April 25, 2016 — Security can be complex, intimidating, and even frightening. Don’t let the enormity of it scare you into inaction. Learn what some of the security researchers and security professionals deal with, and then find out some simple steps you can take to secure your sites.

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April 24, 2016 — This talk will show you how to set up a WordPress blog using Ansible, an open-source tool that is often used to deploy code and configure servers. We will deploy WordPress (as well some additional software, like Git) to a fresh new server. We will also look at how to version control your codebase with Git and discuss various ways you can bring Git into your workflow. Last, we’ll talk a little bit about Vagrant and how you can test your changes locally before committing them to your master codebase and deploying them on your live site.

The talk will assume basic competency with SSH (you should know how to SSH into a server, install new packages, update your package lists, etc) and a passing familiarity with Git (you should know what it is).

If you are an experienced developer who’s already using Git and Ansible/Chef/Puppet for provisioning, this talk will be too basic for you. If you are a new developer who’s dabbled a bit with version control and/or provisioning software, you’ll walk out of this talk with everything you need to securely deploy WordPress and Git via Ansible. If you’re not a developer, this talk may be a little bit further into the weeds than you’d enjoy going… although if you want to learn more about doing professional software development, there will be plenty of code samples available online and plenty of references to help you get started. If you’re not a developer and you want to come to this talk, try and read over a tutorial on basic SSH and Git and you should be able to follow along too.

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April 24, 2016 — Firebug is the secret weapon of designers who are beginning to learn to customize WordPress websites. It is a great way to start to see CSS in action. The day you learn to change your site’s H2 headers for your blog post titles from blue to green will be the day you are on your way to having design power. We will go over using Firebug to find the elements that you would like to change and how to write css and see the changes happen before your very eyes. You don’t have to know css before this presentation since we will go over some of the basics to show you what you will be looking for.

April 24, 2016 — In this video tutorial you will learn how to create custom taxonomies in WordPress using a plugin named CustomPress by wpmudev.

April 23, 2016 — Do you want to learn how to work better on the web? We’re going to chat about ways that you can improve your workflow, automate some common tasks, and offload the things that you don’t want to do to focus on the parts of working for yourself that you chose in the first place!

I’ve done web development since high school, and have run a web development company for the past seven years. A majority of that time was solely self-employed, but I’ve also worked for others, worked in teams, hired contractors, and worked as a contractor. There are pros and cons to each of these situations, and I’m here to discuss my experiences, as well as how to get the best out of these situations.

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April 23, 2016 — The biggest and best-known ecommerce solution for WordPress does everything. It’s flexible, extendable, and almost infinitely configurable. It’s a Swiss Army Knife with 276 blades. But if all you need is a bottle opener, do you really need to walk around with a 2kg knife in your pocket?

We’ll talk about the things you need to consider when choosing an ecommerce solution. I’ll give you a list of questions to help you decide. And we’ll discuss some of the available WordPress ecommerce products so you can make an informed decision.

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April 23, 2016 — Or what I wish I knew six years ago when I started my freelance business.

Are you a freelancer? Or thinking of taking the plunge? I want to share with you the mistakes I’ve made so you can avoid them and the process I now use to win clients and the process of taking a client from a lead to delivery.

Incoming Leads
Qualifying Leads
Client Meetings
Writing Proposals/Contracts
Educating clients and anti follow-up
Onboarding
Delivery
Referral Machine
Recurring Revenue
I’ll also cover some great tools and systems along the way.

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April 23, 2016 — Content marketing sounds like a magic bullet — something that can improve your SEO, boost your traffic, and bring in more sales.

Reality check: it’s not, at least not for everyone.

I’ll clear up three common misconceptions about content marketing and explain the realities, plus how you can find the best use for it based on your business, audience, and desired outcome.

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April 23, 2016 — With tens of thousands of themes available for your WordPress website, choosing between them and knowing which to avoid, can be an overwhelming decision. In this talk, we will go over some of the factors that go into choosing the best theme for your website, as well as where to find them and how to gauge the quality.

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April 23, 2016 — I will focus on how local search engine optimization (SEO) differs from traditional SEO, and why it is so important to local businesses. I’ll outline the key components of local SEO and explain how you can use your WordPress site to strengthen each of them.

Attendees will learn:

How local SEO differs from traditional website SEO
The major components of local SEO
Ways to optimize their WordPress site for local SEO

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