Presented by Tim Covell in 2nd Floor Room 1, Content Creators.

After several years of using self-hosted WordPress, I switched to WordPress.com. What I lost, and gained, and tips such as how to continue using your own domain name for the site and for email. Using WordPress.com may be a better solution for small and personal sites, especially when blogging. It can be easier, cheaper, and more marketable, but there are some considerations that might make it unsuitable which I’ll also cover.

Presented by Alison Knott in 3rd Floor Room 1, Code Creators, Content Creators, Site Creators.

Let’s warm up our WordPress chops… with a Plugin Roundup!

Share a plugin you can’t live without, or give a cautionary tale of a plugin to avoid. This session’s content is driven by YOU, the attendees! Those that wish to share have 1 minute to talk, while Alison Knott plays “WP Vanna White” to write down your suggestions and pull up the plugin’s website on screen.

Don’t have a plugin to share but want to absorb it all like a sponge? Come on in and learn a thing or two – the final list will be made public for all to keep at their finger tips.

Appropriate for all levels and experiences of WordPress. Always a crowd pleaser, this session is a great way to wake up to WordPress with coffee or tea in hand.

Presented in 2nd Floor Room 1, Content Creators.

Hosted by WordCamp Leader & WordPress meetup Co-leader Crystal Picard

Own a business? Using WordPress?

Yeah, there are probably many questions you have about running your business with the help of your WordPress website. Things like:

• How do I make money from my blog?
• How do I get people to stay on my website?
• How do I get people to come to my website in the first place?
• How can I find trustworthy plugins?
• How can I take payment online?

In this Panel, we will be discussing more general business questions with these business owners:

Anita Kirkbride: Twirp Communications founder and social media expert. Discusses blogging, SEO, and Social Media.
Alison Knott: International creative tech speaker who’s passionate about the intersection of web, creativity, and business.
Keegan Francis: Co-founder of Atlantic Blockchain Company, an education-based company aiming to accelerate the adoption of blockchain technology.
Nadia Nasrallah: Creating Amazon Affiliate websites since 2011. How to make money from your website via passive income.
Shawn Hooper: Director of IT at Actionable, a learning and development startup based in Toronto. Core contributor to the WordPress open source project.

Have a question you want asked during the panel? Email CrystalPicard@gmail.com

Presented by Michael MacMillan in 3rd Floor Room 1, Site Creators.

We all know that feeling – the completion of content! You’ve put your time, energy, and resources into writing, producing, or creating exactly what your customers are looking for – but are they seeing it?

Your content needs to stand out. Increase your search success and organic traffic by reviewing content on older posts for SEO opportunities. If you know the basics and are looking for more advanced SEO strategies – this is for you!

After this session, you will know:

• How to identify which existing posts have the strongest opportunity
• How to determine which keywords to focus on
• How to optimize metadata and content to improve ranking signals
• What factors get your content into featured snippets (position 0)

Presented by Keegan Francis in 3rd Floor Room 2, Code Creators.

With the advent of cryptocurrency, connecting with your audience and monetizing your content has never been easier. Using peer-to-peer blockchain technology, you can monetize the products and content on your site directly and open up a new way for people to access your services.

Join Keegan as he walks through the basics of cryptocurrency and how you can start accepting cryptocurrency on your website.

Presented by Stephanie Lummis in 3rd Floor Room 1, Site Creators.

Information Architecture (IA) is the foundation that supports your website. Without a strong IA, usability and findability will fail, leading site visitors to the back button. In this session, you’ll learn:

• What IA is
• How to create an IA that aligns with audience needs
• Different organizational structures and schemas
• Best practices for navigating and searching
• How to create effective page layouts

Presented by Enrique Hoyos in 3rd Floor Room 1, Site Creators.

You have a website for a reason. You want it to generate leads, increase brand awareness, or sell your products and services online. But how do you know if your website is doing its job? And, more importantly, how do you optimize its performance?

This is where digital analytics tools like Google Analytics come in. They help you understand exactly what is and isn’t working on your website. These tools are filled with metrics and reports that can be overwhelming and sometimes confusing. This talk will give you a basic understanding of Google Analytics and the most important reports you need to be looking at – More importantly, I will walk you through a 5-step framework to simplify and better understand your data.

Presented by Denise Alison in 2nd Floor Room 1, Content Creators.

Your website is an important piece of your online marketing strategy. But it doesn’t end there!

Telling the story of your brand has never been more important. Building relationships, creating conversations, and sharing your story are all important parts of your social media strategy. People don’t want to do business with logos or “brands”, they want to do business with people. In this talk, we’ll cover:

– using social media to position your leadership, authority, and expertise
– building an authentic presence that connects & resonates with your audience
– increasing your visibility with a cohesive strategy

Presented by David Moore in 3rd Floor Room 2, Code Creators.

This is a Gravity Forms-based talk.

I work with a local courier company and wanted an easy way to calculate their rates without having to think about it. So, I built a rate calculator around their rates. I’m going to show you how I built it.

This is great for anyone who runs a business that ships locally and would ever want to make their life a little easier. The math is a little dense but the concept is simple. So, anyone who has any experience in the back end of WordPress or above should be able to grasp this talk.

Presented by Corinne Boudreau in 3rd Floor Room 1, Site Creators.

Learn how best to implement website privacy policies, which are required by law in Canada for business websites when a designer or DIY user is creating or updating their website. We will focus on resources to use and answer common questions.

Presented by Christophe Jourdan in 3rd Floor Room 2, Code Creators.

Talking about how we use Bedrock, Timber, Webpack, and Sass to improve our workflow.

Presented by Ifo Ikede in 2nd Floor Room 1, Content Creators.

This presentation will include a resource list to allow folks to dig deeper and to facilitate change within their organizations. You will want to attend this workshop if you ever wondered:

• How can we grow our local WordPress community, how can we truly embrace and celebrate diversity ..?

• How can we make our spaces and event a truly safe space for women, visible-minorities and other marginalized and under Representative groups?

We will host a facilitated group discussion, in which strategies will be shared, to increase outreach to underrepresented communities, as well as how to make the spaces, workplaces, conferences etc. welcoming to diverse groups of gender, mental health & racialized communities.

It will open up with a brief overview of some of the challenges and solutions, showcasing some success strategies, including what wordpress.com is doing and a bit of Ifo’s personal journey in the IT sector.

Presented by Alison Knott in 3rd Floor Room 1, Site Creators.

Pat yourself on the back, you’re creating content with WordPress. But truth be told, this whole core/themes/plugins business is a bit…confusing. Oh, if only there was a way to know it all in under 45 minutes!

*Poof!* Your fairy WordPress Godmother Alison to the rescue! Here to grant your wish, she’ll have you leaving with a deeper understanding of how WordPress really works beyond the publish button. Topics will include:

• Visual aids to better understand how WordPress organizes your content
• Managing theme expectations
• How to pick plugins
• Pages vs. Posts (and unsung heroes called categories)
• Why pay for themes or plugins
• Core/theme/plugin updating

Come highly-caffeinated for this one, folks!

Presented in 2nd Floor Room 1, 3rd Floor Room 1, 3rd Floor Room 2.

Presented by Nadia Nasrallah in 2nd Floor Room 1, Content Creators.

The world of affiliate marketing began almost as soon as the Internet became available to public users. Why? Because the prospect of making a passive income by selling other companies’ products is one that many cannot pass over. 

In particular, the Amazon Affiliate Program, which hit the scene in 1996, is one of the most popular affiliate opportunities in the world. Many have made millions from this program and there is still much opportunity to make a passive monthly income with Amazon.

In this talk, Nadia will discuss the following:

• What does it take to get started and just how does Amazon Affiliate Marketing work?
• Creating a Silo in WordPress based on a real example of a viable niche. 
• Making it legal: How to make your affiliate WordPress site compliant with Amazon guidelines by including GDPR compliance, affiliate disclosures, and a plugin to extract images from the Amazon API.

Presented by Jeremy Josey in 3rd Floor Room 2, Code Creators.

Learn how users can go about using the WordPress API and building a React Single Page Application using React.

Presented by Anita Kirkbride in 2nd Floor Room 1, Content Creators.

Upon learning simple strategies for business blogging, Anita Kirkbride ’s WordPress business blog went from ZERO to HERO in a matter of weeks. Her blog and Google results are her number one referrer of business and she’ll be sharing her best tips for using a business blog to be found.

Anita will help you discover the right blog content and learn how to use Yoast SEO and WordPress to get your search engine placement scores up to be found by your ideal clients.

Presented by Shawn Hooper in 3rd Floor Room 2, Code Creators.

Much has been said about the value of unit-testing your code, but what about testing that your websites and applications work correctly once deployed? What about cross-browser testing? This talk will introduce you to testing your UI using Selenium, a tool that tests your project by acting like a real user.

You will learn:

– How to install Selenium
– The difference between self-hosted and SaaS providers
– How to create a UI test

Presented in 2nd Floor Room 1, 3rd Floor Room 1, 3rd Floor Room 2.