This session will discuss online writing skills including the difference between print and online writing, and how to use various WordPress functions to make your writing better for both the reader and search engines.

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It’s well-known that social media is necessary in today’s marketplace. It’s great for promoting your website and to keep your audience talking about you. Come learn tips and tools available on top social platforms- including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Drive interest and customers to your website using social media tools such as: Call-to-action buttons, Facebook Pixel, Plugins, Content Schedulers, and more.

It’s not enough to look good. Graphic Design is all about getting someone, somewhere, to do something. If not, you’re wasting your time and your website visitor’s time.

In this session, we’ll go over some design basics for your website, some subtle tricks, dig into a little psychology, and review some theory. No baby seals, flying unicorns, or rainbows in this talk. But it will be far from academic. We’ll also look at some practical ways to implement these design ideas and bring them into reality in your WordPress website.

Whether you’re selling a product or service, or trying to create change, this will give you the ability to ‘get them in the feels.’

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With the new Plugin Directory being based on WordPress comes the ability to use its REST API to access its data. In this session, we’ll be going over the various modules and libraries available that make it fairly straight forward to get started on a front-end React client for your site. We’ll discuss a possible NPM module setup and Grunt workflow, as well as how React components for the Plugin Directory are structured, before looking at how it all comes together. And finally, we’ll take a look at how the Directory is using React today!

All business owners struggle with the administrative aspects of their business. Why not get more value from your website by putting it to work as your Virtual Assistant? WordPress is a powerful way to manage the less than desirable things you need to do to keep your business running and profitable. Responding to email, scheduling meetings and processing payments are core business functions that your website can handle for you – so you can focus on what you do best. I will share with you the 3 tools you can use to get the maximum value out of a WordPress website by making these core processes easier for both you and your clients.

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Come get help on specific WordPress questions or provide help for others! Location TBD

This session will cover the basics of the WordPress dashboard and how to create posts, pages, etc.

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New WordPress user and have questions after all you learned today? Our panel will field your questions at the end of the day and send you off with an even better understanding of WordPress basics.

This class will give students the structure and knowledge they need to deliver a one-time WordPress site optimization, worth $1,000+, with every website they build. We will go over some of the basics of on-page SEO, as well as a few (free and paid) plugins and third-party tools they can use to assist with their efforts.

Surveys and polls are two simple methods of engaging your readers and creating loyal readers.  In this session, you will learn the important differences between polls and surveys, important considerations in developing your desired tool, as well as examples of some WordPress plugins designed to assist you.  You will leave the session with enough knowledge to construct your first instrument and report results to your followers.

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A beginner’s guide to WordPress dual options of .org or .com, including definitions, how to’s, and why’s

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As kids, summer camp was a time of mixed emotions: fear of the unknown, excitement to try new things and apprehension about meeting new people. It was both scary and exciting. On the way to there, camp was the last place we wanted to go. On the way home, it was the last place we wanted to leave.

Going to WordCamp can be a similar experience. It’s both exciting and scary. It’s a time of trying new things, meeting new people and putting yourself out there. We may have excitement mixed with apprehension when we go, but we don’t want to leave when it’s over.

Whether it’s summer camp or Wordcamp, we don’t return the same people we were when we left. This speech inspires and challenges attendees to answer this question.

“When I leave WordCamp 2017, What did I learn, who did I meet, how will I be different?”

Content marketing is one of the most effective strategies for building business, and WordPress can help. We’ll talk about developing a content marketing strategy, and the WordPress plugins and practices that can make it easier and more effective.

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You’ve worked hard on your website, but all that hard work is wasted if web visitors can’t find you. Learn the essentials of SEO:

• How search engines work
• What the heck is an algorithm?
• Ranking in the age of customized search
• Keyword research and development
• Using analytics to plan your SEO strategy
• On-page and off-page SEO

Expect to leave this session with a thorough understanding of the basics of search engine optimization.

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In this presentation, we will take an in-depth Look at Divi, one of the most powerful and versatile themes on the market today. Divi, by Elegant Themes, is a premium theme with one fo the best page builders you will find. This theme lets you quickly and easily build high quality, professional, SEO ready WordPress websites in a fraction of the time. We will look at the features of this awesome theme and build a simple but beautiful website in under 30 minutes!

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Through painful, self-taught lessons and by seeing hundreds of other small businesses start, succeed, and fail online, in this talk we’ll discuss ten do’s and don’t’s for small businesses of all shapes and sizes in the WordPress.org environment.

Topics include:
– Choosing the right theme & plugins
– Writing content for search results
– Making your brand stand out
– Ensuring your business can scale
– Avoiding common hurdles and roadblocks

After a quick presentation, I’d like to have extra time for Q&A so you can ask questions specific to you – since we’re all different, our online presence should be, too!

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Security can be complex, intimidating, and even frightening. Don’t let the enormity of it scare you into inaction. Learn what some of the security researchers and security professionals deal with, and then find out some simple steps you can take to secure your sites.

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There is nothing wrong with being an introvert, and you don’t need to be an extrovert to succeed. Find out how Aaron has learned to leverage the strengths of his introversion and what he does to help him navigate the parts of the WordPress community and his career that are harder for him as an introvert.

Knowing who is visiting your site is incredibly important. This session will introduce you to Google Analytics. We’ll learn the basic layout of the tool as well as foundational knowledge; definitions, how it works, and the best reports for beginners.

Once of the best things about WordPress is that it, and the plugins and themes that run under it, are licensed under the GPL (General Public License). This open source licensing allows developers and users to “Fork” the work, meaning they can take the source code of a project, modify, and redistribute it. Legally. In this talk, we look not at the technical side of Forking, but at the ethical side. We look at why and how to fork without violating the GPL or the rights of the original developers.

Prior to the development of the current Campus News site, there wasn’t really a public-facing news site as much as a static archive of press releases without rich content, pictures, seo, or any kind sorting mechanism. Since we migrated in to the new site, we’ve seen a huge improvement in the quality and volume of news content and a dramatic increase in engagement with UTHSC news.

This talk will focus on how we were able to leverage custom post types, taxonomies, fields, and templates and other built-in features to develop a highly customized, powerful site with lots of cool features including our campus-announcements system and an archive of press coverage from outside media. I’ll also emphasize some of the steps we took to ensure a quality user experience for the Communications and Marketing department who maintains the site’s content.

Generating new ideas to keep content flowing on a blog can be challenging. Keeping up with good ideas you have can also be a challenge. I’ll share a variety of ways to keep the ideas flowing and keep track of them using the WordPress dashboard (notes plugin). WordPress can help you publish content on a regular basis with the schedule post feature. I’ll show how to use the dashboard notes plugin and the “schedule post” feature to keep your blog on track.

We all know images grab the attention of our readers, but imagery is about more than just the photo. Rachel will show you where to find images and how to choose them, and how to beef up your images using Photoshop or other editing software and optimize them for fastest loading time.

The discussion will cover how to get started with WordPress, choosing a theme, and how to use the tool to create a high functioning website that can be managed by the business operator without paying a fortune.

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In mid-2016 we started using Facebook Live! By the end of 2016, we saw over 9000% growth in Page Likes and Engagement with our audience. Let me show you the secret sauce to Facebook Live! engagement.

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