WordCamp Sacramento 2015: Beginner/User Track Schedule

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WordCamp Sacramento 2015 Beginner/User Track

WordCamp Is Almost Here!

Wow! It’s hard to believe that WordCamp Sacramento is happening in less than two weeks! November 7, 2015 is approaching quickly and we’re finializing signage, name badges, logistics, and more to create an unforgettable experience for you.

We hope that over the last couple of weeks you’ve enjoyed getting to know our speakers better through the Q&A interview series we’ve been running on the blog — and that you’ve enjoyed learning more about what to expect from the first WordCamp in our capitol city.

We’ve finalized the event schedule and are excited to share the lineup of speakers and sessions for the Beginner/User Track.

Beginner/User Track Schedule

8:30-8:50 am

Welcome & Kick Off

9:00-9:50 am | Greg Taylor

The New Age of Content

Content Marketing isn’t new, but now if you don’t have a solid multi-faceted content strategy you will get left behind. In this session, we’ll dive into how you can create a solid content marketing strategy that includes video, podcasting, Ask-Me-Anythings (AMAs) and how to execute your plan with WordPress.

10:00-10:50 am | Dawn Pedersen

Content Design: Getting The Most From Your Content And Images

This session takes you beyond the cut and paste addition of content to your WordPress site, and digs into the details of content formatting and image management to create beautiful pages and posts visitors actually want to read. You’ll learn:

  • Best practices to make your content feel easy, fast, and interesting to read
  • Tips on working with images to attract attention and keep page load speed fast
  • Visual considerations the best content designers take into account that give their site design and content presentation an edge

11:00-11:50 am | Chris Lema

Lessons Learned From Reviewing 30 Membership Plugins

What happens when you review 30 membership plugins? You learn a lot about writing reviews. You learn a lot about products and product marketing. You learn a lot about membership plugins. Come hear the stories of these lessons if you’re either a product developer, in marketing, or a membership plugin user.

12:00-1:15 pm

Chipotle Catered Lunch

1:15-1:45 pm | Nolan Erck

Git Source Control: for the Rest of Us

Most “Intro to Git” presentations assume the user does source control management via the command line. However, for a lot of people — like front-end developers that came from a Photoshop background who are doing HTML/CSS work — that’s simply not the case. If you’re a designer or developer using WordPress and aren’t using GIT, or you’ve ever asked the question, “how to use a GUI tool to start learning Git?” then this session is for you. In this session, we’ll cover:

  • An intro to what “source control” is and when / why I need it
  • An intro to what Git is
  • How to use Git from a GUI
  • The difference in Git and GitHub
  • Some next steps: branching, reverting, merging, using some real code/asset files

1:50-2:20 pm | Nick Shipilin

Posts are for Blogs (WordPress IA Basics)

There is more to the WordPress than just Posts and Pages. This talk will look at the information architecture of sites that are more than simple blogs, and how custom post types, combined with custom taxonomies can be used to help you organize and publish your content. We will look quickly at ways of working with the code to do this manually, as well as ways to achieve the same goals with plugins.

2:25-3:00 pm | Suzette Franck

Using CSS3 in WordPress

There is not much documentation on using CSS3 in WordPress, and while not many of the new CSS3 modules have reached official recommendation by the W3C, support is very good across all of the latest browsers. This session will aim to inform, enlighten, and delight attendees with the right way to include CSS in your WordPress theme using child themes or a plugin such as Jetpack, and we will also cover some of the best new features of CSS3 that you can put to work right away.

3:00-3:30 pm

Break

3:30-4:00 pm | Ben Ilfeld

Ad Revenue 101

WordPress is easy! Ads are… not so much. Are you curious about some of the basics of the industry? Maybe you’d like to earn some revenue from your site? In this session we’ll look at options for monetizing your WordPress site.

4:05-4:35 pm | Bernice “Be” Lee

Taking WordPress from Hobby to Side Job as a Freelancer

There is group of people who began using WordPress as a hobby, then soon began getting paid for WordPress work as freelancers. Once you start getting paid, the government sees it as income — even if it’s just a side job. In this session, we will be cover basic things to consider when you begin working as a freelancer, what to include in a basic business plan, and tips from other freelancers.

4:45-5:00 pm | John Locke

Plugins Part 1: iThemes Security

Security is an important part of keeping your website safe and minimizing risk to your business. Since WordPress powers one in four websites, it is an appealing target for malicious hackers. While no site is 100% un-hackable, there are things you can do to deter malicious attacks to your own site. One of these steps is to use a security plugin to harden your site. iThemes Security is one of the most popular security plugins, with over 600,000 active installs. In this talk, we’ll go through the major features this plugin offers, and how you can use it to keep your own site more secure.

5:00-5:15 pm | Alex Christensen

Plugins Part 2: eCommerce

How to effectively start an ecommerce website with WordPress by selecting the correct shopping cart solution to keep your business focused on the foundations before expanding.

5:15-5:30 pm | Russell Aaron

Plugins Part 3: Forms

Contact forms are a huge part of the online world. Contact forms provide a way for your potential clients and customers to reach out to you without displaying your email address publicly. So which contact form plugin is the best? We’re going to put the popular contact form plugins through a series of challenges. In the end, you will be able to determine which contact form plugin is the right one for you and your business or blog. We’ll be testing Gravity Forms, Formidable Forms, Contact Form 7 and Ninja Forms.

5:30-5:45 pm

Closing Remarks

Awesome Lineup, Right?!

Now you see that we weren’t kidding when we said that we were bringing you an awesome lineup to get excited about!

Oh, and don’t forget that the WordCamp Happiness Room will be open all day, so at any time you can mozy on in and get all your WordPress questions answered and even get help with your WordPress site!

Also, be sure to connect with our speakers and other WordCamp attendees on Twitter and Facebook — and don’t forget to use the event hashtag #wcsac.