September 8, 2016 — Instructional video and screencast about how to use the WooCommerce Password Protected Categories plugin to create a wholesale or trade area. This is a much simpler solution than using a full membership plugin.

September 7, 2016 — This session will be about integrating Apache Solr with WordPress, why and when Apache Solr should be preferred instead of WordPress default search and what is the easiest way to implement it. The session will further throw some light on comparison of default WordPress Search and Apache Solr wordpress search. In the end, there would be a live demo on how to integrate Apache Solr into WordPress with hosted-solr.com .

September 7, 2016 — Companies that are based on WordPress are invested in the future of the WP community project.

In this session I will cover:
– Successful stories of WP engagement
– How engagement in the WP community benefits companies

September 5, 2016 — Joespha Haden is an Automattician who is able to contribute to several area of the WordPress Community. She blogs at Stars And The Moon where she writes about a variety of subjects including food and Pepper.

She comes from a long line of writers and was challenged at a young age to be a life long learner.

September 4, 2016 — In this session, I’ll demonstrate how I pushed my limits in WordPress development by building a custom WordPress slider for a client website. I hope you will be inspired to take on challenging projects even though you might not know the outcome. In this project, I realized that advanced client specs aren’t indomitable; they are catalysts in pushing skills as a person and developer.

Presentation Slides »

August 31, 2016 — Get the scoop on using Google Analytics for your WordPress website. If you’ve never used GA, if you look at your analytics reports but you don’t end up with actionable data, or if it’s been a while and you’d like to know about all the cool new reports, this is the session for you.

We’ll walk through the interface, but bring your questions, too.

How to install Google Analytics
How to set up properties and views
Moving from questions to answers
Major reports: Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, Conversions
Setting up custom dashboards
Identifying and configuring goals
Basic comfort with computers is all the background you need. Stay on for a more advanced session after this one if you like; attend this to be sure you’re ready for the more advanced session.

Presentation Slides »

August 31, 2016 — SEO can be confusing — if you rely on tips and tricks. Instead, you can rely on data from your own website. Get to know Google Analytics and other analytics tools with WordPress plugins, find the actionable information in your analytics reports, and implement your own SEO strategy.

Designed for people who are comfortable with their computers but assuming no knowledge of computer languages, this session is all about the results.

Presentation Slides »

August 31, 2016 — Custom Post Types allow you to better organize your site. We’ll look at some common use cases for Custom Post Types, what code to add, where to add it, and some of the nuances that go along with creating them. We will do all of these things without any plugins.

Presentation Slides »

August 31, 2016 — In this session, the beginning blogger will learn the flexibility and benefits of using WordPress.org. Nancy Kay Grace will teach some first steps into blogging, minimizing the fear factor for tech challenged writers. Topics covered will be -how online writing is different from writing for publications -what you need to create a WordPress blog (domain name, host, theme) -simple guidelines for Search Engine Optimization (keyword stuff) -elements of composing a blog post: written content, photos, links.

No technical background required.

Presentation Slides »

August 30, 2016 — In this session, I’ll explain how a typical WordPress page template works, using the Twenty Sixteen theme as an example. I’ll show:

How does the page template display your content with a header, footer and (sometimes) a sidebar (or two)?
How does the header get there in the first place and what does it do?
How did the default menu get there, and can you move it?
Why do some pages have sidebars and others do not?
How do sidebars work, and can I add a new one to my site?
What is a sidebar, really, and why do you find them in the Widgets section?
And what about the footer?

…and maybe a few more things. This is a “tiptoe through the templates”, not a “camp out for 2 weeks in the templates”, but by the time we’re done, you’ll have a reasonable understanding of how page templates work and how you might use your own in a child theme.

This session is aimed at advanced beginners to intermediate users. You’ll need a working knowledge of HTML. If you know a little PHP, great, but you don’t need to know PHP to understand what I’ll be covering.