Sessions

Presented by Jenna Curry in Business/Marketing.

New to Facebook Advertising? Been unsuccessful in the past? Looking to level up what you’re already doing? Discover the capabilities using Facebook Advertising for lead generation and sales for your own business and your clients. Leave with a checklist of tools and best practices every digital marketer should implement into their website and landing pages to increase conversions.

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Presented by Peter La Fond in Business/Marketing.

Many of you will spend weeks and months building and fine-tuning a website only to be confronted with a disaster, glass ceiling or brick wall. This talk identifies common pitfalls and provides a path for avoiding them. Don’t be in the position where you’re saying… “I wish someone told me that!”

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Presented in Beginners, Business/Marketing, Designers/Power Users, Developer.

Keep the good times going with a free after-party near the conference.  Beer and Wine provided and food available for purchase from Pepe’s Taco Truck.  5pm till 8pm.   At the offices of Tayloe/Gray,  221 N 2nd Street. (next to Courtyard by Marriott)  Only 3 minute walk.

Hosted by Sponsor Tayloe/Gray in downtown Wilmington, walking distance from the conference venue.

221. N. 2ND STREET WILMINGTON, NC 28401

Presented by Jeremy LeRay in Beginners.

We will discuss the importance of treating your website as the center of everything that you do online. Social media, email marketing, offline interactions all need to point back to your website. It’s the one thing online that you have complete control over.

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Presented by Derek Schmidt in Business/Marketing.

It’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole of researching what the best marketing strategies are, how to implement them in your WordPress site and ultimately how to measure their success. This session will help you understand which channels are best for what and how you can implement these into your own website to start generating revenue from your website.

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Presented by Benjamin Bradley in Designers/Power Users.

Many freelancers, developers, and website managers will eventually run into a feeling of being an “imposter” and fear that others will discover that we are not good enough. In this session, we will look at the “imposter syndrome” and how we are not alone in this adventure. Learn also how to overcome and conquer this roadblock and how not to let this fear of not being good enough stop you from developing into the person you want.

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Presented by Dante Crescenzi in Developer.

This talk will be about the automatization of offline business processes through custom plugin development and deployment.

THIS TALK WAS CANCELLED.

Presented by Vasyl Martyniuk in Beginners.

WordPress is just the right tool for the right job like any other CMS or development framework. Through my software developer career it is very pleasant to see how WordPress CMS helps small businesses grow exponentially and heartbreaking when it is used improperly for jobs that it is simply not designed for. In this topic I would like to share few stories of successful and not really WordPress projects that might help beginners to understand WordPress pros and cons.

Presented by Helen Rittersporn in Beginners.

If you have ever found yourself staring at a blank screen to come up with blog topics this session: “Top 9 Lessons from daily blogging for over 900 days & still counting” with Helen Rittersporn will be of help. It is a continuation from last year’s WordCamp Wilmington 2016 where Helen presented “Lessons from daily blogging for over 600 days & still counting”.

Join Helen as she shares Lessons Learned from blogging over 900 daily blog posts (& still counting!). Her blog, Anchored Scraps, encourages old-style correspondence letter writing. Items will include Time Management of writing and posting daily blog posts; benefits of blogging daily; and insights using WordPress to blog daily.

Helen’s Milestone 1000th daily blog post will be on November 21, 2017, since launching AnchoredScraps on February 26, 2015! Whether you are new or a returning WordCamp Wilmington alumni this presentation will help inspire you to increase your blogging frequency and with confidence!

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Presented by Holly Cruz, Jonathan Fashbaugh in Designers/Power Users.

If you’re like many freelancers, especially early in your career or in between gigs, your ears perk up at every opportunity to take on new work. Your clients are scattered across a number of verticals with more than a few friends and family projects that pay little or no money. In our talk, Jonathan Fashbaugh and Holly Cruz will talk about how Jonathan went from a one-man show that subsisted on his 401K to a thriving business that will do nearly $1M this year all by working exclusively dentists. You can grow your freelancing business into a highly profitable company by being an expert in serving niche industry professionals such as surgeons, lawyers, and dentists.

Topics to be covered will include:
– business growth and client acquisition (handling gatekeepers, the benefits of specialization, and how to leverage contracts (or not), and raising your prices).
– setting goals and expectations for new leads (dispelling marketing myths, and adding SEO to the mix)
– building a relationship with people who may- on paper at least- be much smarter than you (climb up on the pedestal with that MD!, communication tips, and adding a personal touch to the working relationship)
– client retention techniques (build a stream of recurring revenue, expanded all-inclusive services, staying small intentionally and avoiding rapid growth, proactivity that can bring in extra cash, and the power of “thank you”s)

We will laugh. We will get you excited and inspired. We will make plans to implement on Monday morning!

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Presented by Andrew Gray in Designers/Power Users.

While WordPress can service the needs of both your clients and your internal organization, it is critical to focus your strategies and execution on providing solutions to business challenges. Comprehensive plans ensure successful projects, and over time, help sustain successful businesses. This talk will include approaches for defining the scope of projects centered around WordPress, and a case study of a complex project developed for an enterprise client to illustrate potential opportunities.

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Presented by Evan Mullins in Developer.

It’s here, what can I do with it now? A couple case studies on how to use the API and code samples to get you started. It allows us to further separate the data from the code. Use WordPress as a CMS and then via the API easily access or update that data to power whatever we like. We’ll touch how to set it up and a handful of examples and then explore an iOS app pulling all it’s data and assets from a WordPress site via this API.

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Presented by Laura Hartwig in Developer.

Details from my experience in running two successful WP Meetup groups. I chose the developers group as the audience, but this talk would be perfect for any of the groups.

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Presented by Tiffany Kuchta in Developer.

Make your WordPress site fly with this one weird trick…except it’s more than one trick, and it’s only weird until you learn how it works. Varnish Cache can speed up information delivery by a factor of several hundred and earn you the coveted “A” in the TTFB column. This talk will provide an overview of Varnish Cache, what it is and how it works. Then we’ll explore setup and the ways you can integrate Varnish with simple WordPress sites before discussing more complex implementations, strategies for handling state, Edge Side Includes and other neat things Varnish does. HTTPS? Glad you asked. We’ll talk about that too.

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Presented by Matthew Woodard in Business/Marketing.

Leverage WordPress to create a content strategy for your brand. Build your social audience and share the valuable information you have with your readers. Learn how to convert this audience into paying customers, all on WordPress.

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Presented by Kevin Dees in Developer.

Designing and developing a dozen unique theme templates does not need to be painful. A page-builder makes creating WordPress templates as easy as playing with Legos. With a page-builder you can break each section of a template into blocks that can be place in any order removing the need for template files.

You do not need 100s of lines of code to make your own page-builder. All you need is a WordPress development framework called TypeRocket.

TypeRocket is like Advanced Custom Fields + Laravel (MVC) + Speed. With TypeRocket you can make your own page builder, customize it with any number of custom fields, all with only a few lines of code.

In this talk you will see a portfolio site developed and learn how to code your own fast and beautiful page-builder to make it happen. Plus you will see how to create custom post types, use repeater fields, build a REST API, and more.

Oh, and you will not need a single WordPress plugin.

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Presented by Nathan Ingram in Designers/Power Users.

Has a client ever wasted your time in a consulting session? Ever had a one-hour consultation turn into 3? Have you experienced the sinking feeling that comes when you leave the consultation and realize you failed to ask a key question? This talk provides answers to these issues and more. Attendees will leave with a clear, memorable outline to manage the client consultation. Using this strategy (that anyone can implement), I close over 90% of the proposals I create.

Presented by Seth Shoultes in Business/Marketing.

I’ve been using WordPress for over ten years and running a business around it for eight years. Before that, I worked various construction jobs, then ran a small website development business and dabbled in all kinds of CMS’s, then moved on to work as a front-end developer in a marketing position at an international medical coding and billing education company. While I worked there, I developed their WordPress websites and built various in-house plugins, at the same time I stayed up every night after work developing the early versions of Event Espresso for my wife’s scrapbooking business. Due to the material costs and flaky customers, she wasn’t willing to shell out fees to Eventbrite. Since there weren’t any good plugins (IMO) at the time, I found an abandoned plugin that handled registrations, then added PayPal. Since I never heard back from the original developer, I ended up releasing and marketing my plugin under a different name. After a while, it got to where I was supporting it so much that I had to quit my full-time job to work on developing the plugin, supporting customers, and growing the business around the plugin. Somewhere along the way, I picked up my co-founder, Garth Koyle, we entered the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge in 2011 and won the grand prize of $40,000 for our business idea. At the time, we had just released the first version of our mobile apps, which allowed onsite ticket scanning and attendance tracking. Then in 2015, we launched our software as a service company, called Event Smart, which is powered by WordPress and Event Espresso.

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Presented by William Jackson in Beginners.

Now that you are using WordPress and creating content, how does your content embrace the diversity that will take your business to the next level. Diversity in content, diversity in viewers, money is diverse in its literal form. No business will grow unless they can connect to multiple demographic and cultural groups. Some of the most successful businesses successfully use Social Media and tech platforms and tools to build a connection with their customers and potential customers. How to be Dope and Relevant on Social Media is an engaging and interactive presentation that encourages thinking out of the box, building PLC – professional learning communities and understanding the value of networking when it comes to PLN – professional learning networks.

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Presented by Ian Oeschger in Developer.

WordPress has grown from a humble, open source blogging tool into the most dominant site development platform in the world. But does its growth, flexibility and robustness extend all the way to the enterprise? IBM software developer and architect Ian Oeschger talks about a large scale adoption of WordPress at IBM developerWorks, about user management and security, REST APIs, web standards, custom types, performance and other features that work in the enterprise, and some that do not.

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Presented by Sara Whitford in Business/Marketing.

Getting the right audience to your site is half the battle, but keeping them interested once you’ve gotten them there is the really tricky part. It doesn’t have to be, though! If you can identify your target audience, you can begin to figure out how to meet and exceed their expectations. Learn how you can ensure everything from your site’s navigation, to its aesthetic, to your content, and of course, your follow-up — all work together to grab your visitors’ attention and keep them engaged!

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Presented by Ashley Cribb in Beginners.

If you are a beginner​ how do you choose your hosting company?

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Presented by Jared McMullin in Beginners.

I have built 20+ WordPress websites for clients. I can explain how to figure out what your website will be about, why hosting is EXTREMELY important, how to find the best themes and plugins, why you need to backup your data, security, SEO, and cache. This will help people who know the WordPress backend, go from 0 to a completed website in no time!

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Presented by Corey Freeman in Business/Marketing.

Corey FreemanThere are thousands of “essential plugins” and “essential steps” and “must-haves” on building a small business website. Let’s cut through the muck and understand what you DON’T need for a small business website to be successful. We’ll talk about…

1. Mentality
2. Web Design Trends
3. Plugins & Services
4. SEO Madness
5. Tips for Straightforward Success

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Presented by Adam Sewell in Designers/Power Users.

We’ve all seen it, a WordPress site that has been hacked and serving out malware or redirecting you to some interesting looking sites. In this talk we will discuss how to recover a WordPress site from a hack. But wait, there’s more. We will also talk about how to detect, recover, and protect your WordPress site in the first place!

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Presented by Carrie Cousins in Developer.

The gig economy is a real thing, and I can attest to it — my side hustle is generating as much income as my full time job these days. Here’s the part no one tells you: With a little dedication and skill a good designer (print or digital) can jump into the world of freelance work. The talk will provide ways to establish yourself as an expert in the field and even build WordPress sites for clients. The trick to it all? Having a solid work ethic, innate curiosity to keep learning new things and a great internet connection!

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Presented in Developer.

Presented by Vasyl Martyniuk in Designers/Power Users.

WordPress was never designed as user multi-level CMS with ability to manage access. It was the core idea that all posts and pages are meant to public. This limitation does not satisfy an average WordPress website owner and a lot of times this is the reason why they choose to go with Drupal, Joomla, Typo3 etc. In this topic I would like to focus on the native WordPress features that are related to the access management and how they work. I will explain the full concept and idea behind users, roles and capabilities. A lot of material is exclusive and you will not be able to find it anywhere online. With this knowledge, the website owner can pick a better strategy on how to manage access to both frontend and backend.

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Presented by Kyle Laverty in Business/Marketing.

For the non-digital small businesses interested in utilizing WordPress, things can be a bit daunting at first. I’m here to give you the low-down on jumping into WordPress as a small business. Where to begin and how to take your business up a notch using WordPress, from concept to installation and choosing a theme (and plugins).

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Presented by Mickey Trivett in Designers/Power Users.

Have you ever needed an extra hand when working on a website or project? Are you looking to expand your business by hiring a staff? Have you ever considered outsourcing? If you answered Yes to any of these questions, then this is the seminar for you. I will walk you through what has worked for me and share my experiences and hiccups with you. I will let you know what tools I use to monitor and manage my projects with my staff. I will give you the best practices that I know to maintain a healthy and good relationship with your virtual assistants. This informative talk will leave you with the tools and resources to grow your business.

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Presented by Lauren Jeffcoat in Beginners.

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.

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Presented by Ben Meredith in Beginners.

In this talk, using years of experience helping users in both free and premium plugin support, Ben will take you through what makes a good support request, how you can create better support requests, and how good support requests make WordPress better for everyone.

Do you know that there’s a link between your support tickets and better documentation?

Do you find yourself frustrated at developers and support reps who can’t seem to diagnose issues arising from their plugins or themes?

Do you want to find better answers to your support questions, more quickly?

Plus, the two-minute method of solving +50% of your support requests before you even send them.

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