The agenda for WordCamp Melbourne 2013 was jam-packed full of WordPress goodness.
Here are the gold nugget tips that I took away from the sessions that I attended, mainly in the User and Blogger Stream.
101 Way to Elevate yourself and Demand Higher Fees
This was a sensational preso by Troy Dean.
From the 101 ways my faves were:
- Don’t discount, it makes the client wonder if you initially over-inflated the price
- Record meetings on your Smartphone (if the meetee is OK with that)
- Don’t meet in cafes, meet at a business address.
Download a free e-book of all the 101 Ways to Elevate Yourself and Demand Higher Fees.
Hackers Ahoy! Batten Down the Hatches
This presentation by Mike McKinnon (@bigmac on Twitter) was particularly timely due to the current WordPress hacking attempts.
Mike recommends:
- Your passwords should be easy to remember but hard for someone else to guess
- When it comes to Passwords, size matters! Make em long. Include a mix of numbers, letters and symbols
- Backup your website regularly eg with Back Up Buddy
- If the worst happens, have a plan to restore your website quickly
- Delete plugins that you aren’t using. They might be a security threat. And they add to your backup and restore times.
If you’re Mac user who, despite having a Mac, still worries about viruses, malware and other badness, as I do, find out about AVG LinkScanner®for Mac which Mike recommended.
Recognising the Cycles of Blogging
I really enjoyed this presentation by Narelle Hanratty of solidgoldcreativity.com
Those who know me know that I’m all about results.
Blog for a purpose.
Review your Google Analytics stats.
Constantly aim to improve.
Whereas Narelle’s presentation was a different approach that I found totally refreshing. She has a non commercial blog and she blogs because she loves writing, spending half a day (or earlier in her blogging career a whole day) writing an article.
The take-away tips I got from this preso were:
- The quality of your work isn’t necessarily measured by the stats
- The stats can make you start doubting the quality of the writing
- It takes courage to keep going when you don’t get the number of visitors that you’re hoping for.
My favourite quotes:
If you are really authentic about what you are writing, people love it, they are hungry for it.
In doing the regular blogging, every so often one writes something truly courageous
How to Write for an Online Audience
Web writing and editing are services that I offer to clients so I know a bit about this topic already.
Nonetheless, this presentation by Vikki Maver from Refresh Marketing was one of the best presentations I’ve seen on writing for the web.
Like good web writing, she got straight to the point, was clear and concise, gave meaningful examples and emphasised the key messages.
Vikki’s tips included:
- People read about 28% of text on a webpage at most, 20% is more likely
- Start with the end in mind and get to the point quickly
- The six pillars of web writing are:
- Clarity,
- Simplicity
- Brevity
- Humanity
- Scan-ability
- Credibility.
Actionable Analytics
Stephen Cronin (@stephencronin on Twitter) gave this presentation.
Being an Analytics-chick, this was my favourite preso of the conference (as you can tell, there were a lot of others that I liked too!)
Stephen covered tips for using the data in Google Analytics to get insights into improving your website.
For example:
- Look at what devices your visitors use to view your website (Computer, Tablet or Mobile Device) and make sure your website is usable on those devices
- Look at your Site Speed, particularly for the Countries where your target audience is, and resolve any speed issues for those important locations
- Find out which pages have a high Bounce Rate, try to figure out why, and fix the issues.
I also learned about two features in Google Analytics that I wasn’t aware of; Intelligence and Trackbacks. Will be putting some articles about them on my other blog at Click-Winning Content soon.
How WordPress is Empowering Diversity
This topic was presented by John McKenna, a disability advocate who I had the privilege of working with early on in his blogging career. I helped him learn about keywords, set up his MailChimp RSS feed and understand Google Analytics data.
Read this article on 10 Steps to Fast Track your Blogging Success for details of the updates we made to his blog.
In a future article I’ll interview John about ways you can make your WordPress blog Accessible to All. (I haven’t asked him yet but hopefully he’ll agree!)
WordPress and Video SEO
David Jenyns of melbourneSEOservices.com explained his process for creating a lot of content in different mediums (videos, podcasts, articles, reports and more) from one piece of content.
Key take-aways were:
- When you create good quality content, SEO happens naturally
- Awesome content gets great links
- You don’t have a business if you only have one source of traffic to your website
Get David’s free report on web traffic at go to http://melbourneSEOservices.com/WC
Beating Spam
Vlad Lasky also did a sensational presentation on “Beating spam on your blog or site”. As spam is something I loathe, and aspire to be better at fighting, soon I’ll write an article dedicated only to that topic.
Sorry I couldn’t be everywhere, all the time, to cover all the sessions, but I hope you liked these tips!
WordCamp rules!
If you’re a WordPress developer or user and you get the chance to go to a WordCamp in Australia in future, put your hand up and say “yes please”. This event was exceptionally well organised and offered incredible value at only $50 for two days of high calibre presenters and quality peeps to meet.
View all the session topics from WordCamp Melbourne 2013 here.
Any comments, I’ve love you to leave them below 🙂
Esp thoughts from people who were at #wcmelb!