Since my last post, I’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on my new blog theme. I hope you like it!
Now that I’m up and running again, I’d like to share some of the highlights of last weekend’s WordCamp, as promised. A few people I spoke to before the event said they weren’t going because they weren’t heavy-duty WordPress users, but there was something there for everyone, from techie types to people wanting to learn how to get involved in blogging and social networking. In addition to the nine formal sessions, there were two blogging success stories as well as demos of two new WordPress plug-ins.
In my opinion, the best three presenters (in order of appearance) were:
- Jeremy Wright, on Blogging and Social Media
- Mark Evans, on Writing for Multiple Blogs
- Brad Gosse, on SEO
Jeremy’s lively presentation was an excellent kickoff to the conference. He didn’t speak so much about blogging as about social media and the many ways it fails, such as spam and focus on numbers instead of interaction. His advice is to not let these issues keep us from participating in social media, but rather to make sure we’re not adding to the problem and to avoid those who do. In summary – to remember that it’s SOCIAL media, not social MEDIA. You can view Jeremy’s presentation here:
I especially enjoyed Mark’s presentation, since I write for multiple blogs. He suggested many strategies for capturing and organizing ideas, including the cleverly named Packrati.us, which automatically adds any URLs from your tweets to your Delicious bookmarks. (I have recently started using Delicious myself, and there’s a link to my bookmarks under “Stay Connected” on the left. Any new bookmarks that I save will also show up in my Lifestream.) You can view Mark’s presentation here:
Brad shared some excellent information about search engine optimization for blogs, such as the importance of using keywords in your post titles – something I know about, but don’t always remember to do. He stated that 90% of SEO actually happens off of our sites, so it is essential to get good backlinks. You can request a copy of Brad’s slideshow and some other goodies via Brad’s blog post on WordCamp Toronto 2010. Please note that you will need to enter your email address to access the download. If you have trouble running the MP4 file, as I did, try the VLC Media Player – it’s a free download.
So many people use blogging either as a marketing strategy or to generate passive income through affiliate links, and it’s always refreshing to find someone doing something truly unique. One of the success stories was a woman named Mary who is doing just that. Mary’s goal is to learn as much as she can by taking as many interesting people to lunch as possible. She shares the details of her lunches in her blog, Lunch with Mary. You really must check it out!
Next time I’ll tell you about some of the really cool WordPress plug-ins that I learned about.
Thank you for the kind words (and link love). I’m glad you enjoyed my little chat and the more wrap-ups I read of WordCamp, the more I wish I had been able to stay for all the speakers. Seems like a ton of great content.
Janet,
I’m glad you enjoyed my presentation. The packrati.us tool seems to be getting a good reception!
cheers, Mark
Thank you for the kind words and mention Janet
I am glad you got value out of the weekend!
All the best!
Brad
Mary, Mark, and Brad, thank you for stopping by. It’s always good to know that people saw the nice things you wrote about them!
Great news! The full video of Brad’s presentation can now be watched on his blog.