We will explore the five basic principles for building a solid SEO foundation for your WordPress site over three, 2-hour class sessions. These sessions includes over 20 pages of documentation and checklists to keep you on track after class.

Session One
May 17^th, 7 pm — 9 pm

• Keyword Research
• Competitive Analysis
• Configuring Your WordPress Site for SEO

Session Two,
May 31^st, 7pm — 9 pm

• On-site Content Optimization
• Link Building and Online Promotion

Session Three
June 21^st, 7 pm — 9 pm

• Understanding Website Analytics

Who Will Benefit From these classes?

Anyone who owns or manages a WordPress powered web site who wants to make it easier for your clients/customers find and purchase your products and services.

Class Fee

Class will be $50 per session.

Attendees may sign up for Individual classes or the complete series.

(Note as part of session one we will load SEO Plugins and register attendees’ sites with Goggle so we can track individual SEO changes over the 6-week duration of the SEO sessions.)

Where Will Class Be Held?

Cospace
911 West Anderson Lane #203
Austin TX 78757

How To Register

All registration will be handled through EventBrite. Seats are limited.

Session One

Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
May 17^th, 7 pm — 9 pm

This class has been designed to help WordPress users understand SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a business practice. The session focuses on how SEO works, and how search engines rank pages, positioning your online business so your products and services stand out against your competition. We will walk you through planning a SEO strategy, how to use keyword research to creating content that support not only improved positioning but also site visitor satisfaction.

Producing top ranking SEO positioning is not an esoteric art, it is the result of workman-like determination and the your willingness to constantly produce the type of content your market is seeking.

• What is SEO?

• What is Keyword Research?

• Not all keywords and keyword phrases are equal.
• Learn to optimize for those keyword or phrase more likely to lead to a sale.
• Understanding the three types of queries site visitors are most likely to use to find your product/service and how to exploit that information.
• Informational queries – searching for information from general to specific
• Navigational queries – searching for a specific site or page
• Transactional queries – searching with an intent to purchase
• Pages rank for specific queries or keyword phrases—make sure your ranking focused on what ultimately provides the most benefit for your business.

• How to develop a Targeted List of Keywords

• A keyword brainstorming exercise
• Expanding your brainstorming list through some keyword tools

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• SEO Book Keyword Tool
• WordTracker
• KeyWord Discovery

• Tips for building effective keyword lists
• Keyword Research Resources
• What is Competitive Analysis?
• Learning to use keywords to help you define who your market is and what that market is looking for.

• Search engine friendly site development
• How to design your site and develop your content to be usable and accessible so search engines can EASILY find, crawl, and index your pages.
• Develop sites content and structure to reinforce your keyword themes and help search engines understand what topics the site considers most important and should be considered in ranking.
• Some search engine etiquette:
• Avoiding or at least managing duplicate content
• Search Friendly URLs
• You can’t be found unless you are indexed, so get indexed, Avoid Flash, javascript, and images for the navigation of your site.
• Create an html sitemap and link to it from all pages on your site.
• Minify files — Google counts speed as a ranking factor
• Internal links are an important part of SEO — every page on your site should link to other pages on your site.
• Test fix or remove any broken links on your site
• Use breadcrumbs — they help people and search engines understand the architecture of your site.

SEO Resources for Attendees

• WordPress Web Site Configuration for SEO
• WordPress SEO Plugins
• WordPress Sitemap Plugins
• Search Engine Registration
• WordPress Sitemap Submission
• WordPress Commenting Plugins
• WordPress internal linking strategy
• WordPress Content Optimization Plugins

Session Two

On-Site Content Optimization / Link Building / Online Promotion
May 31^st, 7 pm — 9 pm

Session two of Developing A Sane Approach To SEO is focused on building, maintaining and promoting a search engine friendly site. We will examine how to develop your site so search engines can easily find and index your pages, and how to organize your information to provide cues to the search engines for what the site is about. We look at how to develop content that is pleasing to both site visitors and the search engines and how to avoid potential pitfalls.

Content, Content, Content

• Creating a useful, Information-rich site
• Writing easy to read text
• Tips for staying on topic
• Why you need fresh unique content
• Creating content with the end user in mind
• Create unique, accurate page titles

Optimizing Content

• Writing better anchor text
• How to optimize your images for SEO & Accessibility
• Site Images should have a sitemap too
• Make use of the “description” meta tag
• Using Heading Tags Correctly
• Dealing with Crawlers
• Make effective use of robots.txt
• Be aware of rel=”nofollow” for links
• Combating Comment SPAM
• Make your site easier to navigate
• Improve the structure of your URLs

Linking and Online Promotion

• Internal Linking
• Link Building and Online Promotion

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Session Three

Understanding Website Analytics
June 21st, 7 pm — 9 pm

Understanding Website Analytics

When you have developed the content and tuned your site to the best of your ability…

It’s time to get Analytica!l

• How to use the Google Webmaster tools
• Understanding:
• Search Queries
• Keywords page lists
• Internal Links page
• Subscriber Stats
• Trouble shooting tools

Diagnostics

Malware detection

Crawl errors

• Understanding Google’s Webmaster Technical Guidelines
• Understanding Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines

• Putting it all together

Jackie Dana

Jackie Dana built her first website from scratch in 1995. She now considers herself to be a WordPress evangelist, believing that WordPress allows people to have a beautiful website or blog regardless of their technical background or financial situation. She values the principles of universal design and usability, and encourages all web sites to support good design practices and thoughtful organization. She also follows the latest trends in social media marketing and strongly advocates the use of technologies such as Facebook and Twitter, in tandem with traditional marketing, to promote both online and brick and mortar businesses.

She is a leader of WordPress Austin, and serves on UT Austin’s Refresh Project, a campus-wide committee that redesigned the University’s homepage. As a supporter of web accessibility, she volunteers for the local organization Knowbility and participates in AIR Austin competitions to build accessible websites for artists and nonprofit organizations.

Jackie owns Getting Dirty Designs, providing WordPress training, consulting and web design. She also blogs about technical topics at Bending the Web to my Will.

The Basic WordPress Install

• A step-by-step overview of the WordPress Install process

How to choose and modify a WordPress Theme

• Defining what functions your site will need
• The best place to start
• Using the Appearance Panel to install or change themes
• How to change the look and feel of a theme

Dashboard Quick Tour

• Understanding the difference between Pages and Posts
• Creating content – Add New Page, and Add New Post
• Bring content from Microsoft Word into WordPress
• Formatting text and content using the Visual Editor and/or HTML code view option
• Work in Progress, or ready to publish? Saving and publishing pages and posts
• Changing the display order of pages
• Using the publish date of Posts – publication schedules and building history
• Editing, previewing and updating existing pages and posts

Organizing Your Website

• Identifying and defining your site’s primary and secondary purpose
• Organizing content and navigation to achieve your purpose
• Creating Pages and organizing your site navigation
• Using the Quick Edit tool
• The Appearance Panel revisited: Custom Menus

Using Categories and Tags

• Understanding and using Tags and Categories
• How to add and edit Categories
• Arranging your content by subject
• How to add and edit Tags

DashBoard Revisited

• How to customize the WordPress interface
• Hiding Dashboard modules
• The collapsible navigation menu and functions
• The Right Now statistics overview module
• Not just text – Using the Media Library for pictures, video, audio and more
• Organizing your web connections with Links
• The Comments Panel: Getting and managing user feedback
• The Users Panel: Expanding your audience with subscribers, authors and editors
• Tools and Settings – A first look
• Adding features to your site with Plugins
• Changing and adding sidebar content – Appearance Panel Widgets

Maintaining your site

• How to Backup a WordPress web site
• WordPress upgrades

Event Details and Registration for WP-Classes Hands-On WordPress.

Do you want to use WordPress for your next website, but don’t know where to start?

Have you installed WordPress, but have gotten to the, “Now what!” questions?

Do you want to make changes to your WordPress site but don’t want to risk making a ‘mistake’ on a live site?

Hands-on WordPress can help you with that…

The organizers of the Austin WordPress Meetup are excited to announce a Hands-on WordPress training event. This class focuses on helping the traditional business owner, the web-based small enterprise or the stay-at-home blogger benefit from learning how to get the most from WordPress. This 6-hr hands-on course is designed to take you from newbie to confident user.

Taking this class will save you countless hours in research and should ease the trial-and-error learning curve that discourages many new WordPress users. We give you the tools and process to plan and create a site that that can be expanded and refined as your business grows. Each attendee will have a test WordPress site installed and ready for them to work on during the class.

During your Hands-on WordPress class you will work real-time with the instructors as you learn and implement the steps to plan and build a site.

Your Trainers for this class will be:

Nick Batik, H.Sandra Chevalier-Batik and Jackie Dana

Event Details and Registration for WP-Classes Hands-On WordPress.

Nicholas R. Batik

My passion is Information design — the art and science of preparing information so that it can be used efficiently and effectively. As lead designer with Pleiades Publishing Services, I focus on the development of information graphics – the diagramming and display of quantitative information to communicate ideas and information. My underlying philosophy of graphic design, ideography, graphic symbolology, photography, and digital art is to display information so it is both useful, and attractive.

Since founding Pleiades Publishing Services in 1992, I have been involved with both print, and electronic media design. As a web developer I have content, design and the technology experience in major web site design and implementation, including Project Manager/ Senior Designer and programmer of a 2,400 page, 2,500+ image, 18,000+ link database-driven web site created back in 1994. My work with Pleiades Publishing Services reflects my passion for elegant and effective information design and is dedicated to using design technology to communicate, and manage Information in a way that is beneficial to our clients and our clients’ customers. As principle information architect I focus on the science of information acquisition, interpretation and processing. I am responsible for publication design – assuring the message content and language are clear, unambiguous and understandable. As lead designer for Pleiades Publishing services I have focused on our clients; need for multimedia information design in the form of, electronic publishing projects, as well as scriptwriting and audio/ video production.

Over my 30-years as an information designer I have researched and used a number of publishing platforms. Since 2006, I have used WordPress exclusively as my website development tool. It’s functionality, confirmation to web standards and ease of use for both the designer and the end user, facilitate and support elegant information design. I act as trainer and support for all of my clients. WordPress is the first tool that truly allows the web owner to control the content as well as the look and feel of the site.

I have written numerous training courses, articles and seminars on design, and publishing. I conduct one-on-one training, and have lectured at publishing conferences and in-house seminars in over 100 cities across the US, England, and Scandinavia.

I write extensively and have both management and technical articles published, and have authored white papers on technical project management.

H. Sandra Chevalier-Batik

H. Sandra Chevalier-Batik’s insights and expertise with all levels of business start-up and development, as well as her experience in the public, corporate and small business environments, uniquely qualify her as an internet marketing and on-line business consultant.  She has conducted over 300 seminars and workshops and has been a featured speaker at numerous national and international publishing conferences. Sandra has earned a reputation for taking highly complex subjects and presenting them in easily understood modules.  Her informal approach helps put attendees at ease and ready to tackle unfamiliar material.

Sandra is a research analyst and web content developer as well as a partner in Pleiades Publishing Services.  As a professional researcher and information technologist, she studies technical data, conducts client-sponsored research, develops feasibility studies, competition and market analyses; and provides reports, white papers, articles, press releases, training materials as well as Search Engine Optimized web content, including, newsletters, blogs, and e-books.

Tracking through statistical data, and oblique cross-references to find the relevant connections that help  clients solve a problem, or take action on a business venture is her passion.  As a web content developer, Sandra’s reward is when a client reports that their site is bringing in customers and making them money.

Lindsey Allen

Lindsey Allen  teaches or has taught HTML, XHTML, CSS, Javascript, Java, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Beginning Programming, PHP, MySQL, ASP, at the academic level (University of Texas, Austin Community College), governmental (Texas State Government), and corporate level (Cadence Systems). Many of his classes were taught online.

Lindsey  is the Chief Exploring Officer (CEO) of Exploring New Media.  He learns most of what he knows by continually examining new topics, discarding what doesn’t work or no longer interests him, hones and fine tunes those that do.  He is a retired Air Force officer, a college level instructor, founder and leader of multiple meetups, web developer, and game player. He currently leads the Austin Podcast meetup group and co-leads the Austin WordPress meetup group.

Pat Ramsey

Pat is the Design Chief & Accessibility Guru Extraordinaire for slash25 code. Specializing in standards-based design, Pat believes in making code that works… beautifully. He leads the Austin WordPress meetup group and is active in Refresh Austin, a group of Web professionals “refreshing” the creative, technical, and professional aspects of their trade. Pat serves as both an adviser and trainer for Knowbility’s Accessible Internet Rallies. He’s been a speaker on the topics of accessibility and web standards at events around the country.

The organizers of the Austin WordPress Meetup are excited to announce a custom WordPress training series.

We focus on you, the user in this series of classes. The traditional business owner, the web-based small enterprise or the stay-at-home blogger can benefit from learning how to get the most from WordPress. This is a course designed to take you from beginner status up to that of a power user. We’ll stop just short of training you to become a developer, though after this course, you’ll be a better client for them.

Taking this class should save you hours upon hours in research and should ease the trial-&-error learning curve that discourages many new WordPress users. We give you the tools and process to plan and execute a site that that can be expanded and refined as your business grows.

Courses meet at Cospace – 911 W Anderson Lane #203, Austin TX, 78757.