Sessions

Using Pinterest to Drive Traffic to Your WordPress Site

Presented by McCall Humes in Business / User.

Top tips for optimizing your WordPress site to make it Pinterest friendly including plugin options and rich pins.

Business Principles for WordPress Project Success

Presented by Dre Armeda, John Hawkins in Designer / Developer.

In this session Dre and John will talk about key areas they like to focus on that lead to successful projects. The two well known and respected WordPress entrepreneurs will share with you several of the things they’ve learned along the way. Hopefully one or two of them will save you from having to learn the same lessons at the school of hard knocks.

Keynote: Uniting the Developer and Business Communities with WordPress

Presented by John Hawkins in Business / User, Designer / Developer.

For the last 5 years, John has run WordCamp Las Vegas as well as the popular Las Vegas WordPress Meetup Group which now has over 640 members and meets every month. Oh yeah, he’s also the sole owner of 9seeds with a lean and mean staff that is spread across the country.

John is no longer running WordCamp Las Vegas but he’s even more active in the WordPress community than ever before. His Keynote for WordCamp Las Vegas 2014 will discuss our theme for this year, Uniting the Developer and Business Communities with WordPress, and it means for WordPress users, developers, and the Las Vegas business and tech communities.

Crafting the Perfect Home Page

Presented by Rebecca Gill in Business / User.

Crafting the perfect home page is more than using stock themes, images, and text. It’s about creating a home page that connects with visitors. To truly connect with website visitors, you need a deeper understanding of who visits your website, why they come, and what information they seek. In this presentation we will dig into defining user personas, creating visitors paths, and utilizing focused call to actions to help website visitors convert into leads, sales, and real revenue.

Ten Features of Jetpack You Can’t Live Without

Presented by Suzette Franck in Sunday Workshops.

Since its inception from WordPress.com Stats several years ago, the Jetpack suite of plugins has matured into a well-rounded group of helpful tools that you’ll wonder how you could ever live without. A must for any self-hosted WordPress site owner, this session will cover how to leverage the top ten most useful social media features and the WordPress.com cloud-powered awesomeness to collect stats and provide feedback, such as the contact form, related posts, the top posts and pages widget, and more.

This 75 minute hands-on presentation with Q & A will cover the basics of how to get started with and how to use some of the awesome modules that come with Jetpack. Jetpack requires a WordPress.org account and a publicly accessible WordPress website, which will be necessary to participate in the class lessons. Others will be encouraged to ask questions and take notes for later.

How to Build a Brand with a Blog

Presented by Chris Lema in Business / User.

That first blog post you write gets no traffic. Yet. But give it time and with some consistency, it and others you write can open doors for you. Come hear one person’s journey from 0 visitors to a recognizable brand – a journey you can join.

Next Generation Monetization Opportunities with WordPress

Presented by John Lynn in Business / User.

In this presentation I’ll talk about the next generation of blog monetization opportunities. We’ll talk about the way to structure and sell an integrated marketing package that uses content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and more. We’ll also talk about how to show advertisers the value that these ad packages provide.

Outsourcing for Success with Your WordPress Site

Presented by Kathi Minsky in Business / User.

Is it time to stop trying to do everything yourself? Learn how to reach out and create an affordable and capable team of people supporting every area of your Online Presence. From the smallest task to full time site management, there are 10,000’s of people just waiting to inspire, build or manage every aspect of your online marketing efforts.

Beginning with small tasks through managing full time outsourced employees, including Overseas Designers, Virtual Assistants, Customer Service and Support and Social Media Management. There is a resource for everyone and every job.

SEO Speedwagon: Can’t Fight This Feeling

Presented by Kenny Eliason in Sunday Workshops.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you build an awesome website and no one is around to enjoy it, does it do any good? Building an awesome website is only half the battle, optimizing your site to perform well in search engines is the other half.

In this session, Kenny will provide his top tips for optimizing your WordPress site for top rankings in Google and other search engines.

  • SEO: What it is and why you want it
  • Two Strategies: High Quality Content and High Quality Links
  • On-Page Site Structure
    • Meta Title
    • Meta Description
    • Heading Tags, H1 & H2
    • Content Length
    • Images
    • Other media types
  • Off-Page
    • NAP: Name Address Phone Number
    • Directories
    • Social Profiles
    • YouTube

Site Speed

Presented by Brandon Dove in Sunday Workshops.

Land of Confusion (or, What Makes Genesis Special): Why You Need A Framework

Presented by Robert Gillmer in Designer / Developer.

Maybe you’ve heard about Genesis or other frameworks but you don’t know what all the fuss is about. Maybe you’ve tried to use Genesis but were thrown off by the actions and filters. Or maybe you just find me entertaining and want to spend a session listening to me talk. (Hey, it could happen.)

This talk is geared toward people who don’t know what a framework is or why they would want to use one. And for those that have used Genesis but weren’t impressed, I also address what sets Genesis apart from other themes and frameworks.

WordPress 4.1

Presented by Konstantin Obenland in Designer / Developer.

By the time of WordCamp Las Vegas, WordPress 4.1 is about to be released.

This session will look at the new features and general improvements slated for this release, including the new default theme for 2015. Starting out with a brief overview of how releases work in general, we will talk about the wide set of improvements in 4.1, and close with a look at marquee features that are scheduled for upcoming releases.

A Website Is Not A Poster: Designing Successfully For The Web

Presented by Michelle Schulp in Designer / Developer.

In the world of print, designers have control over every point and pica, but with all the variables inherent to the web, that same desire for control leads to headaches, frustration, and bad practices. You will learn specific guidelines to let go of that control and design more effectively for the web, as well as how to collaborate with developers to ensure a successful project without all the usual struggles.

Podcasting: Forget the Why, Let’s Talk About the How

Presented by Carrie Dils in Designer / Developer.

So you want to start a podcast? There’s a few things you need to know before you press that red “record” button. This session will give you an overview of the technical components you need to get your podcast up and running. We’ll discuss equipment, audio processing, setting up your RSS feed for distribution, and more.

Why You Don’t Need A Framework

Presented by Justin Tucker in Designer / Developer.

Frameworks are great. Using them can be immensely beneficial. However, they’re not always necessary and something you build could be the answer you’re looking for.

WordPress eCommerce with WooCommerce

Presented by Michael Cremean in Business / User.

WooCommerce is now the world’s most popular open source eCommerce platform. With over 5 million downloads, WooCommerce powers over 380k websites and over 17% of all eCommerce websites.

Quadshot Software has deployed many WordPress eCommerce websites using WooCommerce and has developed a complete open source online ticket sales platform built on WooCommerce called OpenTickets.

This presentation will cover:

  • functionality of WooCommerce for physical and virtual products
  • how to best use it for your business or clients
  • what you can do to extend it to solve real world problems using OpenTickets as an example of a product integrated with WooCommerce

We’ll cover some useful tips on setup, operating and extending this powerful platform.

Taking Your Blog Global: First Conquer Locally then Dominate the World

Presented by Rosario Grajales, Scott Roeben, Charlie Bass in Sunday Workshops.

Most of us have a simple goal for our blog:

starting small and blowing up big!

Of course we all know its not that simple…BUT it can be done through amazing content, personal branding, strategic marketing, and relationship-building.

It’s all about blogging with a purpose. Laying the groundwork, starting modestly with small, attainable goals, content generation, marketing and networking, and cross-pollination with other audiences. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Our three panelists have plenty of experience in doing this from being known for interviewing politicians and celebrities, blogging the good and bad of the local community (with the snarkiest attitude) and even being known for taking a selfie of oneself taking a selfie with President Bill Clinton.

Enhancing the Image Handling Capabilities of WordPress

Presented by Steve Rypka in Designer / Developer.

As developers, we know how to use images in WordPress but what about those clients who don’t? Make your sites more client-friendly when it comes to uploading and managing images. Make life easier with these very useful additions to your plugin library.

Managing Client Expectations

Presented by Steve Zehngut in Designer / Developer.

At Zeek Interactive, Steve has been managing client expectations for 20 years. In this session, he will share his tips for maintaining good communication throughout the lifecycle of a client relationship. Topics will include handling change orders, dealing with upset clients, and preventing project fires. Everyone who has clients should attend this session. Steve’s tips will help you maintain your sanity on your very next WordPress project.

Marketing Your Business Like An Expert Through WordPress

Presented by Laci Urcioli, Chris Cerrone in Business / User.

Chris Cerrone and Laci Urcioli are marketing and business consultants based in Las Vegas, NV. They also host The Cerrone Show, a top ranked business podcast for entrepreneurs and dreamers that has surpassed one million listeners in less than one year. These business experts leverage the power of WordPress to dominate their market and help others do the same.

They will cover some of the following topics:

  • Utilizing WordPress as a platform to house all of your insight tools and marketing plugins
  • Their favorite plugins that help them dominate their market:
    • PrettyLinks
    • Appsumo
    • Leadpages
    • Many more

Video in your WordPress Website

Presented by Chris Rogers in Sunday Workshops.

Creating video is hard enough! Chris will show you how to easily get your freakin’ video file into your WordPress website. He will also show you how to create video content with equipment you (probably) already own, ie: mobile devices, software, yada.

Ask the WordPress Experts Anything!

Presented in Business / User.

With so many WordPress experts in the building, why let them sit around doing nothing…

In this session you can Ask the WordPress Experts Anything!

We’ll have a bunch of speakers on stage and we’ll let the audience ask any questions they want about using WordPress, developing for WordPress, designing for WordPress, Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing, or anything else they can think of.

Shuttle Bus from The D Hotel to The Innevation Center

Presented in Business / User, Designer / Developer.

On Saturday, December 13, we are providing a shuttle bus:

From The D Hotel and Casino Valet Entrance to The Innevation Center. Anyone wanting to ride the shuttle will need to be at the D Hotel and Casino Valet Entrance NO LATER THAN 7:45 AM. The shuttle bus will leave promptly at 7:45AM.

Your WordCamp Las Vegas 2014 contact for the shuttle bus is Jim Robbins and he will be at The D valet entrance and will escort the bus to the Innevation Center.

WordCamp Las Vegas 2014 is over. Check out the next edition!