PreCamp

PreCamp — Friday, May 30

PreCamp is a hands-on session for those new to WordPress. Unlike WordCamp (Sat & Sun), which focuses on presentations by various speakers, PreCamp (Fri) is a do-it-yourself day.

Are you new to WordPress (or know someone who is) and want some hands-on support in setting up your website? PreCamp is designed to take you from a blank slate to a fully functioning website before you walk out the door. We provide almost everything* you need to get started – including a full year of hosting for your site thanks to the generous sponsorship of SiteGround.

If you’re a beginner who is wondering if this is the right place for you – the answer is YES! We have an amazing team of experienced WordPress users, designers and developers that have donated their time to make this an incredible learning experience for you that will definitely bring results. You’ll be guided through the steps needed to get your first website up and running. And we have enough facilitators to step in and provide some individual support if you get confused along the way.

Want to be one of the lucky 50 attendees? Make sure you’ve signed up for Email updates (subscribe on right-hand sidebar) and we’ll notify you when tickets go on sale.

We look forward to meeting you at PreCamp!

*you will need to bring a laptop with wireless internet, any images and content you will want on your website, and a willingness to learn through hands-on experience (a great sense of humor and willingness to laugh while you learn is appreciated – but not required.)

When, Where and How Much

Friday May 30th Registration begins 9:00 am
Website Creation is from 9:30am-3pm (lunch provided)

Location & Directions

Tickets are an amazingly low price of $45
(your facilitators charge way more than that per hour for their advice and you get it for free!; you get a year of hosting so you’ll have plenty of time to continue to enhance your website; you have support in implementing what you learn as you learn; and you’ll leave with not only a website but a growing list of resources to continue on your way.)

Details

Ahead of Time:

After you register for PreCamp, we’ll send you a short questionnaire to help us both prepare for the actual day of website creation. Please respond to this immediately!

Day of PreCamp:

We’ll take you through:

  • Initial settings and basic security measures (what you need to do first thing to ensure a clean site)
  • Getting content on your website – basic pages used on most websites (Home, About, Contact, etc.); your first Post, how to use Categories (vs Tags) to group similar content
  • Theme Selection for the “look” you want, Sidebars and Widgets, and Social Media connections with your website
  • Plugins to enhance your websites functionality and appearance

After PreCamp:

  • Continue your learning with the resources you’ve been provided, join your local WordPress Meetup group, and most importantly – keep practicing and playing with your own website (experience is the best teacher)
  • We strongly encourage you to also attend WordCamp Sat/Sun May 31/June 1 ($40 for 2 days of learning and networking with fellow WordPress users.)

Continue learning at WordCamp!

At WordCamp you’ll be able to take your newly found expertise from PreCamp to new heights through engaging with fellow participants, listening to the speakers (yes, there is a Beginners track!) and even get some of your personal questions answered at the Happiness Bar.

The WordCamp Beginner Track will include:

  • A great overview of the dashboard navigation and functionality that is the “behind the scenes” way you control your website
  • A comparison of WordPress.com and WordPress.org (which you’ll be using for your self-hosted account) and how to get the best of both worlds using JetPack to leverage WP.com resources and features on WP.org
  • Favorite PlugIns – a whole session to learn about some of the common tools used to enhance your website
  • Media and your website – images, audio, video – a basic “how-to” on utilizing these within your website
  • Getting Help with WordPress – a beginners guide to getting “unstuck”
  • How to find and work with designers and developers (if/when you need some professional help)
  • Basic customization for non-coders (3 sessions on this!):
    • Customizing Widgets and the Navigation Menu
    • Basic CSS for customizing the look of your website
    • Intro to PHP (code used for WordPress – even as a beginner there might be times you’ll need a basic understanding of this to make minor changes)
  • Where’s the money? (3 sessions on this)
    • Monetizing your website – basic tips and tricks
    • WordPress e-commerce
    • Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Google Analytics

And all that is just in the Beginners track! You’ll probably want to spend most of your time there – but feel free to attend sessions in any of the other tracks if you want to learn more about Design or Content. But be forewarned that as a beginner your head might explode if you try to take in the Developers track!


A Big THANK YOU! to everyone that came out and participated in the first annual Asheville PreCamp event. As promised, below is a link to the slideshow that was used for the presentation. We successfully built 50 WordPress websites in unison. A special thanks to SiteGround for the year of free hosting for all of the participants.

PreCamp Presentation Notes

If anyone has follow up questions about the process or notes in the slideshow, you can reach Boomer Sassmann (Big Boom Design Inc) via email at boomer@bigboomdesign.com