Sessions

Presented by Christina Hills in Beginner’s Day.

Get an introduction to What is WordPress? and get a better understanding of why over 30% of the Internet uses it for their website. Christina will also cover the basics of what is a WordPress theme or plugin?

Presented in Beginner’s Day.

In this session the team from ServerPress will cover the basics of local development. They will be answering questions like why should you be using a local environment for website creation, and show you how to do it easily with WordPress.

Presented by Christina Hills in Beginner’s Day.

In this talk Christina will cover how to pick out a theme for your site, or for a client’s site. What should you be looking for? How do you install a new theme? What kind of features are important to have?

Presented by Christina Hills in Beginner’s Day.

Customizer is a great tool that many themes leverage to make editing the appearance and styles of your site easy. Christina will cover the basics of Customizer and how to leverage it to your advantage.

Presented by Evan Stanton in Beginner’s Day.

Once you have a theme chosen and have used customizer to customize it, how do you add functionality? WordPress plugins are an easy way to add functionality to your or your client’s site. How do you know which one is the best one for the feature you want? How do you know if it is good code and will stand the test of time and deal with the demands of the business? You will learn how to pick out, install, and use WordPress plugins.

Presented by Matt Cromwell in Beginner’s Day.

Gutenberg is coming. Matt will cover how to create content on your site, whether you are using the classic editor or not. Learn the basics of content creation on one of the most popular content management systems, WordPress.

Presented by Amy Hall in Beginner’s Day.

If you want leads from your website, you need a contact form. Amy will talk all about lead generation and the importance of Contact Forms.

Presented by Bridget Willard in Beginner’s Day.

Once you have a great website for your business, or a client’s business, time to get it out there. No longer is the Internet a Field of Dreams where people just show up. Using Social Media can help grow your brand awareness and show customers how engaged with them you are.

Presented by Evan Stanton in Beginner’s Day.

Learn all about hosting, and how domains & hosting are connected to put your site “online” for the public to see.

Presented by Roy Sivan in Beginner’s Day.

We will finalize Beginner Day with some closing remarks from our teachers, and open it up for networking and Q&A.

Presented in Angels Flight.

This session will be an action-packed overview of tons of “little details” on your site that, when done right, really add up to contribute to your success. Covering a wide range of topics, including site speed, security, plugins, and SEO, we’ll go through a huge “punchlist” of items so you can see what you’re already doing right (bravo!) and where you can improve. You’ll come away from this session with a ton of things you can do to help take your site to the next level – no matter which level you’re currently on!

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Presented by Caity Kelly & Victoria Cole in Griffith Park Observatory.

Our graphic design agency’s mission is to empower women & minority owned businesses to succeed with impactful design. In this presentation, my business partner and I will discuss:

-How we empower women with design
-How web design can help women become successful business owners
-Finding ways to align with other professional women / creating a support network
-How design impacts cultural change

Presented by Dwayne McDaniel in Development Track.

Whether it is for re-using the same code or deploying a bug fix or just for better document management, one of the most important leaps any site builder will ever take in their path towards becoming a developer is learning a version control system, or VCS. Since Git is the standard VCS over 80% of developers, lets roll up our sleeves and dive in. The benefits far outweigh the efforts needed to learn this tooling. Once you start, you will wonder why it took you so long to unleash the power of this awesome tech.

This talk will briefly explore the need for git, the history and use cases. Then we will jump into how to get started and the basic organizational concepts. We will also examine Github, the web based Git hosting service. Bring your laptops to play along at home and get started before you leave the room.

Presented by Natalie MacLees in Angels Flight.

“Compounding is the greatest mathematical discovery of all time.” — Albert Einstein

In this talk for freelancers and small business owners, I’ll talk about how committing to regular, tiny changes in your business can lead to big rewards and improvements over time. For the past four months, an accountability partner and I have been completing weekly challenges for our small businesses – and we’re both surprised at how big a difference these little habits and changes have made to our businesses and our lives – we both feel better, more in control, smarter, stronger, and just more generally amazing. In this talk, I’ll share our approach, how we come up with the challenges, and invite folks to join us!

Presented by Joseph Dickson in Development Track.

Dipping into Child Themes is an introduction to theme modification & development for anyone curious about how WordPress themes are built and safely modified.

This talk will provide several simple and practical Child Theme examples and explain the modular nature of the Template Hierarchy. We’ll also touch on how Template Tags and Conditional Tags and how they can be used to enhance a website.

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Presented by Cemal Tashan in Griffith Park Observatory.

In this session, we will define Seniors, their interests, and their needs and we will learn how to modify our websites to attract more Seniors and create a mutually profitable relationship.

Presented by Gertrude Nonterah in Angels Flight.

In this presentation, I will go over how beginner users can tweak their settings within WordPress to make their user experience more enjoyable while also enhancing the experience for readers of their blog/users of their website. I see many beginner WordPress users trip up on this and who don’t even know that the Settings tab exists.

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Presented by Konstantin Obenland in Griffith Park Observatory.

Get the latest updates on Gutenberg!

Presented by Raquel Smith in Development Track.

In this session, I’ll talk about what a dynamic Gutenberg block is, how it functions from a high level, and then what it takes to create one.
We’ll cover:
– What a dynamic block is
– How a dynamic block functions
– How the editor interacts with the WordPress REST API to fetch data
– How a callback function loads the correct content on the front-end using PHP

• Slides

Presented by Matt Kopala in Griffith Park Observatory.

Speed matters. People are impatient. If your website or a client’s website doesn’t load quickly – within a just a couple of seconds – many visitors will abandon it completely. A slow site means lost time & revenue. But figuring out how to speed up a slow site can be HARD.

Everyone’s got a suggestion and an idea for how to fix your performance issues. Disable this plugin, try this, try that … usually just guesses, and not based on real data.

STOP GUESSING. If you have a performance issue, or just want to make your site faster, you need to KNOW exactly what is going on with your actual, live site in production.

We’ll start by with an overview of WordPress page performance, and then focus on server response times, and what affects them. We’ll take a look at tools that will tell you exactly what plugins are slowing down your site.

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Presented by Nathan Allotey in Angels Flight.

At some point in our lives all of us are consumers, customers, or clients. Pricing affects all of our buying decisions in a similar manner. As a freelance professional, how do you decide what your prices should be? There is a particular psychology that is applied when we make decisions and pricing is no different from dating. The results are different, but the process is the same.

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Presented by Matt Cromwell in Angels Flight.

If you are a WordPress plugin or theme author, you probably have mixed feelings about the WordPress Support Forums. For many, they are a necessary evil of the WordPress product developer experience. While they are limited, the advantages they offer far outweigh the disadvantages when tackled well.

I’ve been providing support on the WP.org support forums for over 5 years for a wide variety of plugins. I’ll share my experiences and provide insight and tools that will make you a believer both in free support and in the value the .org support forums can provide to you and your business.

Attendees will gain a deeper knowledge of all the resources the WP.org Support Forums offer. They will also learn of new tools at their disposal to offer more effective technical support for their users on the .org forums.

Presented by Behzod Saidov in Development Track.

PHPUnit is the standard PHP testing framework, but getting it working with a WordPress plugin is challenging. If you ever wanted to start adding automated tests to your code, but did not know how and where to start, this talk is for you.
This presentation covers:
– brief introduction to unit and integration testing
– scaffolding a test suite for an existing WordPress plugin using WP-CLI
– refactoring the existing code to make it testable
– writing and running the first tests

Presented by Alicia St. Rose, Amber Hewitt, Machielle Thomas, Miriam Goldman in Griffith Park Observatory.

An informal discussion with 4 women in different roles from the WordPress world – discussing our struggles, achievements, and how we can help each other out.

Presented by Christoph Trappe in Griffith Park Observatory.

Mobile WordPress apps aren’t perfect but they help us blog during those 10 minutes of free time that just happen here and there. Use time waiting for an appointment to finish and publish (or schedule) a post. It’s doable.

This session will talk about how to make the most of the mobile apps, their limitations and how to use them to stay on your blogging schedule – even if you don’t have one, yet.

• Slides

Presented by Joe A Simpson Jr in Angels Flight.

Imagine having a child with special needs being prevented from attending class each day, or your elderly parents being forced to constantly climb flights of stairs to eat meals? Inconceivable! But yet designers and developers make ill-advised, personal decisions that place barriers – ignoring twice as many disabled Americans than LIVE the cities of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston combined.

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Presented by Lara Schenck, Leo Postovoit, Roy Sivan, Matt Cromwell in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

We know you have questions about Gutenberg. We all do! This session aims to answer those we can in an informal discussion meant for all levels of expertise. Together we will determine answers or explain how to get them answered.

Presented by Jarrett Gucci in The Queen Mary.

Presented by Arsen Rabinovich in Santa Monica Pier.

An update to last year’s WCLAX 2017 SEO talk, this presentation will cover everything that has changed in the last 12 months and will go into what Google’s algorithm is liking this year.

This rapid-fire talk will cover and provide step by step instructions on the following SEO processes:

– Topical organization of content, bread crumbs, and schema.
– Implicit and explicit entities, what they are and why they are important.
– Voice search optimization for publishers, name-brands and service providers.

We will also dive into Google’s new Search Console, its new reporting features and what it all means for bloggers, marketers, and webmasters.

The primary objective for this talk is to help attendees become more educated about the ever-changing world of SEO and to keep these new practices in mind as they work on their websites.

• Slides

Presented by Robert Gillmer in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Hooks are one thing which intermediate programmers struggle with the most. Mastering actions and filters will elevate intermediate developers to advanced ones. However, much of the documentation about hooks are hard to understand, and the standard examples are insufficient. I’m a big fan of putting a different spin on lectures and using analogies which no one else has in order to make things more understandable. I explain the difference between the two by drawing a parallel to a shopping trip. Filters are when my wife calls me to ask me to pick something new up from the store I’m going to; actions are when she asks me to go to a completely different store. I then go into how to use hooks from a developer side – add_action and add_filter – as well as how to use them from a “builder” side – apply_filters and do_action.

Presented by Sarah Nicklin in Santa Monica Pier.

Almost all WordPress users publish content or blogs on their website, but most don’t know how make this content surface at the top of page one on Google.

This presentation will cover some of the most important on-page content optimization techniques including:

– Title tag optimization.
– Heading tag hierarchy and optimization.
– Topic focusing, structuring and optimization.
– Optimizing for featured snippet and PAA (people also ask) results.
– Schema.org markup and Internal linking

This presentation is designed to follow Arsen’s talk, our goal is to educate the expose the audience to all aspects of search engine optimization.

• Slides

Presented by Christina Hills in The Queen Mary.

If you missed out on the beginner’s bootcamp you are in luck! Christina Hills, one of our WordPress teachers, will be doing an intro to WordPress basics for all folks new to WordPress. She will explain in plain English how to create a WordPress website. She will go over the basics of
creating pages and posts, building menus, adding sidebar widgets, finding free plugins, and picking themes. You will walk away with a good overall understanding of how to use WordPress to build yourself some awesome websites!

Presented by Jen Miller in The Queen Mary.

If you’re building WordPress websites, blogging, or marketing as a sideline hustle, you may not realize how easily you could next level your work to create a sustainable business model. Perhaps you’ve been thinking about turning your freelance projects into a full-time career. If so, you need to recognize that starting a business is not only a matter of devoting more hours to your craft. In this talk, you’ll learn an eleven step process that will help you find the right clients, create a client-focused website plan, set realistic expectations, and develop a system that will help your WordPress business succeed.

Get ready to be inspired as you learn how you can team with others in the WordPress community, as well as your clients, to create lasting relationships and recurring revenue. You’ll learn how to break free from your comfort zone, modify current habits, develop a business model that works for you, and set up an organized workflow so you can roll up your sleeves and implement your strategies.

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Presented by Sam Jadali in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

GDPR is fundamentally changing the way we do business online. With GDPR now in effect for nearly 4 months, what does this mean for your site? Is the GDPR law geographically limited? Sam brings his 20 years of cybersecurity experience to discuss how you can protect your client data, what to do in the event of a data breach, and how you can prevent one. We’ll answer your questions and more including how your plugin choices can affect GDPR compliance.

Presented by Rene Ramirez in Santa Monica Pier.

This presentation will start with the basics behind Google Analytics and dive into intermediate level guide to using the dashboard as well as procedures and process for the following:

– Basics of installation
– Setting up a dashboard
– Getting comfortable with the terminology and what everything means.
– Analytics channels and conversion tracking

My goal is help attendees understand that Google Analytics is more than just tracking “number of hits”, but it also contains a wealth of information that can help them get the most from their site.

• Slides

Presented by Karyn Keene in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

As freelancers, we all know how difficult it can be to keep clients on track. From shifting visions to missed deadlines to massive scope creep – it can feel like an uphill battle to keep things on deadline and within the original contract you signed. Fortunately, with strong client communication you can avoid many of this issues. As a long-time project manager and freelance developer, I’ll dive into the foundations of good client communication including: setting expectations, using deadlines and timelines effectively, buffering for client schedules, measuring out next steps, and handling conflict.

Presented in Santa Monica Pier.

Presented by Glenn Zucman in The Queen Mary.

WordPress is an incredible tool for artists. WordPress Artists’ Websites are a great way to show art, photography, and writing portfolios. WordPress blogging is a powerful tool for artists & writers to develop their personal brand and expand their audience. Beyond this, WordPress is also a great platform for creating art projects. WordPress isn’t just a place to SHOW work, it is a tool for MAKING work too. From simple Photography Series to complex Counterfactual Histories, in this talk I will show many ways to use WordPress the Art Platform. This talk will detail art options with WordPress and leave attendees with a call to action to use WordPress in ways they haven’t tried before.

Presented in Santa Monica Pier.

The BarCamp is an open, participatory workshop-event in which the content of the event is provided entirely by the participants.

At WordCamp Los Angeles 2018 our BarCamp session will allow 10 attendees to present short five-minute presentations on any topic even tangentially related to WordPress.

Arrive at camp with your ideas for talks! Maybe you’ve never presented at a WordCamp before or maybe you’re a veteran speaker. Perhaps you’re excited about a tiny subject that you just want to share with us, maybe you’re looking to provide us with a sneak peak of a larger concept you’re trying to flesh out. Anything goes but avoid self-promotion! Keep in mind that the WordCamp Code of Conduct remains in effect!

Presented by Jansen Henschel in The Queen Mary.

This talk explains how to effectively give a WordPress presentation. (Even a kid can do it.)

Presented by Joshua Giowaya in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Let’s explore the benefits of thinking in re-usable blocks. Atomic design, Modular Development, and D.R.Y. methodology improves productivity, enhances UI and empowers authors. We will explore multiple methods to achieve modularity in our WP themes. Leveraging the WordPress templating system and Advanced Custom Fields or Using blocks in the form of Gutenberg.

Presented by Roy Sivan in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

The new WordPress editor (Gutenberg) is how all new content is to be created on WordPress. However with the way the data is stored, is that really the best way to power an application? I will walk through the drawbacks for how Gutenberg stores data, and how to easily change that to more easily power custom headless (and not) web applications.

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Presented by Arsen Rabinovich, Sarah Nicklin, Rene Ramirez in Santa Monica Pier.

Join the team of SEO experts from TopHatRank SEO as they provide attendees with actionable SEO recommendations and solutions. They’ll audit your site on stage in real-time proving you with actionable SEO solutions to your existing website. No theoretical solutions or hypothetical scenarios in this session. You’ll walk away knowing what you need to do to your website.

3-6 attendees will have the opportunity to get their site audited and everyone else can watch and learn from these real world examples!

Presented by Bridget Willard in The Queen Mary.

In the WordPress Community, we talk about value — quite a lot. And that’s awesome. We should charge for our value. The problem comes when we don’t understand our cost — both in financial, physical, and branding terms.

Having spent over ten years in construction accounting, “job costing” is in my vocabulary and the front of my mind. But as a marketer, I also understand that WordPress has a branding problem. In order to elevate our personal brands and the brand of WordPress, it’s important that we go beyond value and take a look at cost.

In this talk, I’ll discuss job costing, sample time tracking, and just how to reverse engineer your pricing to not only meet your expenses, but live the life you want.

• Slides