Category Archives: WordPress Tips & Tricks

5 Reasons Bloggers Should NOT Attend WordCamp Birmingham 2018

By Javacia Harris Bowser

People often ask me why I still bother attending blogging conferences. “You’ve been blogging for a decade,” they say. “Don’t you know what the speakers are going to say before they say it?”

Oftentimes, yes. But not always.

The thing about blogging is it’s always changing. So as a blogger, if you want to keep growing you have to keep learning. And I always learn something new at WordCamp Birmingham.

I was a speaker at last year’s conference but I still attended several sessions, notebook in hand, and I filled the pages of that notebook with blogging strategies for the upcoming year.

This year I’ll be attending WordCamp Birmingham again. WordCamp Birmingham 2018 is set for August 4-5 and will be held at the Pelham Civic Complex. You can learn more and get your tickets at 2018.birmingham.wordcamp.org.

Buy My Ticket Now

If you’re eager to learn more about blogging in 2018 and beyond you should be there. But if you think you already know it all, you shouldn’t bother and here are five other reasons you should NOT attend.

You should NOT attend WordCamp if you enjoy breaking your website.

Because I know how to use WordPress and customize WordPress themes fairly well people think I’m a techie. Fake news! Just last week I broke my website trying to install my SSL certificate. And there was a time when I was intimidated by WordCamp events because I thought it was a conference just for website developers. But WordCamp Birmingham includes tracks of sessions on content (perfect for bloggers like me), business, and development.

This year’s conference will also include a WordPress 101 session for the blogging novice. This hands-on workshop will actually help you get started on building your WordPress site! And, of course, there’s the Happiness Bar where you can go get help from people who actually are techies, people who can keep you from breaking your website (or help you out after you do).

You should not attend WordCamp if you love being stuck in a blogging rut.

Are you having a hard time coming up with enough innovative content to update your blog a few times a week or even once a week? Well, Helen Rittersporn has been blogging every single day since February 26, 2015! Her WordCamp Birmingham session “12 Lessons from Daily Blogging” is sure to get your inspired and cure your blogger’s block. Also, Kathryn Lang will kick off the content track with a session on how to repurpose your content.

You should NOT attend WordCamp Birmingham is you’re perfectly OK with only three people reading your blog.

But if you would like someone other than your aunt, your mom, and your best friend to read your work, you might want to check out Bobby Kircher’s session on how to use Yoast to improve your SEO or Aida Correa’s session on how to leverage your WordCamp experience for better social media engagement or Chris Edwards’ session on Google Analytics or William Jackson’s talk on ways beyond SEO and Google to build your brand.

You should NOT attend WordCamp Birmingham if you have no desire to think outside the box.

If you don’t know what Gutenberg is and have no desire to find out, then attending the Gutenberg 101 session or learning how Gutenberg will empower WordPress users will mean nothing to you. If you’re not willing to think beyond your blog then you probably won’t be interested in Kathryn Lang’s workshop on how to start a podcast or Adam Silver’s session on how to use a podcast to grow your business. And you certainly have no use for Steve Schwartz’s session on video content and vlogging.

You should NOT attend WordCamp Birmingham if you hate meeting other bloggers.

Danielle LaPorte once said, “Find your tribe and love them hard.” But she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, right? Wrong.

Bloggers need community. You need people who get it, people who understand why you bother blogging in the first place. You need a blogging buddy to hold you accountable, to make sure you’re posting consistent content consistently. You need a tribe to help promote your work. You need a group of people to console you when you feel disappointed or discouraged and to break out in dance to help you celebrate your big wins.

In addition to all the great workshops, WordCamp Birmingham is a golden opportunity to meet other bloggers whether you do so during lunch, between sessions, or at the after party. Remember, teamwork makes the dream work.

See the Full Schedule

Hope to see you at WordCamp Birmingham 2018!

Javacia Harris Bowser is the founder and editor of See Jane Write, a website and community for women who write and blog.

How to Convince Your Boss to Send You to WordCamp

WordCamp Birmingham offers sessions and workshops for website owners, entrepreneurs, and bloggers, but what about businesses?

The internet has opened up a LITERAL world of possibilities for companies to grow their reach. The key is getting the decision makers to understand the value of sending you to the conference.

How do you justify your company sending you to WordCamp Birmingham 2018?
At a $40 price-point, it shouldn’t take much convincing! If you have other travel expenses to consider, here is a sample email that you could send to your manager, extolling the virtues and benefits of attendance. Customize it as needed to highlight the topics that are most important to your boss.

Sample Request Letter for WordCamp Birmingham

FROM: [your name]
TO: [your supervisor’s name]
RE: [Improvement of WordPress skills]

I understand our company needs to control its training costs and I know that it is looking for ways to get the most for the money it spends in every area. There is a cost-effective professional education conference featuring several seminars and workshops with professionals within the WordPress community. Here is a link to the schedule:
https://2018.birmingham.wordcamp.org/schedule

Notice it includes three tracts: Content, Business, and Development. Many of the topics are even relevant outside of the WordPress community–topics like SEO optimization, Google Analytics, Accessibility, and A/B User Testing. The Happiness Bar is available all weekend and consists of experienced developers providing free technical assistance to attendees for any WordPress issues they want to resolve during the conference.

I would like to attend WordCamp Birmingham 2018, August 4-5, 2018.
The registration fee is only $40 and includes registration, lunch both days, and lots of networking opportunities. The room rates at the available hotels are only $99/night, and transportation costs would be minimal with the option to either rent a car or use Uber.

The seminars will provide us with essential knowledge about creating new content, growing income streams through business development, increasing our virtual presence with SEO and Google Analytics, and learning how to implement emerging technologies from experienced developers to take WordPress to the next level.

Normally, an industry conference like this would cost hundreds of dollars! Fortunately, the WordPress community has tremendous support from volunteers, industry partners, and local businesses who have provided enough sponsorship to make this event ridiculously affordable! Please let me know as soon as possible since tickets are limited and there’s less than a month before the event. I can’t wait to share what I learn there!

# # #

It doesn’t hurt to ask your boss to send you to WordCamp, because, if you don’t ask, the answer is always “No.” Share the benefits of the conference and how you can bring those benefits back to the office.

Get your tickets!

WP 101: 4 Things Every WordPress Beginner Gets Wrong

By Jacob Crawford

Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know – but what you don’t know could be hurting your website or your engagement. Basic WordPress points will be covered in the WordPress 101 Workshop. For now, here are a few points to help you make the most of your WordPress site.

Overloading your site with too many plugins

Studies show that users spend fewer than three seconds waiting for web pages to load. And while it’s tempting to load your site with forms, trackers, extra styles, and integrations, each of those programs and sheets cost valuable load time.

Jetpack, WooCommerce, and Yoast are maybe the best plugins for a beginner. WooCommerce manages your e-business, Yoast checks your SEO, and Jetpack takes care of pretty much everything else from social media to comments.

Paying for premium services you don’t need (yet)

Grow organically with your site. While it’s easy to upscale, it’s difficult to downscale. There’s no need to drop money on an expensive theme when you don’t have the content or infrastructure to support it.

If you’re hosting through WordPress.com, seriously consider your goals and scope before investing in a Premium or Business plan. If you’re building a portfolio site, the Personal plan is probably best. If you’re a t-shirt company with a couple dozen employees, a Business plan is probably more your speed.

Picking a theme that doesn’t reflect your content

This seems self-evident, but you’d be surprised how many WordPress beginners choose themes based on previews. Instead, consider how the theme will highlight your content. If you’re a photoblogger, consider a theme with plenty of thumbnails and galleries. If you’re a writer, pick a theme that highlights your words.

Don’t waste your time trying to match your content to your theme: match your theme to your content.

Friends don’t let friends blog alone

WordPress is a community. And it’s full of people who love helping beginners. Get involved with local MeetUps and other events. It always helps to have a second set of eyes look over what you are doing.

At WordCamp Birmingham, we’re dedicated to helping people like you get started. Attend our WordPress 101 course, where we walk you through the basics one step at a time. Or stop by and see us at the Happiness Bar, where specialists and enthusiasts like you congregate help others get the most from their WordPress sites.

Interested in learning more? Snag your tickets to WordCamp Birmingham today!

Tickets

Want to see the full schedule?

Schedule

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4 Ways to Engage the Listener with Your Content

Header image captured by Wanda Raina Evans of RAW Images Photography

There was a young preacher who invested all his week preparing to impress his new congregation with the first sermon. When the preacher arrived at the church, only one old farmer sat in the pews. The preacher waited for several minutes and then asked the farmer what he should do.

The farmer replied. “Well, Preacher, I’m just a simple farmer, but every morning I get up and I go out to feed my cows. And every morning I feed my cows no matter if one shows up or if the whole herd shows up. It’s my job to feed the cows.”

The young preacher nodded, took to the pulpit, and went to it. He poured out his heart over the words he had invested his week into. An hour later, he stepped down from the pulpit, wiped his brow, and smiled at the old farmer. “So, how was it?”

The farmer replied. “Well, Preacher, I’m just a simple farmer, and every morning I go out to feed my cows no matter if one shows up or if the whole heard shows up. But if only one shows up, I don’t pour out all the feed I would have given the whole herd.”

Sometimes it is better to say little or say nothing at all than to pour out all the feed when there is nobody listening.

engage your listeners

Engage the Listeners

  1. Watch for the response. In person, it can be easier to tell than online – but engagement can be a big clue to whether people are listening or tuning out. Watch your analytics to see how long people are hanging around. Check your video stats to see when people drop off from watching. Either way, say what you have to say and then stop talking!

  2. Lower your voice. It is not just about stopping the words, but also about lowering the volume. When you change the tone of what you are saying you encourage the listener to lean into your words.

  3. Keep is simple. We invest too much energy trying to make things complicated when it is really simple. Make what you have to say important to the listener by making it valuable to the listener.

  4. Avoid information overload. You may want to tell the listener everything about your topic, but try to keep it to three to five main points in a presentation or a post. Anything more than that and you risk losing the reader.

Make the content you share more engaging by making about a conversation with one person – and remember that when it is one person you don’t have to feed the whole herd.

Get your WordCamp Birmingham tickets!

The Best Conference for Writers You May Never Have Heard Of

Writers and authors stay on the lookout for ways to get the word out about how to get their words out. Finding platform-building solutions and writing encouragement are just some of the needs they seek. If you are a writer or an author and you are searching for word support, do we have some news for you.

WordCamp Birmingham offers a plethora of writing inspiration and business growing sessions – perfect for the wordsmith seeking to build up writing success.

Past Sessions Focused on Writers

WordCamp Birmingham has had some fantastic sessions for writers. And they’re only going to get better this year. Take a look at the kinds of topics you can expect:

In other words, the organizers of WordCamp understand the first part of the name matters. It takes words to build a website. They are dedicated to finding speakers to help promote word development as much as they are to promoting design development. There will be plenty of great sessions that writers can use to grow their writing skills, expand their business, or just figure out how to surf the noise of the web.

Growing a writing life can be a challenge. Finding new or unique tools to build that life can be vital to creating flexibility for the writing life as you pursue success.

Why WordCamp Matters to Writers

You get better at writing when you write. It is as simple as this. Creating posts for a blog, writing for social media, and even developing content for other sites not only pushes you to write but often pushes you to write outside your normal niche or comfort zone as well.

Attending WordCamp Birmingham will provide you will tips for taking your writing to the next level and building your online presence. Even more important, you will build connections with others that have a passion for words (even if the words are used in a different form than you may be used to).

Dare to look beyond the box. See the possibilities of a conference focused on WordPress but really about so much more. Make an investment into WordCamp Birmingham and make an investment into your writing journey.

How to Keep Your Reader’s Attention by Speeding Up WordPress

We are NOT a patient society. That means if you delay someone from using your website, then they probably will give up and go somewhere else. If they do stick around on a slow loading website, then you only have a few seconds to get their attention.

Kissmetrics did a case study and determined that even a one-second delay in loading speed could result in an annual loss of $2.5 million. The conversion rate drops that much.

Over at Torquemag.io, Janna Hilferty shared some thoughts on the patience level of readers. Her article, 13 Performance-boosting Site Speed Tips for WordPress, shares some thoughts on how to speed up your site so that you can keep the readers hanging around.

The one thing that jumped out at me is the need to cache the pages. I am far from the most technical WordPress user (I fall under the content creator and code BREAKER column), the idea that something as simple as a caching system could speed up my website caught me off guard.

Nathan Ingram, one of the WPYall WordCamp Birmingham organizers, shared more tips in a webinar, Optimizing Images for Your WordPress Website, focused on not only creating great images but great images that load fast.

If you do nothing else to speed up your WordPress sites, making sure that you set up caching (which can be done through plugins like W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, and WP Super Cache). You can also use Smush, Imagify, or TinyPNG to keep your images under control.

The Takeaway

SPEED MATTERS, Y’ALL!

What really caught me off guard is that a one-second slowdown would make as much of a difference as it does. Keeping your readers on your website can LITERALLY be the difference in seconds (or even less).

What are your top tips for keeping your website loading fast?