March 14, 2017 — In the past I’ve worked with a lot of different email form solutions, most of them have been cowboy-coded by developers but each has varied in ease of management. Our agency has been using Gravity Forms on all WordPress websites since 2013 and I’d love to share our insights on an incredible email form solution. A few topics I’d love to discuss are:

Initial Plugin Integration
The Proper Form Setup (with a few pro tips)
Email Form Creation
Confirmations
Notifications
Mind-Blowing Add-Ons
I may choose to scale the topics down depending on timeframe. I’m not a traveling speaker, I run an agency here in San Antonio so I’m always busy working in and on our business. I’m looking to help anyone I can from beginners to experts and love seeing tech grow in SA.

March 14, 2017 — Security is a crucial element of any WordPress site and too often site owners don’t put it on their forefront of development till it’s too late. A few steps provided in the WordPress documentation along with some tested practices can help.

March 14, 2017 — Going over the basics of design in WP theme building. How to help organize your classes, bootstrap (if someone intends on using it) and overall design output through desktop and devices.

March 13, 2017 — Francesca Marano is a WordPress professional, community junkie, author, educator.She enjoys speaking / attending WordCamps and Meetups.

She is the founder of the website C+B, a blog for Italian female creative entrepreneurs, with an editorial staff of more than 50 professionals offering advice to women who work on their own. The website has 40,000 readers.

March 12, 2017 — Episode 15

I throw out the idea of a new interview series that would feature chats with the various leaders of the Make WordPress Teams.

We take a look at the Community Team and news about the various stages that WordCamps are in.

From the Accessibility Team, we take a quick look at the Handbook.

March 11, 2017 — The WordPress Community is one of the most supportive tech community in the world. We help each other through code issues, site problems, ideas for improving the design of the site, and so much more. New WordPress users often struggle to understand how to get help, and confront similar challenges when they start building their site and hosting it.

Where should they host their site?
What type of design should they use?
How do they manage all of their plugins, and which plugins should they use?
Then what happens when their site goes down?
How do they ask for help?
Who do they ask?
This talk covers these type of topics and covers the life cycle of different types of users. WordPress is one of the most flexible platforms in the world that provides a ton of options. For a new user, or a seasoned user, it can be hard to navigate the WordPress Community. Users Need Our Help.

March 11, 2017 — I. An Intro to Video Libraries
In this session, I will be discussing the impact that a video library can have on your website. A video library is a collection of videos, typically organized into categories and groups, that members can view directly on your website.There is a place for video in almost any website, from marketing to content to customer service.

II. How to best utilize videos to engage your customers
I will cover the importance of a Video Library for Search Engine Optimization and how it helps keep visitors on your site for a longer amount of time. I will discuss how you can use video content marketing to better connect with your audience and communicate with customers. I will also present a number of strategic approaches to including videos on various types of websites.

III. Options for sharing and creating video libraries
I will include the different video sharing options that are available, how to create and host a video library, and how to utilize video for marketing, training, and communication.

IV. The best audiences for video content
Lastly, I would like to present the type of audiences that video is good for and statistically who is viewing videos on the web. This will include how to promote and organize your video library for your intended audiences.

Presentation Slides »

March 11, 2017 — A website is much more than an online business card. It is the central hub of your online presence and the face of your business to thousands of potential clients. To effectively reach your audience, you must have the proper elements in place, as well as the tools that will allow you to manage your WordPress website with the greatest of ease, functionality and power.

Join Taylor in this presentation to learn the elements that every WordPress website must have. You will learn how to:

Ensure an SEO-friendly website
Keep track of where your visitors are coming from
Start building a marketable email list
Use the tools that will save you time and headaches
Make your website and blog posts more engaging
And much more!

March 10, 2017 — Can improv help you be a better content creator? Does Big Red go with Barbacoa? (The answer to both, is “yes.”) I’ll show you how I apply improv philosophies, such as “Yes, and,” giving gifts, and many more, in my roles as blogger, Community Manager and co-host of multiple podcasts. You’ll leave learning how you can use these same philosophies to create new and interesting content on your own or in collaboration with others.

Presentation Slides »

March 10, 2017 — Remember what it was like when you first set up your blog? You were full of piss and vinegar and incredibly excited. It may have sustained you during a rocky time at work or in your personal life. It was a life force that energized you. After all, people would be reading what you had to say.

Then it happened. Your blog moved from being a life force to a life suck, taking away all the joy that you originally had. Updating it became a chore; you exhaled an audible groan every time you opened up wp-admin. Your blog turned into a vampire (and not of the Twilight variety).

This talk is geared around the four types of blog vampires I’ve encountered and strategies to help make personal blogging fun again. Regardless of where you are on your blogging journey, vampires abound, including:

The No One Is Reading My Blog Vampire—this is where a blogger becomes so despondent after realizing that no one, not even their friends and family, are reading their blog

The Keeping Up with the Jones’s Vampire—this is where a blogger starts comparing themselves to others and has a feeling of inadequacy/jealousy
Getting Caught Up in the Fame of (Minor) Celebrity—this is where the blogger gets an inkling of fame and PR people reach out along with the endless invites; but it’s to things they may not care about
The Administrative Vampire—this is where the blogger gets mired down in all the SEO/tagging/socialing/posting minutiae and hates life
All these vampires make you want to just give up. But that flicker of light from the life force still draws you in. You feel confused on what to do and mostly trapped—I mean, isn’t this supposed to be fun? Having personally experienced all of these types of blog vampires, I’ll walk through strategies to vanquish them so you can enjoy the joys of blogging once again.