A WordPress Primer - full day of basic WordPress instruction

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This special meeting of the Calgary WordPress Meetup Group is a one-day primer about the world's best online publishing platform, WordPress.

This day-long meetup is intended for users with limited experience with the technical aspects of WordPress. You may have only heard of WordPress, or you may have used it for publishing your blog for years, but you have very limited exposure to actually customizing your WordPress installation. Intermediate users will find this to be too basic for your interests.

Cost

A fee of $20 applies to this day-long meetup. Proceeds will be donated to Brown Bagging Calgary Kid Society. Tax receipts will not be provided.

What to bring

Most of the day will be a lecture format, but bring your laptop long with you as there will be a workshop portion during the lunch break. We are not anticipating being able to accommodate special dietary needs. should you have such needs, please come prepared with your own lunch. While we're not going to need your credit card again, if you are registering a domain name or setting up web hosting during the lunchtime workshop, having a way to pay for those things online will be vital.

About the Presenter

Marshall Stevenson is a Calgary based internet marketer and digital content creator using web design, development and podcasting. He's been designing websites since 1995 and working in a WordPress world since version 1.2.1 -- or about October 2004. His passions are impacting others in a positive way to affect change in the world -- in other words, let's get your message out!

Synopsis

9:00 am to 9:50 am - .org versus .com

You can use WordPress on their own site (yourwebsite.wordpress.com), or by self-hosting under your own domain name (www.yourwebsite.com). You'll learn the pros and cons of each. The remainder of the day will be on the presumption that you will be self-hosting your website, though many of the topics will be applicable to both kinds of WordPress usage.

10:00 am to 10:50 am - Themes and essential plugins

Learn more about what themes are and how you will use them. Discover how to find themes that will work for your site, and how to install them onto your server. Learn the essential plugins that you want on your website to extend the functionality of WordPress.

11:00 am to 11:50 am - Theme customization

If you use the same theme that thousands of other people use, your website will look like thousands of other websites. In this module, you will learn more about changes that you can make to the default theme, as well as learn the basics about custom theme building.

12:00 pm to 1:15 pm - Lunchtime workshop (lunch provided by ING DIRECT)

This working lunch will provide you the chance to mingle with other attendees, as well as get customized help with things like registering a domain name, setting up web hostings, installing WordPress on your host, troubleshooting problems with your existing website, etc. Definitely bring your laptop with you for maximum benefit during the workshop.

1:30 pm to 2:20 pm - SEO and media library best practices

This hour is dedicated to teaching you the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) and how to use your WordPress media library. SEO is the phrase ascribed to a wide-range of practices that will help Google and other search engines to best understand what kind of content that you offer and present it to people searching for those topics. Proper use of your media library will not only help to make your site run better, but can even help with your Google ranking.

2:30 pm to 3:20 pm - Site structure

Learn more about how to properly set up your site to begin with. Learn the difference between categories and tags, and why you wish to use each. Make changes to the way that WordPress displays the addresses that lead to different parts of your website.

3:30 pm to 4:20 pm - Social media integration, marketing, and promotion

A website is no longer just an island of information. With millions (billions?) of websites on the Internet, you can't just expect to "build it and they will come". Learn the art of promoting your website so that you can achieve your likely goal, getting interested people to visit and read what it is that you offer.

4:30 pm to 5:00 pm - Wrap-up, questions, and a few additional tips

In the last portion of the day, we'll deal with any questions that didn't previously get answered, offer some additional tips on where to learn more about WordPress, and wrap up the day's learning.

Refunds

Refunds will not be offered. However, you can transfer the registration right up until the event date. Simply let us know that someone else will be attending in your place, and we'll gladly transfer the registration.