelancer or not an agency? Me too! Not every business wants to manage a team of many or add employees to the payroll. Why not start focusing on time, freedom and growth in your own way?

In this presentation, we’ll be talking about creating goals to fit your ideal business model, better and more efficient processes so that you are NOT working 24/7, and how to focus on the customer experience one client at a time, so you can charge what you’re worth and keep them rolling in.

This session is perfect for designer, developers, marketers, content creators or anyone who wants to be a company of one.

A main reason for using WordPress is due to the extensibility with plugins. Unfortunately, managing plugin dependencies for plugins can be a real pain. Learn about a journey through managing plugin dependencies, the bugs that came about, and how they were solved.

What’s the difference, why would you use them and how can you use them on your site.

WordPress is a tightly-coupled system, representing over a decade and a half of ideas, decisions, technological shifts, and ideological struggles. There’s a lot of history to be parsed and often the simplest task can have unintended consequences.

Meanwhile, automated testing is one of the best ways to ensure the software can be released regularly with high confidence and low risk of regressions. Sadly, the leap from “building WordPress plugins” to “building WordPress plugins with tests” is often viewed as a challenging hurdle. Luckily, there are tools to set up a test harness within an existing codebase with ease.

This talk introduces the fundamentals of automated testing, especially within the context of WordPress. After developing an understanding why automated testing is so critical, attendees will learn how to begin testing their plugins and themes, using features found both in PHPUnit and the WordPress core testing framework, to build and release quality software.

We’ll expand on where we started at 11:00am and continue with how to create child themes and custom themes and why you would want one over the other. We’ll also talk basic plugin building. We’ll also talk local dev environments a little deeper and include some developer workflow tools, Gulp, Git and how to deploy to production.  Bring your questions, and your laptop so you can play along with us!

Most people assume that to have a profitable WordPress Business means you must be an accomplished developer, wrangling code to create custom themes or build new plugins, or that you must be an accomplished designer, making websites look outstanding in appearance and function. But for almost 20 years, Paul Oyler has been running a successful business without being either a developer or a designer.

With WordPress being the most popular Content Management System (CMS) and powering a staggering 33% of ALL websites, there are a lot of websites, and businesses using those websites, that need serious help in managing and maintaining those sites.

Paul will lay out how he has set his business up to serve those who have a WordPress website that they want to utilize but they either don’t have the knowledge or the time to maintain it and keeping it safely functioning.

In addition, Paul will show how to make the best use of connections you make at this WordCamp, and the overall WordPress community to assist you in the building or renovating of a clients website.

He will also show some other options that can be offered that will be profitable for you and desirable for clients.

You have attended several WordCamps, talked with many others who have made the leap, even written your 2-weeks notice to your boss, however, you just have not taken the leap yet? Changing to a full-time freelancer is one of the hardest decisions someone can make. To leave a job that pays you regularly to the unknowns of freelancing is often the most difficult step in moving to full-time freelancing. I made the leap several years ago and I am here to help with tips, tricks, tools and even some motivational help to give you that extra push.

We will talk about how you build up your client base and create recurring revenue to support your endeavors. We will discuss out of the box ways to find new clients and bring in new business. In this talk, we will also cover some of the tools to help you never miss a follow-up call or lose a track on a project. We will even cover the mental health aspect of the job to make sure you remain healthy and happy in your career.

You’ve probably heard about WordPress 5.0’s new editor Gutenberg.  We’ll demo how it works, show off features and how you can build a page with the editor.  We’ll also look at some block plugins and how you can extend Gutenberg as well.  We’ll also try to answer any lingering questions from the rest of the day!

Design system are codified ways for organizations to bridge the gap between design and development. Creating a design system is a collaborative task that includes key professionals from each discipline. I will show you the power of design systems and how to use WordPress to host your design system.

How to demonstrate the value of your services to your client, put a dollar value on it, and charge a fee that is comparable to the value you are creating. This a great technique to boost the value of your projects and deliver more value to the client by better illustrating what they will get out of it.

I will present on the common errors made in the run-up to and development of a WordPress site. Things like scope issues, incomplete knowledge of needs, under-communicating, expectation mismanagement, not starting with a budget, picking the wrong team, etc. I will buttress each point with a brief bit about my mistakes in those very areas.

Exploring the capabilities of Beaver Builder and Beaver Themer when paired with Pods. Create custom post types and custom fields for unique situations, then have the ability to place, style and add dependencies for displaying that content.

Spend time talking with a group of web business owners and the conversation will inevitably include someone’s unfortunate experience with a terrible client. Most web pros have a story or two (or eight). While bad clients can’t be completely avoided, there are strategic steps any business owner can take to contain the impact of a bad client. In this session, Nathan will explain how to create a system that preserves workflow and keeps problem clients in check.

Takeaways: (1) four strategies that will keep problem clients in check, (2) five monsters you should know and how to contain them, and (3) the payoff of protecting your business by building good fences.

Everyone hears they should be doing SEO, but what does that really mean? I will cover the core basics of SEO and provide insights and strategies that are actionable for attendee’s that day.

The presentation will include:
– SEO as A.R.T.
– Topics vs. Keywords
– Title, Meta, and Content Optimization
– Importance of backlinks and citations
– Intro to technical considerations

It’s great that you have a website, but is it accessible to as many people as possible? How about the hearing and visually impaired? Your site may be subject to the guidelines of The Americans With Disabilities Act. We’ll talk about why making your site accessible as both the right thing to do, and a great way to avoid scary letters from lawyers.

Most networking advice remains trapped in the 1970s, with shag carpeting, faux wood paneling, and pushy door-to-door salesman. Learn how to “scale” your professional networking into something that gets results by combining content AND communication.

If you hate conventional networking advice, this is the session for you!

Join Josh Gellock of Expander Digital for a talk on setting your startup or small business for SEO success. Geared specifically for new businesses, we’ll cover best practices, tools, and tactics you can leverage to build and establish a successful presence in search.

In order to compete in today’s digital marketplace, companies must focus on enhancing their online presence. From website creation, to developing a social media strategy and everything in between, creating a strong web presence is critical to your online marketing success.

In this workshop series, you’ll learn:

• Four Pillars of Digital Marketing
• Building Authority Online
• Finding Your Voice
• Telling a Brand Story
• Creating Content
• How to Leverage Social Media

In this talk we will go over the basics of designing, developing and testing for accessibility. Including: Color Contrast, Sizing & Spacing, Device Independent User Input, Page Structure, Headings, Testing Tools, Extensions, Testing with a Screen Reader.

WordPress theme designers and developers too often take an overly utilitarian perspective in designing and developing websites – form over function.

If you stay here, you’ll find yourself unable to charge premium rates for your services and probably facing a lot of frustrated customers that expect their websites to generate revenue.

In this talk, I’ll take WordPress professionals into the mind of the web visitors they should be serving. We’ll discuss some basic, but very powerful UI/UX patterns that consistently get customers dialing phone numbers and filling out web forms.

We will walk through very specific design elements, functionality, and the plugins that should be used on every WordPress website that we build.

Do you consider Google Analytics a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma with a side of conundrum? Does the Torah seem easier to understand than the Search Console? Does it really matter how people come to my site, how they find it or how long they’re there? The answer to these questions and more can be found at this overview of two of the most powerful (and free) products Google has to offer. (Torah not included)

You are already creating content, why not add the power of voice inflection and help your words leap off the page and let your readers feel the human behind the blog. Learn what it would cost to do a podcast, why you should consider podcasting, and how you can take your current content and repurpose it as a podcast.

Alternative methods to keep your site highly secure.