I still remember the email: “We’d love to have you speak at WordCamp Praha.” I read it twice, checked the sender, then did the only logical thing—made a coffee and paced around my flat in Prague like I’d just won a tiny, very nerdy lottery. I’d pitched a session on SEO optimization for WordPress—practical, no-gimmicks advice for site owners and devs—and somehow, I got the nod.
The build-up
I’m not shy about sharing what works, but a WordCamp crowd is different: it’s a room full of people who actually ship websites—developers, content folks, plugin authors, translators, agency owners. They know when you’re hand-waving. So I rewrote my deck three times, shaved off buzzwords, and packed it with the kind of slides I wish I’d had when I was fixing slow, messy installs at 2 a.m.
A week out, I did a full dry run to an audience of one (my very patient plant) and a second run to a friend who only stopped me to say “show me the exact click path in WordPress.” Which, frankly, was the best note I could’ve gotten.
The day: organized chaos in the best possible way
WordCamps have a vibe. It’s part conference, part reunion, part “oh wow I’ve used your plugin for years, hi!” The hallway track buzzed from the moment we got our badges. Sticker swaps, impromptu troubleshooting sessions, contributors teaching each other keyboard shortcuts—it’s peak open source energy. And the Czech WordPress community? Generous, curious, and subtly funny. (The coffee jokes landed. The Yoda-text “do or do not, there is no index” slide… less so.)
My slot was late morning. The room filled gradually—freelancers with laptops, agency devs with that “I probably have a deploy running” look, bloggers clutching notebooks. I took a breath, shared a quick “I live here, I break and fix WordPress for fun, let’s get into the good stuff,” and we were off.
What I shared (and yes, it worked in 2017)
I promised practical SEO, not theory. Here’s the core of the session I delivered—fast, tactical, and easy to implement on a real site:
| 2017 WordPress SEO Checklist | Why it mattered? (then—and still does) |
|---|---|
| HTTPS migration (301s, Search Console new property) | Security + trust + HTTP/2 speed benefits; no “mixed content” warnings. |
| Mobile-first mindset (responsive themes, viewport, touch targets) | Google’s mobile-first indexing ramped up; UX = rankings + conversions. |
Clean permalinks (/%postname%/) | Readable URLs; consistent canonical mapping; fewer crawl headaches. |
| Caching + minification (server-level if possible) | Speed wins: TTFB and FCP improvements with W3TC/WP Super Cache or host-level caching. |
Image discipline (proper sizes, compression, srcset) | Killed bloated heroes; faster pages on mid-range Android (the real audience). |
| XML sitemaps + robots (Yoast/SEOPress + manual checks) | Clean discovery; no staging URLs escaping into Google. |
| Canonical tags (archives, pagination, parameters) | Prevented duplicate content loops from theme quirks. |
| Schema basics (Article, Breadcrumb, Organization) | Richer snippets; better CTR without chasing tricks. |
| Hreflang for multi-language (cz/en) | Stopped EN pages outranking CZ and vice versa; crucial in Prague. |
| Thin content audit (Screaming Frog + Search Console) | Pruned zombie pages; redirected wisely; lifted average quality. |
I demoed exactly where to click in WordPress: adjusting reading settings, configuring Yoast (no, you don’t need to index every taxonomy under the sun), setting media attachment redirects, and building a quick child theme for tiny template edits so updates didn’t wreck SEO.
We also talked speed—how a “pretty” slider can secretly torch Core Web Vitals (we didn’t call them that in 2017, but the pain was real), why fewer queries beats clever caching, and how hosting location affects latency for Czech audiences.
Questions that kept coming up
- “Do we need AMP?” In 2017, it was fashionable. I told folks: if news, maybe; if not, fix fundamentals first. That advice aged well.
- “Yoast or something else?” Pick one reputable plugin, learn it deeply, and don’t stack SEO plugins like pancakes.
- “How many plugins is too many?” Wrong question. The right one: which plugins load on the front end, and can your theme do more with less?
- “HTTPS migration without losing rankings?” Yes—if your 301s are perfect and you clean up mixed content on day one.
We closed with a mini live audit of a brave volunteer’s site. We shaved 1.2 seconds off their homepage with three changes: compressed images, killed an above-the-fold carousel, and deferred a social widget that wasn’t earning its keep. The room loved that.
The atmosphere
It was friendly, properly nerdy, and honestly inspiring. I met translators who keep local plugins usable, devs who maintain niche themes for fun, and agency folks shipping four client sites a month without losing their minds. The after-talk chats spilled into the hallway (and later, into the afterparty) where the real knowledge transfer happens: war stories, quick code snippets, swapping “this host is actually fast here” notes.
There’s something about WordPress people—they’ll debate taxonomy archives for 20 minutes and then immediately volunteer to help you fix yours. That spirit is why I keep showing up.
What I learned as a speaker
- Show, don’t tell. Screenshots and click paths beat theory slides.
- Localize examples. Czech vs. English, local SERP quirks, hosting geography—all matter.
- Cut slides by 20%. Leave space for questions; that’s where you learn the most.
- Handout > deck. I shared a one-page checklist people could actually use back at their desks.
Why WordCamp Praha changed my year
It sharpened how I teach. It connected me to Prague’s WordPress community in a way a dozen online groups never could. And it reminded me that SEO isn’t a secret—it’s craft. Get the foundations right, and the fancy bits become optional.
If you were there in 2017 and said hi—thank you. If you weren’t, come to the next one. I’ll be the person with a coffee, a notebook full of audits, and probably an opinion about sliders.
Lorelei has been an online entrepreneur, marketer and writer since 2006. Her biggest passion is WordPress, which is why she switched to being a full-time blogger 20 years ago and hasn’t looked back since. With so many years of experience behind her, she is an expert in copywriting, SEO, marketing and business strategies.