General

Speed Up Your Site!  (rescheduled from last month)

Did you know the average user will wait only 2-3 seconds waiting for a webpage to load before abandoning it forever? Having a fast website is critical to its success. How do you ensure your site loads fast and reliably, to all kinds of users around the world? In this presentation we’ll discuss seven strategies for increasing your WordPress site’s speed.

Covering caching, content delivery networks, image optimization, file optimization, database cleaning, and hosting and theme choices, you’re guaranteed to leave this presentation with concrete next steps for improving your site’s performance.

Meagan Hanes is a designer of digital things, photographer, founder of the Arnprior WordPress Community, and all around creative gal living in Arnprior, Ontario. She enjoys creating easy-to-use websites and technology solutions for businesses big and small. When not giving back to the WP community, you’ll find her working on catching all 721 Pokémon.

Agenda

6:00 – General announcements

6:05 – Presentation(s)

7 ish – Questions

7:30 – Open help session “Happiness Bar” – get answers to your WordPress questions.

Meeting Details:

LOCATION NOTE:

We have a private space reserved downstairs. Enter the main doors, turn left, and down the stairs.

No donations for this meeting!  If attendees buy enough food etc. from the pub it covers our tab.  (We normally ask for a $4 donation to help cover the cost of the room and our Meetup fees, which total about $150-450/year)

Speed Up Your Site!

Did you know the average user will wait only 2-3 seconds waiting for a webpage to load before abandoning it forever? Having a fast website is critical to its success. How do you ensure your site loads fast and reliably, to all kinds of users around the world? In this presentation we’ll discuss seven strategies for increasing your WordPress site’s speed.

Covering caching, content delivery networks, image optimization, file optimization, database cleaning, and hosting and theme choices, you’re guaranteed to leave this presentation with concrete next steps for improving your site’s performance.

Meagan Hanes is a designer of digital things, photographer, founder of the Arnprior WordPress Community, and all around creative gal living in Arnprior, Ontario. She enjoys creating easy-to-use websites and technology solutions for businesses big and small. When not giving back to the WP community, you’ll find her working on catching all 721 Pokémon.

Agenda

6:00 – General announcements

6:05 – Presentation(s)

7 ish – Questions

7:30 – Open help session “Happiness Bar” – get answers to your WordPress questions.

Meeting Details:

LOCATION NOTE:

We have a private space reserved downstairs. Enter the main doors, turn left, and down the stairs.

No donations for this meeting!  If attendees buy enough food etc. from the pub it covers our tab.  (We normally ask for a $4 donation to help cover the cost of the room and our Meetup fees, which total about $150-450/year)

The Important Bits for Content Creators.

The latest stats peg WordPress powering 23% of the web. But in his years of developing and managing WordPress sites Mike has discovered that there are many basic misunderstandings of what it is, how to properly use it, and how to keep it secure and up to date. Mike’s talk will focus on the real-world tasks every WordPress user should know.

Presented by Mike Dickson.  Mike has been programming for 17 years, and by far his favourite is websites. He loves everything about them, from the “boring” planning stages and framework design to the finessing of the layout to get it just right. He’s an entrepreneur at heart, running three businesses from home home in Ottawa.

Agenda

6:00 – General announcements

6:05 – Presentation(s)

7 ish – Questions

7:30 – Open help session “Happiness Bar” – get answers to your WordPress questions.

Meeting Details:

LOCATION NOTE:

We have a private space reserved downstairs. Enter the main doors, turn left, and down the stairs.

No donations for this meeting!  If attendees buy enough food etc. from the pub it covers our tab.  (We normally ask for a $4 donation to help cover the cost of the room and our Meetup fees, which total about $150-450/year)

So you would like a WordPress website?

That will be $10,000 and will take a month of development time.  Oh wait, actually it will be free and you can have your site up and running in less than an hour.

There are many different variations and flavours of WordPress suited for different needs and budgets. We have various plans on wordpress.com, template themes for wordpress.org installs, and custom themes for wordpress.org installs. The price, development time, capabilities, and functionality vary greatly between all of these variations. Many people use the generic term ‘WordPress Website’ for all of these variations, which can make things very confusing! In this presentation we will be discussing all of these different variations and which one is right for you based on your budget, technical requirements, visual design requirements, and time requirements.

This will be presented by Steve Puddick. Steve has been working with WordPress since 2009 and focuses on custom WordPress themes and plugins. He currently works at the Liberal Party of Canada where he works on a highly customized, large scale, multisite instance of WordPress. You can check out a couple of Steve’s public WordPress plugins here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-notes-widget/ and https://wordpress.org/plugins/notes-widget-wrapper/.

Agenda

6:00 – General announcements

6:05 – Presentation(s)

7 ish – Questions

7:30 – Open help session “Happiness Bar” – get answers to your WordPress questions.

Meeting Details:

LOCATION NOTE:

We have a private space reserved downstairs. Enter the main doors, turn left, and down the stairs.

No donations for this meeting!  If attendees buy enough food etc. from the pub it covers our tab.  (We normally ask for a $4 donation to help cover the cost of the room and our Meetup fees, which total about $150-450/year)

Make your WP Content More Accessible, Searchable, SEO-friendly & Fun!

Communicating clearly is key to making your WP website work effectively. A WP Content Management System (CMS) is just one element of your social media marketing mix. Some consider it the focal point (hub) of your online communications strategy while others suggest it’s just another channel. Websites are being challenged to stay relevant in a digital ecosystem where mobile apps “almost” make your coffee. Websites can become bogged down with too many blogs, photographs, videos and generally – too much information. Your WP site/s must offer a compelling and clear call to action ensuring that your corporate mission, goals and objectives are strategically focused, clearly communicated and therefore accessible.

Madelaine Palko, the Principal of MPalko Media Consulting, has extensive experience in editorial, curatorial and content management. She was educated in Fine Art at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and attended graduate school at Concordia University, Montreal for Communications and Media Studies. Her love of art, media and popular culture, and experience in communications provide a well-grounded approach to WP content production and management. Her most recent full-time job was as Canadian Content Editor for NTN Buzztime, Inc. an interactive trivia game company based in Toronto ON / Carlsbad, Ca.

Madelaine will provide you with practical tips and resources that will help you optimize your WP content. She will cover topics such as: know your audience, pick the best WP template for your needs, follow basic visual communications design concepts, use plain language, add accurate transcriptions, captions and subtitles to your video content, use clear alternative text descriptions to images, perform regular content audits, etc. These content management suggestions will help you make your WP site more accessible, searchable, SEO-friendly and fun to navigate.

Agenda

6:00 – General announcements

6:05 – Presentation(s)

7 ish – Questions

7:30 – Open help session “Happiness Bar” – get answers to your WordPress questions.

Meeting Details:

LOCATION NOTE:

We have a private space reserved downstairs. Enter the main doors, turn left, and down the stairs.

No donations for this meeting!  If attendees buy enough food etc. from the pub it covers our tab.  (We normally ask for a $4 donation to help cover the cost of the room and our Meetup fees, which total about $150-450/year)