WordCamp PDX is our favorite conference of the year, and we’re delighted to be attending this year. WordPress developers, designers, and bloggers convene to share information and learn new tricks. Also, there is usually Whiffies.

This year we left the laptop at home – and while we were not the only iPad users there by a long shot, we still got asked about it a LOT. The answer? Using the iPad at a conference is GREAT. It’s light, portable, wifi-enabled and easy to take out and put away (especially using our fabulous iPad clutch). The only thing that could have made it into a must-have conference tool is if we could take photos with it, instead of having to switch back & forth between the iPad and the iPhone. Note to self: get an iPad 2!

Here’s a breakdown of some of the sessions:

Evan Solomon from Automattic talked about figuring out what your users really want. A/B testing is a huge benefit. Question assumptions. Test liberally, he says, and don’t be afraid to test out crazy ideas to discover new ways of doing things. Even if your tests don’t show what you’re expecting, if you learn something, it’s a success. He gives a great example of the WordPress.com main page sidebar; they assumed they needed to tweak the information below the sign-up button (wording, graphics, etc) – but when they tested a version with nothing at all below the sign-up button, conversion rates increased by 25%. He recommends using something like Optimizely or his yet-unreleased WordPress plugin that will let you do A/B testing from the Dashboard. See the slides from his talk here.

Andrew Nacin (core developer of WordPress) dove right into wp_query. This talk was way over my head, but it was crazy interesting to learn about how WordPress queries data and how to filter results to limit query variables. I won’t do it justice, but here are my notes from the session: Every wp_query has methods that mimic the global conditional tags. The global conditional tags apply to wp_query, the main or current query. Conditional tags only work after the data has been parsed; you can use it during get_posts. Make sure you restore to the main query by using wp_reset_query. Most of these functions have been around since 1.5 or 2.0. Core queries are all filterable, which is useful because the API will not always do what you want. His slides are all here.

Next up was a session on SEO by Ira Pasternak, Milen Cole, and Sarah Tetreault. They reminded us that SEO is an ongoing process; you can’t just set it up at the beginning and then forget about it. When checking your search engine ranking, be aware of Google personalized results; when you’re logged in to any Google account, your search results will be different from other people’s, since Google uses your browsing history, bookmarks, friends’ recommendations, etc. to tailor your search experience. Try logging out of your Google account to see if your business’ search results are the same.

They also talked a bit about search engine algorithms and how a site ends up at the top of search results. Relevance, of course, is key. Relevance is about content but also authority; traditionally this was measured by how many sites link to you and also how highly ranked those linking sites are. If you have a local business, citations are also important. The number of times that people mention your website along with your phone number or address (even if your URL is not used) raises your authority, which raises your rank. Link building is contextual; you’ll want links from sites related to your industry. Compare to your competitors to find out who is linking to their sites. Use a tool lie SEOmoz to find that out.

They closed with a reminder: SEO is not passive. You need to actively pursue links in the form of articles, blog posts, newspaper articles, local listings and directories.

Aaron Hockley, WCPDX organizer extraordinaire, talked about the future of personal blogging. Personal blogs are no longer necessarily focused on a single topic; a photographer’s blog, for example, might include posts about coffee and bicycling in addition to posts about photography. Aaron has consolidated his blogging to is personal site and his business site rather than dividing his energy between 4 or 5 different single-topic sites. This turned out to be a common trend for many other attendees: to have a single site that functions as a hub for their online identity. People are starting to follow people as opposed to topics. If you want to filter your feeds, you can organize by topic, etc – but is this necessary? Do people want to subscribe to targeted feeds, or do they want to read everything by the author? (We’ve found the latter to be true in our own experience.)

Feel like you missed out? Come to WordCamp PDX next year (or find a WordCamp in your area). The range of topics is hugely diverse & there’s always something new to learn. Keep your eye out for videos of these and all the other WCPDX sessions to hit WordPress.tv sometime soon.

We had a blast at WordCamp PDX! My presentation (complete with audio) is embedded below. You can also click here to view it on Slideshare, where you can download it if you’re into that sort of thing.

Questions? Feedback? We’d love to hear from you.

Click here to get your tickets! Don’t wait too long; the event sold out last year and it’s almost certain to do the same this time around. I’ll be talking about Business Blogging for Non-Writers & we’ll be giving away copies of our book as well. Hope to see you there!

Last year we did a round-up of the apps that make it easy to run a design company on the fly, and it’s high time we updated that list. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same, but one thing’s for sure: we’d be lost without these!

Part 1 of 2 (Matt will post his in the next few days).

Jessica’s list of must-have apps: I work exclusively on a Mac (well, two, actually) so these are all Mac-friendly.

Transmit

I was pretty meh on the subject of FTP clients until I tried Transmit. Now I don’t know what I did without it.

Fluid

See above re: FTP clients and switch for site specific browsers. I finally installed Fluid on a whim and…wow, was I ever wrong. It’s given me a whole new appreciation for my Dock.

TextMate

Can’t rave enough about my love of TextMate. Makes coding a breeze.

Google Docs

We keep the majority of our paperwork (contracts, contract templates, etc.) on Google Docs. We can share amongst ourselves and access files from anywhere – handy when you’re constantly shuttling between office and home office. Also: it’s not Word!

Google Apps

We finally switched our couldbe studios email over to Google Apps, and it’s been great.

Basecamp

For all our project management needs.

Highrise

Keeps track of our contacts.

Ma.gnolia

Social linkage.

Firefox

And, of course, what’s Firefox without extensions? I use Firebug, Foxmarks, 1Password and ColorZilla.

Campaign Monitor

Not only does Campaign Monitor make it easy to send and track email newsletters, it makes setting up managed accounts for clients a breeze.

Reinvigorate

I personally loathe Google Analytics, but none of the other free or low-cost offerings seemed much better. Enter Reinvigorate. They’re in private beta right now, but we were lucky enough to get in. And I do mean lucky: Reinvigorate is a fabulous service, and I can’t imagine switching.

DropSend

When we’ve got to email huge files to clients or printers, DropSend is invaluable.

Blinksale

Simple and easy to use. We looked at FreshBooks, but given our requirements Blinksale is a better fit.

Mark Wyner‘s presentation on Experience Design As the Sum of Its Parts was fantastic, and we liked his tattoos, too. It’s nice to be in an industry where tattoos are just part of the everyday and not something to be hidden, furtively, like a pvc fetish or a penchant for furries. At our last “day” job, we found ourselves deeply resentful of the fact that we had to keep the tattoos on our ankles covered. Now that we work for ourselves, our intricate Tengwar runes (that’s Elvish, for the less dorky among us) are free to see the light of day, assuming said day is not drenched in rain. And isn’t that what web design is really all about?

Mark Wyner’s presentation had very little to do with tattooing (or being a big dork, although he did compare the internet to ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books) and more to do with the way design and development can learn to work together to create a more useful and comprehensive whole. Basically it comes down to Information Architecture, Visual Design, Interface Markup and Functionality holding hands and playing nicely together to create sites that are not only pretty, but also functional, easy to maintain and accessible to a wide variety of consumers.

We’ve been devouring information about accessibility and semantic markup lately, so this session was particularly topical. We’ll link to the slides once we upload the pictures from the “good” camera and can decipher the URL on his closing slide. Seriously, you’d think that all those notes would have included that one vital bit of info, but you’d be wrong.

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webvisions, portland, web design, mark wyner, experience design

WebVisions, here we come! We’re ridiculously excited to be spending the next couple of days hanging out with the best of the web. If you’re in the Portland, OR area, head on over!

Technorati Tags:
webvisions, portland, web design