Ever had a project derail when you “farmed it out” to another team or contractor? Come and learn the best practices of working with outside teams so that you can avoid project derailments, find trusted partners to help with excess work, and be able to say “yes” to more projects.

Learn how to go beyond just dropping Google Analytics code onto your website. This talk will dive into the depths of Google Analytics, and show you how to really use Google Analytics to its fullest. I will show you how to set up Goals, eCommerce, segmentation reports, custom dashboards, advanced filters, referral spam filters and segments, virtual page views, and much more. You will also learn about the difference between Google Analytics, Mixpanel and Kiss Metrics and when you should use these other tools.

Content — it’s everywhere. So, why does it seem to come so easy for others while you stare at a blinking cursor? Creating and marketing content shouldn’t take the joy out of your business. We’ll talk about how you can make your content go farther and work harder. No more guilt about not posting to your blog and social media. You’ll leave this session excited and ready to take on the content world!

I’ll be explaining what multisite is, why or why not to use it and why multitenancy is recommended when trying to set up verticals.

“You can’t just install a couple of security plugins and call it a day when it comes to safeguarding your WordPress website. Plugins are a great start. The door to your website now has a lock on it. But how about adding a dead bolt? A door chain? A peep hole? Titanium reinforcement? A pet dragon hiding inside?

Just as you would add layers of security to protect your home and family, your WordPress security needs a multi layered approach. Come learn how to build a wall, a moat, and some additional lookout towers to keep the bad guys away from your castle. Oh, and dragons? We’ll talk about them too, if we have time.”

With a little Javascript and an Amazon Web Services account it’s not hard to set up a skill for Alexa. But how do you keep the content up to date? What if you want some regular Joe to maintain it without becoming a programmer? With a little code and a plugin or two you can power your Alexa (or Google Home or Cortana) skill with your WordPress site.

When you first start a business, you can’t imagine ever firing a client. Eventually, though, there comes a time when you need to. How do you know when you have reached that point? And how do you handle the break up delicately? I’ll cover systems we use to show if it is still profitable to work with a client, steps we have taken to set reasonable expectations to save a working relationship, and finally how we work to give the client other options if working together doesn’t make sense any longer.

I will discuss how to secure your 2nd client.  I will give three techniques and showcase how they work.

“Landing pages are one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to get a message to your target audience and a terrific tool to move prospects through the sales cycle. Done well, your landing page can generate high response rates and results including increased e-commerce sales and valuable sales leads.

We’ll discuss what makes a good landing page, with examples and the elements that make a landing page effective.”

My topics are subject to change but the Content First talk is pretty self explanatory. The sales/sacrifice talk just boils down the bad connotations of “selling” and shows how meeting people’s needs is really a great form of love/helping others.

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.

“Overview of some processes used at an agency level. Version control, code standards, database migrations, environment aware config files and automated deployments. From local development setup to multiple environments, version control to automated deployments, content migration to modular mentalities. With some how-to talk and some how-not-to talk, we’ll discuss some ways to “soup up” our process to work for us when it comes to web development and WordPress.”

“Let’s explore the benefits of thinking in re-usable blocks. Modular
Development improves productivity, enhances UI and empowers authors.
Leveraging the WordPress templating system and Advanced Custom Fields
we can achieve modularity in our WP themes.”

WordPress’ new text editor is awesome, but many people are still trying to learn how create their own blocks in Gutenberg. While there is certainly more to creating your own blocks than writing a simple shortcode, there are also some significant benefits. We’ll cover the basics of creating a Gutenberg block, how to use Gutenberg to create predefined page layouts, and how to make your blocks dynamic on the front end of the site!

Enterprise clients are a unique group that requires special attention with their complex WordPress setups. In this talk, we will look at the methods to attract this level of client, how to convince them of the benefits of WordPress, and finally discuss the special considerations needed when working with Enterprise level clients.

CSS Grid was released last year and it changes everything; for the web and for the WordPress Community. It means that for the first time ever we get to think of our layout as two dimensional and fully responsive. CSS Grid is not another plugin hack or another bootstrap patch, it is the solution designers have been asking for. It is here to stay and right now is the perfect time to learn it!

Automation tends to get a bad rep because it’s associated with a lack of personalization. However, automation can both be personal and effective for store owners and developers to improve sales and customer relationships. This discussion targets automations that are most valuable for stores and how to uncover the best areas to automate.

In June 2017, Tara Claeys and Liam Dempsey launched Hallway Chats, a podcast for sharing stories and building belonging within the WordPress community. Liam will share what Tara and Liam have learned about community building. The talk aims to share “how to” insights.

Divi by Elegant Themes is hands down one of the best themes ever made for WordPress. It is incredibly powerful, flexible, and easy to use. Because it is the ultimate theme, there are a lot of features that you might have missed. I will go through 10 useful and cool Divi theme features that are hidden in plain sight. Take your Divi knowledge and usage to the next level!

Not sure why building an accessible website is important? Beyond the point that is the right thing to do every freelancer should be following the best practices for creating websites that are accessible to the widest audience including those who rely on assistive technology. Accessible websites have the side benefits of faster loading speed and better SEO. Find out how you make website accessibility your new superpower to incorporate in your website projects.

More Than Yoast – SEO beyond the Yoast plugin & the future Schema/Rich Snippets, Mobile Optimization/AMP, GoogleSearchConsole & the future with WordPress Gutenberg

Installing and inputing Yoast fields is pretty easy. But there’s more to great search engine optimization than just that! Data structuring, Search Console data… What’s important, what’s not, and how will WordPress SEO change with Gutenberg? We’ll go into it all from strategy to execution tips.

One of the biggest struggles for any freelancer or agency to overcome is how to price their work.

Being in a digital service businesses, it can be hard to to covey the real value of what we do (to ourselves and to our clients).

Hosted by Bret Phillips, this panel will feature three successful business owners that specialize in building WordPress websites for different markets and client sizes.

The purpose of this panel is to help dissect the process of pricing your work so that you can continue to offer great value to your clients while staying profitable.

Freelancers will get a better understand of their own value and where to start.

Agencies and other staffed businesses will understand how to take profit into account when
pricing larger projects with many ‘unknowns’.

Featuring:

Judi Knight (ATL) – Founded New Tricks Web Design and Marketing, in 2008. The New Tricks team has worked with over 250 clients with price points from 5k to 75K. Dedicated to teaching, Judi is one of the original organizers of the Atl WP Meetup and WCATL. Judi and her team have a 4-mo online course teaching aspiring web designers to price, close, build and deliver effective WP websites.

Victor Ramirez (NYC) – Victor is a New York City based developer and owner of An Abstract Agency – a WordPress focused marketing technology agency. Since 2006, He has consulted hundreds of SMB’s and large companies such as Square, Dropbox, WeWork, and IBM.

Danny Peavey (ATL) – Founded One Week Website after a frustrating experience spearheading a website redesign for his family’s HVAC company based in Atlanta. Prior to signing on with the family business, Danny spent nearly a decade in enterprise sales. Over the years, he sold IT Solutions to Fortune 1000 companies for IBM, Apple, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Danny has a unique perspective moving from enterprise to small business.

“True, successful freelancers convert leads into clients by getting to know their prospects’ biggest issues, and proving themselves to be expert problem-solvers. But the real secret to netting new clients?
Following up.
Studies show that 80% of prospective clients say “no” before they say “yes.” 90% of sales are lost when no
second contact is made!
I will teach you to create a client pipeline that pays.
Ensure interested leads are the real-deal (no tire-kickers!)
Tailor your marketing efforts to proven lead sources
Develop a client relationship management (CRM) system that doesn’t let you miss an opportunity to connect.
Win new business and customer loyalty with this workshop.”

“* How to use Instagram to get leads and customers in 2018!
* 5 Most common Instagram mistakes business owners make and how to avoid them.
* Tips for growing followers and engagement.
* How to use Instagram to get traffic to your website or blog!
* How to create a bio that gets discovered.
* How to use Direct Messages to start conversations.
* How to attract your target audience and more!”

“The attendees will walk away with an online game plan to increase qualified business-to-business (B2B) leads using WordPress and inside sales tools such as linkedin and marketing automation.

Bernard will teach you how to:

– Generate Multiple Streams of B2B Leads
– Ethically Spy on Marketing Strategies of Your Competitors
– Leverage WordPress to create a killer landing page
– Leverage Linkedin and Email Marketing to Leads
– Stay Top of Mind with Very Little Advertising Budget”

This talk will discuss approaches to diversity and inclusion at distributed companies. One potential
of a distributed company is that of global diversity. What is the reality? How are distributed companies
working to increase workforce diversity, grow internal talent, increase internal engagement, and set new standards for cultural leadership?

In this talk I’ll take a deep dive into efforts at Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) and also look
at efforts at companies such as Github.

Optimizing WordPress for SEO

Let me share with you my inspirational story of going from SAHM to entrepreneur to intentional community builder and how WordPress played an integral role in this journey.

Most WordPress users know the power of video in terms of site performance and page rankings, but they may not know that the most effective website videos incorporate another very important element—storytelling. In this discussion, I will describe and give examples of different storytelling techniques, from interviews and testimonials to on-camera demonstrations and montage. And I will explain how the most engaging videos don’t try to sell anything, they provide insight and context into how products are used, and what makes one business stand out from another. Find out how video storytelling can help websites and blogs connect with visitors and attract audience.

“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.”

Let’s take a tour of Gutenberg blocks from a developer’s viewport. We’ll walk through the underlining block architecture, settings and option controls, user-experience, how users can interface with your block and proper build execution. Let’s build beautiful blocks together!

WordPress security can be a difficult thing to get right. There are a number of things that go into a secure web site. In this quick talk, I will highlight the things I believe are the most important steps you can take to secure your site. You will learn in just 15 minutes how to ensure that your site is well protected from malicious actors.

“Optimizing a website to rank well in Google and other search engines can be hard. There are a lot of factors to consider and best practices change quickly. Optimizing a WordPress site specifically can be a breeze if you know what to look for and what plugins to leverage. In this session, we’ll cover basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), including recent changes to Google search results & snippets, as well as Technical SEO best practices for a WordPress website, and some helpful plugins to make life easier.

Specifically, we will dive into title tag and metadata best practices for today’s search landscape, how to leverage Schema data markup, how to identify common duplicate content problems, best practices for site and url structure, and what a sitemap is and why it’s important. In each of these topics we will also cover helpful plugins and implementation on a WordPress site.”

Audience: WordPress users and website managers interested in learning the fundamentals of SEO, while being introduced to some Technical SEO concepts and best practices.

“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 the how to create a system that preserves workflow and keeps problem clients in check.

Take aways: (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.”

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 fellow 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.

“Your website content has two audiences: Human readers and search engines. Writing website content that appeals to both is something that all writers and website owners should know how to do.

Whether you’re a professional copywriter or a small business owner who writes for your own website, knowing how to write content that satisfies both of these audiences is an essential (and profitable!) skill. This presentation will teach you exactly how to do that, using modern-day approaches to semantic and contextual keyword optimization.

This session received a highly positive response at WordCamp Albuquerque 2018. Slides can be viewed here: https://www.slideshare.net/pam4187/killer-keywords-how-to-write-content-for-both-humans-and-search-engines-wordcamp-2018?ref=http://stealthsearchandanalytics.com/slides/”

Question and answer session about WordPress Security

In this talk, we’ll dip our toes into the hot new javascript framework called Vue.js. We’ll go over how to integrate Vue.js into a custom theme and use WordPress as the backend that powers a simple directory with an ajax search feature and Google Maps. We’ll cover a few basic concepts of Vue and why it can be a nice alternative to using jQuery.

Do you need a simple membership site where users can submit their own content? Easily display that content? Come join me to talk about how you can use a tool you already have to automate collecting and displaying user-submitted content, and allow your users to manage their own membership. It’ll be fun! 🙂

An overview of how Gutenberg will impact plugin development, how to handle backwards compatibility and correct breaking issues, and how to develop extensions for Gutenberg.

Security is important, but can also be complex, overwhelming, and downright scary. Thankfully, as a WordPress user you don’t have to do it all yourself. Find out what WordPress and the WordPress Security Team do to keep your websites safe, how you can help, and what you can do to compliment that security on your own site.

We use a plethora of tools to do our work every day – but which tools improve our efficiency the most? Which ones should every business consider? During this talk, I will list some of the areas every business should consider and give my recommendations for the tools they should use.

Join us to discuss all of the scoping, planning, dreaming and designing that happens before you ever touch WordPress. We will cover processes, best practices and tools behind content strategy, sitemaps, wireframes, copywriting, design and quality control. This talk is best suited for anyone interested in the strategy behind building a website, rather than the code behind it.

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 of freelancing experience to share important lessons he had to learn the hard way and common mistakes we all can avoid. Each one is summarized in a succinct memorable statement and then unpacked with examples.

“The number of companies facing legal action for inaccessible websites is on the rise. Inaccessible websites and digital content can limit access to users with disabilities. WordPress users can employ web accessibility evaluation tools to help determine if their content is accessible to users with disabilities. This session will provide an overview of several WordPress plugins, web-based tools, and accessibility resources. Designers, developers, and content creators can utilize these tools to evaluate websites against recognized guidelines and create a better user experience.

Takeaways:

-Understand the laws and standards regarding web accessibility.
-Great techniques and tools to evaluate your WordPress site for accessibility.
-Identify the limitations of automated evaluations.”

“Your organization’s homepage has a crucial job. More than anything, it must facilitate a quick and clear connection with your viewer.

When someone visits your website, they arrive with the intention to solve a specific problem and need to know quickly, is this what I’m looking for? To answer this question, your organization needs to explain what you do, who you do it for, and if you are the right fit.

When it comes to websites especially, time is of the essence! Over and over, studies show that viewers will not spend very long trying to figure out what you’re all about, so you must communicate this quickly.

We’ll discuss what your home page must have in order to make quick and clear connections with your audience and motivate them to take action.”

What makes a logo effective on the web and in print? What are the key elements of a good logo and what kinds of file formats, typefaces, and color considerations should you take into account when working on logo design projects or using a client-provided logo for a website? I’ll provide some creative and technical guidance, and a checklist handout.

Audience: Anyone who has to work with logo design projects or client-provided logos for print or web.

“Podcasting – it’s not just for podcasters anymore!

Many podcasts are interview based.

The host is just a curator of knowledge and craves experts. Enter you (or your client) that not only wants a great foundation on the web, but access to the ears, hearts, and minds of ideal consumers.

In this talk, Mark Deal of the Podcast Atlanta group will outline how to be the go to expert in your field. He will cover.

1) How to reach out and get booked on podcasts.
2) The simplest way to deliver high quality audio.
3) Essential elements to craft compelling stories about what you do.
4) WordPress elements to showcase interviews from various shows on your website.

While demonstrating audio engagement incentives that you should use – Mark frequently gives out equipment during his talk.“

“There is no one “right way” to build an Agency. There is only the solution that works best for you!

This talk will explore the pitfalls and growing pains that come with the transition from Freelancer to Agency owner. From not knowing how long tasks really takes to the unexpected expense of management tools and lost billable hours. It will also share both online & online resources as there is great power in learning from those that have gone before.

Views will learn that there are a vary ways to grow your team from US based to oversees; contractor to employee to strategic partner. The possibilities are endless. They will leave this talk inspired with the knowledge that they can grow their business their way!”

“When it comes to website traffic, the world is your oyster! Except for two small things: money and time. Unfortunately, we know that just because we have an awesome WordPress website, the traffic is not going to automatically come our way. We have to have a strategy. Success in generating brand awareness, website traffic, and ultimately conversions comes from having clarity and diversifying our efforts.
If driving more traffic to your website is important, and you need to take your efforts to the next level, come to this strategy session. We’ll discuss when you should “pay” for traffic and what activities are best, and when you need “free” traffic like from organic SEO. Let’s discuss which mix of activities is right for you and your business! “

“You’ve spent hours (maybe months) creating a gorgeous website or maybe you paid someone else to design it for you, but what’s next? How do you consistently add content to your site? Learn tips and hacks to use video to create content for your blog, social media, newsletters and much more.

Never run out of content again!

This session is aimed at business owners who want to understand how modern SEO works. Google is constantly changing the rules and 2017 has seen yet more changes to how Google wants you to promote your business online. We’ll dispel some of the common myths around SEO and talk about what you need to focus on.

Ever have a problem with receiving and sending emails from your WordPress website? What the heck is SMTP and DKIM? Which solution should you use? Mandrill? Sendgrid? Postmark? The solution seems complicated when researching how to improve email deliverability. I will show how simple it is to make sure emails are being sent out from your website!

There are 650 Million individuals in the world that live with a disability. Here in the USA – only 15 million of those individuals are those who are 65 or older. 57 million of those who are disabled were born with the disability or it came later in their life.

What does that mean for businesses? For those who have an online presence – it is a demographic that they are largely missing out and not serving because their websites, podcast, webinars, youtube videos are not “accessible”

Christine Laikind, born deaf, and founder of SCS Digital Marketing has made it her mission to share her knowledge and experience about (lack of) accessibility and website compliance to the WordCamp attendees.

“This topic is intended to give first time WordCamp attendees a quick overview of all the things that are available over the two days, and help to guide them in a direction that keeps them excited, educated, and comfortable.”