Sessions

A fun, fast-paced, research-backed overview of major trends in digital marketing that will affect the way websites are built in the next 5 years. Among other topics, we’ll discuss modern brand strategy, mass personalization, artificial intelligence, marketing automation, and the rise of web services.

• Slides

Whether you are supporting a WordPress plugin or a clients website, troubleshooting is key to resolving issues quickly. Debugging is a subset of troubleshooting that every developer needs to master. We will go over different debugging techniques and shortcuts that can lead you, as the developer, to discover and solve issues quickly. The better you are at this skill the happier will be your customers and clients.

• Slides

Do you have a website with more than 5,000 pages indexed in Google? Do you struggle to achieve rankings on key category or product pages with your eCommerce? Do you have a duplicate content problem (i.e. too many pages indexed in Google)?

I’ve worked on HomeDepot.com and other large eCommerce projects and can help you overcome unintentional duplicate content using a variety of tactics including, but not limited to:
– Effective use of rel=canonical
– Where and how to control content with noindex, nofollow meta robots
– XML sitemap and Robots.txt review
– Screaming Frog insights for the technical SEO person

Note: this workshop is open to attendees who pre-registered for WP101.

Registration is now closed.

An informative, productive and fun workshop for the WordPress beginner! In this 2.5 hour workshop, we will explore the WordPress admin, discuss the strategy of smart website planning, and then build a full website in class together, learning lots along the way! This is a code-free workshop, so attendees at any level are welcome – the only prerequisite is a desire to learn. There will be a few short breaks, and refreshments and light snacks will be available. Afterward attendees are invited to a lunch group for more discussion and networking.

Attendees should bring their laptops (fully charged! there will be some outlets in class also) and/or a way to take notes. Please have your remote site set up prior to the workshop (ping @jamieschmid on Twitter if you registered but didn’t receive the setup email). Participation in the site build is not mandatory, so if you just want to watch and take notes, that’s fine too! All workshop resources will be available for download.

Ecommerce is evolving and brands can do a lot to move the needle for their businesses if they know the right strategies to use.

Learn about the most relevant trends in ecommerce right now and how you can put them into practice immediately.

Modern browsers, JavaScript libraries, and CSS3 have made it easier than ever to create exciting, dynamic animated experiences within web interfaces. But we have also seen the unfortunate side effect of trying to do too much: websites that are resource hogs, eating up bandwidth and slowing load times to a crawl, all for effects that are ultimately just there for the “show” factor. This talk will discuss how to use these animation skills for good: to establish context, convey status, give feedback, and yes, even add a little delight. Along the way, we’ll discuss the principles of animation that guide everything from your favorite feature films to the actions of a button on your screen, and learn how deliberate animation choices can improve the experience for your user.

• Slides

WordPress’ minimum-supported version is still PHP 5.2 (gasp!) but that doesn’t mean you should let that hold you back from leveraging modern PHP features in your plugins and themes!

In this talk, we’ll take a deep dive into ways you can start leveraging modern PHP features today to bring new life to that old plugin or theme. We’ll cover how to code partial plugin activation for old versions of PHP, use autoloaders and namespaces, setup group aliasing, use return type declarations, leverage traits, and much more.

• Slides

ECommerce is a popular subject area with hundreds if not thousands of implementations. Plus, more and more stores are going online every day making the ECommerce market explode with opportunity. Of course you want your store to be successful, but there’s a lot of contradictory & outdated advice for what tool to use for what. And as a store owner, how do you make sense of the chaos and do what’s not only right for your business, but what will propel it forward? Listen to best practices from Patrick Rauland, a former WooCommerce Product Manager & how ECommerce business owner Shayda Torabi applied those best practices to scale her online store. She’ll tell us what she learned, what was worth implementing, and what wasn’t worth her time.

• Slides

It’s no secret that WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world.

Gatsby is quickly becoming one of the most popular tools to build static sites, using Node and React.

In this talk, we will explore using WordPress as a CMS for static sites generated by Gatsby.

We’ll cover the benefits of static sites, such as:
– performance
– free hosting
– much lower security risk

Then we’ll cover how to build a basic Gatsby site that gets it’s content from WordPress via WPGraphQL.

• Slides

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.

• Slides

75% of businesses are planning to implement AI-Based marketing solutions within the next 2 years. Between chatbots, customer segmentation, natural language processing, recommender systems, email customization, predictive analytics, a new generation of marketing analytics is emerging. Learn more about how AI is currently being used in leading technology companies today and how you can take advantage of these technologies for your business and your clients.

While large swaths of the WordPress community were protesting the arrival of Gutenberg with mixed feelings, I chose to embrace it early and often, but even late into its development, I felt unable to produce the same level of work my clients expected–so it was always back to the old ways: page builders and custom fields. In fall 2018, I finished a project that relied way heavily on custom fields; it was slow and its admin UI was confusing and it made like 150 custom fields per post, but it worked and looked great. After, though, I paused and I asked myself “am I sure I can’t do this with just Gutenberg?” So I set out to try. Spoiler alert: its possible, and I did it.

In this presentation, I’ll show you the old way vs the new way, and explain how I needed to change the way I do and think about things to deliver an identical site while shucking the crutches of page builders and custom fields and custom templates that has propped up my work for so long.

Panelists will discuss business growth and how they’ve scaled their businesses with WordPress.

Securing WooCommerce can sometimes feel like a moving target. In this session, We will review some easy and actionable steps for securing your store without annoying or scaring off customers. You’ll also learn to integrate free services that will improve the security of your website or store.

This session will help you find answers to these common questions:
1. Do I need to worry about security? I don’t get that many visitors.
2. My site keeps getting hacked, what should I do?
3. Do I need to do anything if I am using managed hosting?

• Slides

For those of us that rely greatly on Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) for customizing our themes, the release of Gutenberg was and still is scary at times.

Have no fear! acf_register_block() allows you to create your own Gutenberg blocks using just Advanced Custom Fields.

You will learn:
– ACF & it’s awesome capabilities
– How to create Gutenberg blocks with ACF
– A few other handy ACF tips & tricks

• Slides

A brief introduction to WordPress Multisite and its uses. I’ll share my experience in building and managing large Multisite networks to provide tips and tricks for all levels including:
– Overview of Multisite and features – minimum hosting requirements
– recommended free plugins
– creative ways to leverage Multisite
– advice on painless backups, development environments, and upgrades
– common pitfalls in coding for Multisite.

• Slides

Started your online store? Great! Now you’ve found WordPress and WooCommerce. What will the process be like to move your store to a new platform? Learn what you need to prepare for before moving your online store to WooCommerce.

• Slides

In this talk, we’ll walk through setting up an Alexa Skill using the VoiceWP plugin. Participants will learn how to test a skill locally, develop it using the WordPress REST API, and publish the skill to the Alexa marketplace.

• Slides

Ever wondered how to choose the right clients? Not all money is good money for your freelance business. We will cover how to identify your ideal client, how to set boundaries, and the impact on your business with the wrong clients.

• Slides

How to Grow Your Email List and Increase Revenue: One of the most valuable channels in online marketing is email. Join David Blackmon of Aspen Grove Studios and Divi Space as he discusses the unparalleled benefits of email marketing. As well as sharing his strategies of growing email lists from 0 to 30,000+ subscribers, David will also discuss practical tactics that you can start applying in your email marketing strategy so that you can build trust with your audience and increase your revenue.

• Slides

Do your e-commerce customers feel connected to you? In this day and age, customers expect more personalized communication from companies than ever before. E-commerce stores that manage their potential and past customers effectively are the stores that not only survive but thrive. An e-commerce giant like Amazon has succeeded with repeat business and customer loyalty due to their genius efforts in gaining the trust and love of their customers by way of effective marketing automation. Think about it, Amazon is one of the most beloved brands today and up until recently, the relationship with their customers was driven primarily through their website and email. Given the vast number of Amazon’s customers (over 100 million Prime Members in the U.S.), automation is the only way Amazon could have achieved such success.

What makes a repeat customer to your WooCommerce store? It’s a customer who . . .

-is treated like a human being by you, not like a customer number
-has received prompt and effective communication from you, both before and after the sale
-has learned something useful from you about the products or services you sell
-is provided opportunities to become apart of your tribe through special offers or memberships into a VIP status
-is encouraged to read and leave honest reviews regarding the products or services purchased on your site
-is provided personalized suggestions for products or services that they might enjoy based upon their history

In this workshop, we’ll explore all the various marketing automations required to run a successful e-commerce store with customers who are delighted with their buying experience and who keep coming back over and over again for more. Besides discussing the top marketing automations every store owner needs, we’ll also cover various marketing automation tools available for WooCommerce and demonstrate a number of automations in the WordPress backend so that you can see how simple they are to implement for your WooCommerce store!

• Slides

Killer Keywords: How to Write Content for Both Humans and Search Engines

Your website content has two audiences: Human readers and search engines. Writing 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.

Presentation Slides

Getting Into Position Zero – How to Leverage Content to Rise Above the Competition

Did you know your website can rank better than #1 in Google? You’ve probably noticed answers to your searches appearing directly in Google. That’s called position zero. Learn how to leverage your content to rise above the competition and achieve position zero results. I’ll share a 4 step process you can apply to your content marketing efforts to leap to the top of Google.

Presentation Slides

Content Strategy in a Gutenberg World

With the release of WordPress 5.0, users now have default control over page-level design decisions. In this talk we will discuss the thought process that went into core Gutenberg architecture decisions, different strategies to achieve “smart” control: that balance between complete content freedom, and heavyhanded control. Jamie will present some options to create flexible content strategies for your clients in this new era.

Presentation Slides

When’s the last time you’ve met a developer that wasn’t busy? We as developers are constantly pressed for time and are always looking for tools to make our jobs easier.

WP-CLI can be one of the most powerful tools in a developers tool belt if used correctly. This tool can be used to automate the simplest or most complex tasks with ease. All from the comfort of your command line.

In this session, I’ll show you a few specific examples where WP-CLI can save you tons of time by performing tedious, or repetitive tasks, and getting you back to the things you want to be doing.

• Slides

Malicious activity is an unfortunate reality when maintaining a web presence today. Most people involved in the web industry know someone who encountered the aftermath of a disruptive attack–if they haven’t themselves. Because of this, awareness of security best practices is at an all-time high. To many, though, it may not be clear exactly why these measures are important.

To remedy that, we’ll be taking a practical look at what’s actually happening when a website gets attacked, as well as discussing the hows and whys along the way. From understanding why small sites still get hacked, to why password reuse is really as bad as everyone says, we’ll explore the rationale behind the security principles you’re always being told to follow.

• Slides

The new WordPress editor (Gutenberg) is how all new content is to be created on WordPress. However with the way the data is stored, is that really the best way to power an application? I will walk through the drawbacks for how Gutenberg stores data, and how to easily change that to more easily power custom headless (and not) web applications.

When I started my business in 2011, I didn’t think I needed a business plan. I only needed clients, tons of clients. Even though my title was Web Designer, I took every job that came my way. I made WordPress websites, of course, but also did graphic design, print design, social media management, training — basically anything!

In less than eight months, I had to go back to work as an employee because I managed to spend way more money than I earned.
I kept freelancing on the side with no direction whatsoever and finally, I realised that I needed a plan.

It doesn’t matter what your financial goal is for the year or your mission for your small business. Having measurable goals and a clear strategy will allow you to do what you love and make a living out of it.

In this talk I will go over the basic sections of a business plan and show you some examples of how you can make one that represents you and your business.

• Slides

How many times have you been in a situation where the client is never happy with the results, no matter what you do? How many ’emergency’ messages have you responded to because the site isn’t quite right in some new way? How many clients have you lost or fired because they honestly had no idea what they really wanted? If you answered yes to any of those questions, this session is for you!

Gathered from years of ‘learning it the hard way’ I am excited to share my knowledge with Freelancers, Agency Owners, Project Managers, Business Development professionals as well as anyone else who wants to better manage conversations.

Walk away from this talk with a better understanding of:
– Project And Sales Pipeline Strategy
– Uncovering Client Business Goals
– KPIs vs KPIs
– Managing Scope

• Slides

In this workshop we introduce the basic tools, JavaScript and PHP needed to develop themes and plugins with the new “Gutenberg” block editor in WordPress. We will start with some basic things themes can do to make sure they are Gutenberg ready and then look at how to build your own custom block plugins. Some experience with WordPress development and JavaScript is recommended.

• Slides

How often do we update something on our website, whether it’s a plugin, theme, or WordPress itself, and then move on without testing if our site still works? It probably happens more often than we’d like to admit. Of course we want our site to always work as expected, but there is just so much to test, we don’t have the time to do it all. Especially with what seems like daily updates. What if YOU didn’t have to test every little thing on your site to see if it’s working? This talk will discuss ways to automate testing of critical site functionality like contact forms, e-commerce checkout, and landing pages to ensure your site’s essential features are working as expected after every update.

• Slides

Are you creating a beautiful website that, in the end, does not perform to your customers’ expectations?

Before you start any actual design work at all are you clear on what the desired business outcomes and objectives for the website are? What do you want users (prospects) to do on this new website? – and how will you (and your customer) define the success or otherwise of these actions?

Over 70% of new websites fail to live up to the customers’ expectation. So we have found that the first goal should be to map user flow – the actions that typically take prospects from their entry point into the site through conversion funnels including follow-up sequences and towards the final action (signup, purchase and so forth) and to share this process with our clients.

In this talk we will take a look at how we do customer journey maps and the role of the map in website design, creation and integration into a successful marketing funnel.

• Slides

Whether you work remotely or work with remote coworkers and partners, it’s becoming increasingly common to need to collaborate differently. In this session panelists, who are all remote workers, discuss their strategies for success and pitfalls to avoid when working remotely.

ReactJS is changing how the web is built, including WordPress.

Take your existing development skills to the next level by learning the basics of ReactJS. We’ll explore things like components, state, props, and building interactive frontend applications for WordPress.

Being a soloprenuer can be extremely tough when there is no backup. There are very few breaks, vacations, or time off. But what if something goes wrong and you can’t run your business? Do you have a backup person who you can rely on to help you out? Do you have an organizational plan that is updated and easily understandable?

In this talk, we will go over an organizational method for success and back up plans for the solopreneuer, and why it is important to have this prepared before something happens.

• Slides

For a variety of reasons, we humans tend to be poor assessors of both the probability that something bad will happen, and the damage that is likely to result should such a thing occur. Academics have studied this phenomenon since about the 1960s under the rubric of risk assessment. What does this way of thinking have to teach us about WordPress security? Can we construct a risk matrix to help us choose which aspects of WordPress security are most in need of our limited time and attention?

In this session, I’ll draw on both on my own experience providing technical consulting in the areas of security and scaling to some of the world’s largest and most security-sensitive WordPress sites, and on the wisdom of community members who maintain smaller sites for businesses and individuals. In addition to providing a brief overview of the total security landscape as it applies to WordPress, we will attempt to use some of the tools of risk assessment to help us focus our attention in the right areas, including any we tend to naturally overlook.

This session, though touching on some technical topics, is suitable for anyone who administers, uses or develops WordPress sites.

• Slides

Joshua Strebel, CEO and Co-Founder of Pagely and Northstack, will take the WordCamp Phoenix stage to share his unique perspective on WordPress and business.

We’ll go over the basics of setting up a local WordPress development environment using Docker and some of the benefits of containerized development. Utilizing docker can be extremely helpful for matching production environments closely as well as streamlining testing and deployment processes.

• Slides

As our work environments change and more people start working remotely, new challenges are encountered and habits arise (both good and bad). In this talk about working remotely, at home, how it can affect us and some ways to ensure our remote work environments can be more productive and work for us, instead of against us.

• Slides

The combination of WordPress and WordCamps spreading throughout the world has created a global network of friendship. These relationships form bonds that are deeper than nationalism, and could someday advance World Peace.

This talk will use a case study of WordCamp Crazy, a group of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi WordCampers who’ve formed a bond of friendship despite the fact that their countries have been at war. Their story of learning and compassion could change the world.

With the release of Gutenberg, we are reminded how much energy has gone into making WordPress visually flexible for content owners. There are a handful of popular page builders, and top themes come with a huge assortment of styles and options. That’s good.

But these tools often lead smart, thoughtful into bad design situations, which ends up frustrating both them and their users.

This presentation will guide attendees to:
1. Start design before they pick up a tool
2. Constrain WordPress to help them stay within their design/brand guidelines
3. Develop habits that will prevent frustration in the future

Smart rules make great designs!

• Slides

WordPress 5.0 brings with it a new default theme called TwentyNineteen which is the first “official” theme to be distributed with full and native support for the new core block editing experience.

Using this theme as a guide, let’s take a deeper dive into:
– What customizations are available within each of the native blocks.
– Examples of other customizations that are possible with additional SASS/ CSS rules. (This includes a review of the new block-level classes.)
– Manipulating the position and layout of a block on the page using flexbox and CSS Grid.
– Where to find additional block collections and how to install them.
– Some possibilities of making additional custom blocks without code. (ACF, Carbon Fields and other generators.)

This talk is geared for those with beginning or intermediate web development skills. Ideal audience members will have some knowledge of WordPress and a willingness to make small alterations to a child theme’s CSS and functions.php files.

This talk is also NOT geared toward a discussion of how to create a “gutenblock” from scratch. (The topic has been covered quite a bit more in-depth by people much smarter than me. =-] )

• Slides

Ever catch yourself repeating the same task over and over again? If you can document the steps you can automate it! From high-level concepts like the development of systems and processes to detailed examples of how to harness the power of forms and Zapier to save hours of tedious work this talk will inspire you to look at every task in your business and ask … can this be automated?

• Slides

90 Days: Finding Your Place in the WordPress Community

A great opening to a WordCamp, this is a tale of overcoming, revisiting dormant passions, inspiration, and motivating others through giving back to Community.

After years of general fatigue, a myriad of tests without an answer, a catheter was inserted through my hip eventually winding its way to my heart, discovering two blocked arteries. After successfully re-opening them, I set out on difficult cardio-rehabilitation to regain heart fitness. During the next three months (including a leave of absence from work), Joe set out to restore my physical, spiritual and emotional well being. This speech details a 3-month journey of rediscovery the things that nourish and nurture each of these three areas — a thirst for learning, unearthing my dormant creativity and all things WordPress.

He set out to become more mindful of the things that bring me positive energy including truly engaging in the Community — 4 WordCamps, 16+ WordPress Meetups, and Events, designed a Wapuu, and a website build/brand to give back. From Castaic north to Palmdale (northernmost Los Angeles County), east to Riverside and all ports of call in-between (Pasadena, Whittier, Hollywood, Downtown Los Angeles) learn what makes good clubs while finding a network of common minds and colorful characters and gain inspiration to start the WordPress Santa Clarita Valley Meetup, over 8,000 Miles later.

In this presentation, you’ll learn:

What are the benefits of attending WordCamp?
Why join a WordPress Slack Channel?
Why volunteer to help at a WordCamp (experience being on both sides of the table)?
What is a WordPress Meetup?
What are the ‘five rules’ of hosting a WP Meetup?
How to get started? From visiting your local WordPress Meetup to even starting your own.
How to harness the energy from attending a WordCamp in your WP Meetups?
What are the benefits of attending a WordPress Meetup?
What is WordPress.tv?
What are my favorite WordPress podcasts?
Who are the faces of WordPress Community?
Learning resources – Codex, videos and more.
Why would I do something so crazy (deal with LA traffic)?
My takeaways or goals (get better at WordPress, start a local Meetup, etc)

Presentation Slides

Imposter Syndrome

Presentation Slides

Succeeding as an Introvert

It can be challenging to be an introvert in a world built for extroverts. A lot of introverts have been told at some point in their career to “be more extroverted”, as though introversion is bad — but it’s not bad, and being an extrovert is certainly not required for success.

Ever wondered how the dopamine pathways in your brain affect how and when you’re able to focus? Probably not, but science can tell us a lot about how our brains work and we can learn to leverage that information to help us succeed.

Aaron will take both a scientific and experiential look at introversion and extroversion, how they differ, how to tell where on the scale you are, and what advantages each has in today’s workplace. He’ll walk through his own journey of learning to leverage the strengths of his introversion and share what he does to help him navigate the parts of life and his career that are harder for him as an introvert.

Presentation Slides

Hosting Panel

Please join us at Galvanize Phoenix for a day of contributing to the WordPress project — no prior experience contributing is required. Please bring a laptop or tablet if you plan to attend.

Whether you write code or prose, are a digital designer or marketer, write documentation or code tests to assure software quality, we’d love for you to bring your expertise and share it with the global WordPress community.

We’ll have experienced contributors onsite to help you dive-in and get started!

A conversation with Meetup organizers.

An open discussion with WordCamp organizers.

A conversation with event organizers and and sponsors.