August 14, 2017 — Learn oodles of design tips and hacks to make your WordPress site:

look better
be more appealing
seem more professional and credible
and be an easier, better experience for your audience

Don’t know what colors go together? Don’t know the first thing about design? Don’t have any design software? No worries — this talk is for you. We’ll cover lots of easy ways to make your design better, and free tools that can help you even if you feel like you “don’t have a designy bone in your body”.

August 14, 2017 — Website design and UX principles applied to WordPress websites – from a designer’s perspective. The process starts with discovering client objectives and the website audience. This informs decisions on colors, fonts, and layout. A mood board helps to communicate the design direction for the website and user research informs decisions on website navigation and content hierarchy. Tools of the trade include color, photos, icon and many other resources. Implementing these design discoveries into your WordPress website is not as hard as you think.

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August 14, 2017 — This topic will be an overview to the leg work to do before you jump into the design and development stage. I will give an introductory talk on site maps, user personas, content guides, and other things to think about how your website will function before you start designing or developing your site.

August 14, 2017 — There are many page builders to choose from these days, both as premium themes and dedicated plugins, but what really sets one apart from another? In this talk, we’ll discuss the benefits and drawbacks of various popular page builders, as well as touching briefly on non-page builder techniques for creating custom designs quickly.

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August 14, 2017 — So you have your WordPress site up and running and its awesome. But whats next? Don’t let those pesky Rebels destroy your new site come learn about what you can do to keep your WordPress site in good working order after it is completed.

August 14, 2017 — In this presentation I will be debunking the biggest myths about our beloved WordPress CMS. I will cover some of the most common misconceptions about WordPress that may have kept users from diving in to give it a try. Think WordPress isn’t strong enough, fast enough, secure enough, or powerful enough? Join me as I discuss these non-issues and give WordPress skeptics a reason to take another look at the most popular CMS.

August 13, 2017 — BUT WHY? USE CASES FOR THE REST API

August 12, 2017 — I’ve found a new level of success as a freelance WordPress developer over the last year and I’d like to share my story with you. But more importantly, I want to teach other freelancers (or aspiring freelancers) how I made the transition successfully from full-time employment to full-time freelancing.

These are the tips, tricks, and strategies that I’ve personally implemented that have allowed me to earn at least $10,000 (five figures) each month as a freelancer.

I’m a 27 year old developer who’s recently made the transition himself and I’d like to help you set yourself up for a successful transition into freelancing as well.

August 12, 2017 — My experience has been that designers/agencies face two business oriented challenges that they fail to address, often because of a closed lens around what is possible. In other words, they aren’t aware that these options can greatly help their businesses and these partnerships are super easy to form. – Selling alone – I spend much of my day linking agencies with clients to sell projects together. Our clients need designers and often don’t know where to turn. Designer/agency clients need hosts, ad providers, marketers, etc. and again often don’t know where to turn. Selling in tandem increases both stickiness and value for all parties involved. – Building something amazing then turning it over to an unknown hosting or adtech provider. I liken this to building an awesome sports car and then leaving to chance that the owner will park it out on the street with no protection from the elements. This presentation is a vendor-agnostic look at how designers/agencies can increase their opportunities, deliver greater lifetime value to their clients, and insure that their hard work isn’t neglected after a site is finished by partnering with other providers. It also touches on how to choose providers/partners where there is a true synergy and sharing of interests. Thank you for your consideration. I’m excited about the opportunity to help WordPress professionals explore new ways to grow their businesses!

August 12, 2017 — In this talk we’ll discuss common WordPress performance issues and how to troubleshoot them. Then we’ll dive into New Relic and how to leverage this powerful tool to monitor, troubleshoot and optimize your site.