WordCamp Cincinnati 2017
11 - 12 Nov 2017 at Tangeman University Center on the University of Cincinnati Campus

Many people use WordPress because of the community aspect of the software. But what does this mean? In the opening keynote I’ll share how you can get started with the WordPress community today at WordCamp Cincinnati and how you can be part of the community after the event. And the best part, you do not need to know any code to be a part of this amazing community.

Today’s modern buyer carries more power than ever before. The proliferation of choices, technology advances and more readily available and accessible information, buyers are setting the pace and determining the criteria for when and how to buy. Yet many companies remain, whether subconsciously or not, product or seller focused on their communications and overall customer experiences. The outcomes are evident – greater pressure on pricing, longer sales cycles, and more effort for fewer results. The companies excelling in this changing environment are those with a purpose-led drive for serving their buyers. In this session, we’ll first explore what seller or product focused is and why being buyer-driven leads to greater growth. Then we’ll dig into how to adopt and implement a buyer-driven process for your company. Don’t miss this fundamental business approach that will help set the stage for your business’ success.

This talk will discuss a new way of looking at WordPress development. WordPress has always stated that its primary focus is on the End User Experience. Which means that a lot of new features and fixes which are purely developer related are not given as much focus. To be honest, I think this is a great thing. It is one of the biggest reasons for the success of WordPress to date. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We as developer have the ability to change that fact, and we can improve things outside of core development. In this talk we will discuss new ways for build plugins and libraries. The goal of this talk is to discuss how a small mental change can lead to a monumental effect in how you develop with WordPress.

WordPress 101 is a full-day workshop designed for those who are just getting started with WordPress, or who may not even have a WordPress website yet.

There is more that goes into a website than just what the eye can see. Thoughtful research, strategy and planning stand behind a solid user experience that turns passive site visitors into engaged customers. When designing for a WordPress site, having knowledge of the WordPress platform and how it functions is important in delivering a great user experience for both users and site managers. This discussion is for those interested in learning more about creating good user experiences, increasing conversions on their website and customizing the WordPress admin for easy editing and content entry.

Want a lifetime of FREE SSL from an internationally recognized certificate authority? Of course you do. Here’s how. We’ll cover basics of plugin installation/configuration and limitations of the various plugin options available to WordPress users. We’ll also cover the advanced option of using the official Let’sEncrypt cPanel plugin, including installation instructions within the WHM environment — with WordPress-specific configuration considerations.

Everyone knows time is money, especially while building a blogging business. Staying on top of communicating with your audience, social media, content creation, and creating a newsletter, is way too daunting and often will shut down a blog before it even really begins. Cerkl, a Cincinnati home-grown start-up company, has a created a communications tool which will save you, bloggers and digital marketers, time and resources, and allows you to focus on being the content creator you want to be. Marcelina Robledo, from Cincinnati Bloggers, shares seven reasons every blogger should use Cerkl to connect with your audience, save money, and focus on creating the content your audience wants.

You normally think of using WordPress to build websites but you can also use it to easily create APIs to feed content into other applications. In this presentation we will walk through a simple Single Page Application built using the React JavaScript library, then show how to configure WordPress to rapidly build data feeds for the application using WordPress REST API.

Conquering the Search Engines can be a long and treturous journey. Once you reach the prize something unanticipated happens that takes you backwards. Google changes as trends change so knowing what is trending can help. Today we will discuss the changes that are effecting Search Engine activity and resources that will help you reach the prize!

Code is poetry – so they say. Each dev writes in their own special way. But if you code alone – errors, you will own! Peer code reviews save the day! In this talk we’ll review strategies and tools for doing code reviews with your peers. They don’t have to take long and they can save you from launching code that will ruin your day!

There are a ton of tutorials out there about how to build a beautiful and functional WordPress website. A question I hear a lot but don’t see addressed very often is “what do I put on my website?” The answer to that question starts with building your brand. In this talk, you’ll learn how to create website content that stands out from your competition, connects with your intended audience, and turns browsers into buyers.

WordPress is the most popular CMS, which is awesome. That means it is also the most targeted. This talk will cover how easy it is to secure your WordPress website. Covering some best practices for server, firewall, password and WordPress security plugins, following these simple steps can give you peace of mind and avoid having a really, really bad day.

So, you started writing but now what? Maybe a few weeks into your blog you find yourself with ‘writers’ block’ I have some brainstorming ideas and ways to work content ideas to produce stories for your blog rather than ‘one off’ blogs. In creating content you will line up your passion with daily life and give your readers the insight to your world. We will identify the call to action of your stories to connect with your audience and build your following.

In this talk, I will share the strategies, tactics, plugins and free tools that any WordPress user needs to turn their love of the platform into a freelance stream or income, or possibly a career. I will discuss my favorite composers, layouts, ways to attack projects and potential hiccups to look out for.

Your WordPress site is the digital “front door” for your brand. Every image, word or click has the power to tell your story and build brand loyalty. The best brands let their culture shine through online, making their websites a true representation of who they are. This hands-on session will give participants an opportunity to optimize their WordPress site –both visually and verbally- to truly reflect what’s unique about their brands while creating personal, meaningful connections with everyone who visits your site.

I’ll go into what local search engine optimization is, touching on Google My Business and the importance of reviews. From there I’ll into detail on what Schema is and show users ways to add it to their site.

What’s next after you’ve created a business blog? How to Stay Ahead of Your Business Blog Forever guides you step by step through planning your blog, creating an editorial calendar, using WordPress to improve your writing as well as SEO. And how to keep your blog supplied with fresh content week after week. Unlike most presentations, attendees create an action plan they can take back to the office and implement to improve their blog, because you can’t talk stuff done. I publish six new posts per week on three WordPress sites. I’m currently three months ahead with more than 100 post ready to publish, and I’ve published more than 1600 posts. However, there was a time I struggled to publish one new post a month. The presentation is based on my journey including my mistakes.

WP-CLI is a great tool when you don’t need a fancy UI, need to write scripts to perform regular maintenance, or to provide deeper functionality to your awesome plugin. Like WordPress, it’s free, open source, and far more powerful than some people give it credit for. This session covers the components necessary to write great WP-CLI scripts; from structure to execution, arguments to output, attendees should leave the session with everything they need to know to implement WP-CLI commands in their next project.

Keep your website project on track whether it’s a new website or a redesign. You’ll get pointers to help you avoid pitfalls from the initial discussion with your team through the design, development and launch. These strategic tips will help any organization bypass common problems that keep website projects from being completed on time and on budget.

Learn to convert a static Twitter Bootstrap website containing only HTML, CSS, and Javascript into a fully functional WordPress theme. We will take the static HTML and CSS from any Bootstrap website and exchange it for code that will interact with WordPress. When finished, our new WordPress theme will contain everything from headers, footers, home page, inner pages, menus, customizer, custom fields, and a custom post type for logos.

Story marketing is a powerful way to connect with audiences. What will you use to craft your story? How will community over competition mean great content? Who are you writing for and why does that matter? What common cliche’s and rules about business and life are actually not true? What if we look out for others while pursuing our passion? So I have a blog and great content – now what? How can we help our organic reach? I hit publish – can I take a break?

I will discuss the three phase process employed in creating edsawareness.com, a WordPress multisite for a non-profit 501(c)(3) supporting those on disability with the genetic disorder “Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome”.

WordPress 201 is a workshop designed for those who have already have some understanding of the basics of using WordPress and are looking to begin customizing their theme template and extending WordPress beyond simple publishing. We will use a combination of slides, handouts and live editing. You don’t need to be a developer to join — it will be presented in a way that’s approachable for an average user.

Sometimes you need a website built from scratch to your specific specifications. There are tons of people at WordCamp who can help you with that. Other times, you really just need to go from “I need a website” to “I have a website” in one afternoon. This talk is about how to do that. Perfect for small businesses, nonprofits, and individuals in non-technical fields who want to create a corner of the internet to call their own without spending a lot of time or money on the project.

A redesign can be a huge success – or a total flop! A website redesign can be exciting for those involved. But it can also be intimidating, because it is so hard to predict how users, search engines, and other digital marketing programs such as Google Adwords will react to the new design. Learn how to prevent a website redesign disaster and how to safeguard you or your client’s past marketing investments by protecting the current website traffic, leads, and revenue. When done thoughtfully, your website can become your most powerful sales tool. Discover how to ensure you get the most from your investment.

Content creators and publishers who use both WordPress and YouTube have a TON of opportunity to make the two work together to improve their organic search visibility. I’ll discuss how to optimize YouTube videos and WordPress pages and make them work together in order to maximize SEO traffic and video views.

During the State of the Word address at last year’s WordCamp US, Matt Mullenweg — co-founder of WordPress — announced that the WordPress editing experience would be a top focus for the software in 2017. The product of this focus is Gutenberg, a still-beta editor replacement that you can download as a plugin today. But how exactly will Gutenberg affect you? Andrew will talk about the motivations and goals for a new post editor, as well as the impact it will have on developers and publishers alike. Andrew is a top-contributing developer working on the Gutenberg plugin, and will share his insight into the project.

In this presentation, Colleen shares her five tips to clear messaging; you have at most 15 seconds for people to engage and stay on your site. Your written content is more than words on paper. The words in your blog, book, and marketing materials are only the beginning. Crisp, clear, grammatically precise writing establishes your professional image and positions you as the expert in your field. Chaotic, confusing, or awkward writing is distracting, distorts your image, and potential sales click off your site. Attendees walk away with five pointers on how to make their message CLEAR. They will learn how a CLEAR message can increase their revenue by keeping visitors on their site.

Working with large data sets from APIs is hard, so asynchronous PHP is a must. Here’s one way to do that.