June 5, 2020 — Last year, Google incorporated the Lighthouse tool into its PageSpeed Insights API for mobile. This tool checks a web page to determine how optimal the mobile experience is a for a visitor. As more than half of Internet traffic comes through mobile devices, these are the visitors that need to be prioritized.

Earlier this year Mediavine began developing a WordPress theme framework built for speed. The goal was to achieve a perfect score on Lighthouse, while maintaining all of the basic WordPress content creation functionality.

This session focused on the individual aspects Lighthouse analyzes, and how Mediavine was able to optimize that framework for each of those areas during the development of a theme. The purpose of this presentation was to supply insight on how organizations can achieve a higher Lighthouse score and improve their own search engine ranking, while providing an optimal experience for their readers.

June 18, 2019 — It’s 2019. Everyone uses their phones to access website, and most every site is now mobile friendly. But, was that site created with the desktop or mobile view in mind. Learn how having a mobile-first website will bring a site to the next level, both in the eyes of the visitors and Google.

June 2, 2019 — When it comes to search results, sometimes the competition against your website is in the millions, and sometimes earning the top spot is downright impossible. Learn how to make your posts stand out, especially with structured data, even if you can’t gain that coveted number one position.

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April 3, 2019 — The ease of WordPress has catered to quick learners and do-it-yourselfers. It’s what makes WordPress so great and universal. However, many questions come with the DYI approach: What should I look for when selecting a theme? How I find good plugins to extend my site’s functionality? When is it better to hire someone else to develop my website? How can I prequalify a developer? Knowing the answers to these question can save you from a few headaches.

December 7, 2017 — The ease of WordPress has catered to quick learners and do-it-yourselfers. It’s what makes WordPress so great and universal. However, many questions come with the DYI approach: What should I look for when selecting a theme? How I find good plugins to extend my site’s functionality? When is it better to hire someone else to develop my website? How can I prequalify a developer? Knowing the answers to these question can save you from a few headaches.

July 10, 2017 — In early 2017, I was asked to build a custom importer for a website. “Not a problem,” I thought. After many late nights and much frustration, I finally completed it, only to wake up the next morning and find I needed to rewrite most of it. In this session we will discuss some of the obscure functions and ways to create an importer, along with some gotchas to consider.

November 26, 2016 — These are just a few random chats I was able to record during WordCamp Ann Arbor 2016. Many thanks to Andrea Rennick, Derek Miller, Joel Worsham, Marianna Juliette, Rich & Nicole Robinkoff and Seth Alling

January 19, 2016 — This session focuses on the do’s and don’ts of using the WordPress editor. Also, it will provide tips to improve a user’s content creation process, as well as how to fix problems that can occur.The intended audience is beginning users.

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October 28, 2015 — Cowboy code, FTP to a development server, work locally and FTP, work locally and push changes with version control. There are so many different environments available for developing and deploying WordPress sites that it can seem a little daunting, and figuring out how to make it all work is even more so. Explore the different ways to deploy a website from a local environment, and learn how you can exponentially reduce your deployment time with a few scripts.

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August 21, 2015 — So you’ve started your first WordPress site, and you begin writing your first post. Eventually you get your content written, and then notice that it just doesn’t look good when it’s on the site. After trying to “jazz it up” yourself, you realize you’ve created a monster with no idea where you went wrong or how to fix it. This session focuses on the do’s and don’ts of using the WordPress editor, while providing tips to help improve your content creation process.

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