June 20, 2025 — A website isn’t “done” once it’s launched. From content management and performance tuning to security, SEO, and redesigns—managing a site well requires a broad and evolving skill set. This talk explores the full life cycle of a website, from planning and development to long-term management and continuous reinvention. We’ll look at what’s required at each stage, which skills matter most, and how teams and solo operators can sustainably support their sites over time in ever changing and demanding times.

June 20, 2025 — The generic fallback for solving WordPress performance issues, in most cases, amounts to installing some form of page caching, either at the server, or more recently at the Cloud Edge.
But the growth of highly dynamic WordPress sites for communities, ecommerce and elearning platforms has introduced a new set of performance demands that can’t be solved by a simple Page Cache.
In this talk, we will take a deep dive into the performance demands of dynamic sites, examining the challenges highly dynamic WordPress sites face both at rest and under high concurrency.
With the challenges understood, we will then explore some of the techniques used by high performance hosting platforms to address these core issues:
– OpCache Optimization
– Object Caching at Scale
– JustInTime PHP Compilation
– Database index optimization
– Page level plugin removal
– Edge Side Includes and WooCommerce
– Media offloading

June 20, 2025 — Millions of people search on Google every day—but what makes someone choose your WordPress site over others? It’s not just about ranking high; it’s about making your search results visually attractive and clickable. In this practical session, you’ll learn how visual elements of Google search results—such as the title link, snippet, favicon, and site name—significantly influence user decisions and clicks.

We’ll explore the anatomy of Google search results, clearly understanding how each component works and why optimizing visuals is crucial for effective SEO. Ranking alone isn’t enough; the quality and clarity of your visual presentation directly impact traffic to your site.

As an experienced SEO specialist, I’ll provide actionable tips on optimizing visual elements—including your titles, snippets, favicons, site names, and more—to achieve maximum engagement in search results. Whether you’re a business owner, marketer, developer, or designer, you’ll be equipped with clear strategies to make your WordPress site visually stand out, drive higher click-through rates, and boost organic traffic from Google.

June 20, 2025 — Your website is often the first impression your business makes—and if it’s not converting, it might be a design issue (not a traffic one). In this practical, no-fluff presentation, Haley Brown shares the five most common design mistakes self-taught web designers and small biz owners make—and how to fix them fast.

You’ll learn how to simplify your homepage for instant clarity, choose fonts that actually work, use white space like a pro, fix confusing buttons, and build a consistent colour palette (without needing an art degree). Whether you’ve been designing websites for years or just fell into it accidentally, you’ll walk away with simple, actionable tweaks that make your site look more polished, more professional—and more profitable.

This isn’t about a total rebrand or redesign. It’s about learning how to see your site like a designer—and make smarter design choices that build trust, boost conversions, and showcase your work in the best possible light.

June 12, 2025

June 10, 2025 — Structured content, post types, taxonomies, fields API. These are some of the APIs that have put WordPress in a leading position as a CMS. Developers have built powerful solutions on top of these API over the years. Learning from all of these efforts and as a preparation for the next iteration in the WordPress Admin redesign, DataViews and DataForms were introduced respectively in WordPress 6.5 and 6.7 to allow visualization and manipulation of any structured data. This talk will dive into the story behind the creation of these two APIs. Attendees will learn about the vision for these APIs. I will share insights about how these APIs fit into the admin redesign project and what to expect for the future. This talk will also show how you can make use of these two APIs today in your own plugins and projects. Join me to explore the future of structured content in WordPress.

June 10, 2025 — Learn the technical strategies that powered RecipeTin Eats’ growth from 25 million to 45 million monthly views. We’ll cover key decisions around managing tech debt, building new features, and implementing visual regression testing. Discover how these practices can be applied to your own site to optimize performance, improve user experience, and scale effectively. This talk offers practical insights for developers and site owners looking to implement technical improvements for sustained growth.

June 10, 2025 — As WordPress continues to power over 40% of the web, the ecosystem is evolving at an unprecedented pace. From enterprise adoption to the rise of AI, no-code solutions, and headless architectures, the landscape of WordPress in 2025 presents both opportunities and challenges for developers, businesses, and content creators alike. This panel brings together industry leaders to discuss the current state of WordPress and where it’s headed. We’ll explore: Technology Shifts: How WordPress is adapting to modern web technologies, including AI, automation, and performance enhancements. The Business of WordPress: The economic realities of agencies, plugin and theme developers, and hosting providers in a changing marketplace. Enterprise and Ecosystem Growth: How WordPress competes with closed-source CMSs and the increasing role of enterprise adoption. Open Source Sustainability: How the open-source community is addressing funding, maintainer burnout, and the long-term viability of volunteer-driven Challenges and Risks: From security concerns to competition from proprietary platforms, what threats does WordPress face in 2030? Whether you’re a developer, business owner, content creator, or part of the WordPress community, this discussion will provide key insights into the future of the platform and how you can thrive within it.

June 10, 2025 — An In-person Q&A with WordPress Co-Founder Matt Mullenweg

June 10, 2025 — In this engaging session, we’ll take you through our journey of freelancing for over eight years while raising a toddler and launching a successful coworking space. We’ll share the challenges, triumphs, and lessons learned along the way—balancing the demands of parenthood and entrepreneurship. From managing clients to managing tantrums, and from finding time for ourselves to building a community, this talk is about embracing the chaos and finding fulfillment in both work and family life. Join us for an inspiring look at how we turned our passion for freelancing into a thriving business, all while raising a little one.