WordPress Overview & Best Practices for Beginners

Presented by Bill M. Rice • WCL Track

1. Overview of WordPress
- Why WordPress (vs. Drupal, Joomla etc.) 15% of web on WP :-)
- Pages and Posts
- Using Appearance/ Menus to nest pages (create drop downs)
- Using WP as a CMS and Blogging platform
- Self-hosting – how to pick a host. WordPress.com vs. Shared vs. Dedicated
- Security – keep core and plugins updated

2. Best Practices
- Pay for all stock photos don’t steal
- Backup DB and theme files in 3 places
- Themes – check codex and Google theme before purchasing, use reputable companies
- Why not to use Free WP templates (Other than what comes with core)

3. Plugins
- How to find and install them
- Essential plugins:
- Akismet, WP DB Backup, Google Analytics Dashboard, Google XML Plugings, WP SEO (Yoast)
- WP Print Friendly, WPtouch
- Cool Plugins
- Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WP White Label (individual branding), Livefyre commenting
- Ecommerce – SHOPP, WP Ecommerce – just so they know this is available, not an in-depth discussion
- Display widgets – show and hide widgets based on what page they are on

4. Tips and Tricks
- Typography – how to use Google Fonts
- Social Media Integration – adding twitter / Facebook / Google +1 share etc.

Question & Answer Session.

WordPress and the User Experience

Presented by • WCL Track

Discover the difference between just a pretty site and a usable and effective website. We’ll look at core UX principles and talk about a few WordPress-specific issues developers might face… and how to solve them. We’ll also evaluate some themes and show what is good and what isn’t as far as UX and design, and examine some simple, practical ways to improve your themes.

Using WordPress as a Mobile Solution

Presented by • WCL Track

Knox will discuss the options WordPress users have when considering mobile content and experiences for iPhones, Droids and Blackberries, the pros and cons of various implementations and how to leverage a mobile site to enhance other web properties. With a smart phone on nearly every man, woman, and child’s hip – this is a must hear talk!

Tweaking Your Theme

Presented by • WCL Track

Regardless if you used a framework or started a theme from scratch, you will eventually find yourself tweaking your WordPress theme to cater to yours or your client’s needs. This lecture will cover tips that include:

- Basics of a theme and general places you would look to edit files for your theme
- Code snippets versus plugins
- A touch on child themes
- Some easy to understand resources to help you develop

This is suppose to be a beginner’s lecture for those who understand enough about coding in HTML, PHP, and WordPress (or resourceful enough to code) and are looking to delve in more with tweaking their theme. Please feel free to ask questions as there will be a questions and answers sessions for the last 10 to 15 minutes of the lecture.

Recommended WordPress Plugins for Blogging and Podcasting

Presented by Daniel Lewis • WCL Track

There are so many plugins for WordPress! Instead of trying to find your own, check out these free plugins to make your life easier: security, commenting, social sharing, optimization, podcasting, and more. Once installed and setup, these plugins perform their magic to make blogging or even podcasting far easier for you—and easier for your viewers, too!

Otto Unleashed

Presented by Otto • WCL Track

Otto discusses any and all advanced WordPress topics in an Q&A format. Bring your best questions. Rewrites, the Query system, various WordPress APIs, and caching, Otto will attempt to answer them all. Expect lots of code to be displayed, or written on-the-fly, on the big screen.

HTML5 Alive!

Presented by Drew McChesney • WCL Track

HTML5 Alive!

In this talk, we will explore ways to update your WordPress theme with HTML5 markup.

HTML5 has received a lot of buzz (“it’s the Flash killer!”), but our goal will be to understand how the new tags and elements available in HTML5 fit into the basic WordPress templates and functions we work with daily. To illustrate the differences, we will be comparing two of WordPress’ default themes: TwentyTen and TwentyEleven. We’ll see how this progression in markup is affecting posts, comments, media, search and base templates.

We’ll also cover issues in backwards compatibility and how to address them, resources for building custom themes, and provide a bit of time at the end for Q&A.

Google Plus and WordPress – Ideas on building SEO, traffic and your web presence

Presented by Eric Blackwell • WCL Track

Google Plus is the new kid on the social media block.

To date they have been pretty strict about keeping businesses away and focusing on individuals. Regardless of your personal preferences in social media, as a developer, blogger or website manager, we are all looking to build traffic and Google’s new platform offers some interesting opportunities.

Together we will explore:

The unique characteristics of the Google platform and what that offers to someone building traffic via Social media and search engine marketing.

Methods of building your site to attract +1′s from Google plus users.

The latest plugins and sample code for incorporating Google plus into your WordPress site. One of the advantages

Which parts of Google’s platform are you being rewarded for using and how.

The latest on where the Google Plus platform is going for individuals and businesses.

In short this is going to be a primer on how to take advantage of the additional traffic and other benefits that Google’s new social media platform offer WP users.

Facebook and WordPress – A match made in Heaven

Presented by Syed Balkhi • WCL Track

Are you having trouble with building a community on your blog? Want to know how to increase interaction and attract more users to your blog? This is where Syed Balkhi – super creative and smart viral social media marketer can guide you.

He will show you the subtle secrets to Facebook and WordPress that have made his site among the most recognizable blogs within the WordPress community. He will show you how you can quadruple the traffic on your posts, double the rate of opt-ins per day, and most importantly build an interactive community.

Facebook is more than just the like button. There are more than 600 million users that spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. It is about building a community, having fun, and being smart.

Configuring WordPress for Multiple Environments

Presented by Jason McCreary • WCL Track

WordPress boasts a “5 minute install”. This is great for simple sites running only in a production environment. But if you’re using WordPress as a development platform or following a software life cycle things become a little tricky. This talk will cover ways to migrate WordPress between different environments smoothly, including: code, database, and environment specific checks. Although some aspects of the talk may be advanced, there will be demos, code samples, and time for Q&A. So if you use WordPress in more than just production, this talk’s for you.