“Let’s Fix Your Website” Recap for November 19, 2019

Our sincere apologies for not having a recap from the October 2019 “Let’s Fix Your WordPress Site” meetup. I was out of town for that meetup, but our gracious host Dan Stramer took over and handled the event with care. This month we had 21 people show up, and that was a packed full house … Read more

Monetizing WordPress Websites: Nov 17th

This was another informative WordPress Meetup hosted by David Michaels which considered a broad brush of topics of interest to 20 attendees. The common topic was  methods to help monetize your WordPress websites. First discussion was about website specializing in motor boats driven by electric engines. The website has substantial worldwide readership but  European countries … Read more

Monetizing Websites at the Baka Cafe

David Michaels and attendees were offering a broad palate of tasty WordPress morsels at this Sunday WP Meetup.And the number of entrees and appetizers generously offered put this notetaker to the test. David as master chef asked which website had 1000 hits per week and looked for some common factors among the websites: Niche website … Read more

“Let’s Fix Your Website” Recap for September 17, 2019

We had about 15 people come out to the September 2019 edition of “Let’s Fix Your Website.” We switched for fall to third Tuesday’s of the month and will continue to see how this date works. This avoids our Monday statutory holidays that happen just about every month, and also Lokaal has better availability on … Read more

New meetup series: WordPress for Non-Profits

We started a new meetup series last week focusing on not-for-profit (non-profit) organizations. We held the first meetup in the east end at Kobayashi + Zeitguys on the Danforth, our old haunt for the WPToronto East meetups.

A reminder: what our meetups are for

Local WordPress meetup groups like WPToronto are for the community to come together, sharing our knowledge and experiences with the WordPress platform.

WordPress is all about community. It’s open source software, which means it’s built through the collective contributions of people from around the world.

The beautiful thing about a WordPress meetup is that anyone in the community can step up and lead their own event.

If you’re not familiar with WPToronto and Toronto’s WordPress community, look into the various meetups happening around town.

Who is this new NFP meetup series for?

This new monthly meetup series focuses on WordPress sites that support the social good. We had a great kick-off event with Amanda Gorman from GiveWP sharing best practices for donation pages.

We also talked about what we want this meetup series to be. What topics should we cover?

What topics do we want to see in the future?

Suggestions included:

  • WordPress security
  • WordPress hosting – different types, pros and cons
  • Membership sites, programs and campaigns
  • DIY website management & maintenance
  • Content strategy
  • Collaborating and working with other organizations
  • Automation, productivity tools
  • WordPress plugins for non-profits
  • Website planning
  • Web analytics & reporting

Best practices for donation landing pages

Preparing for Success

  • Understand your donors as deeply as you can
  • Perform keyword research
  • Do a competitor analysis
  • Understand donor demographics & qualities (via surveys, interviews)
  • Set goals
  • Be clear and specific
  • Set dates to review success and make improvements
  • Measure your data
  • Set clear metrics you can track & improve

Read more

NFP Members Design Problem

Not For Profit Websites (Monthly): Aug: Donation Page Best Practices + more was an excellent Meetup this last Tuesday. At the end of the Meetup, Brent Kobayashi asked for directions on what topics should be considered at the Meetup. Since I had just made a NFP Project proposal for a client – the topic of … Read more

Personal Data Privacy: Rising Issue

It used to be that WordPress Website Security was the number one problem confronting Website Developers. This is primarily due to the army of hackers who are using ever more sophisticated code to break into WordPress websites. However, an excellent Meetup by Andy Mcllwain and Brent Kobayashi – Not For Profit Websites Donation Page Best … Read more

July 2019 – Let’s Fix Your Website recap

This month’s meetup was a surprise. We had 17 people show up out of the 35 people who rsvp’d on meetup.com. In the summer, I thought we would have a light turn out but that was not so. Pizza and drinks were courtesy of Weglot.com. The lovely meetup space was donated courtesy of Lokaal.

Try Weglot at WordPress Toronto’s Translation Workshop

Let’s face it. For most of us, the translation process is overwhelming, expensive and difficult to maintain. Weglot (www.weglot.com) may be the answer. Weglot has developed a WordPress plugin that features a five minute install, activation and initial configuration. Then Weglot translates your copy automatically, on the fly, and creates a best-effort translation using commercial … Read more