Shanta R. Nathwani is an IT and Social Media Consultant and an Instructor in Web Design at Sheridan College, which includes teaching WordPress. She teaches students and small businesses how to use social media to increase their online presence leading to increased revenues and improved customer service.

Presentation: Data Architecture in WordPress

Posts vs. Pages & Categories vs. Tags. There is so much confusion about what types of things should be put on a page and what should be in a post. Static vs. Dynamic content is the best way to tackle this. An “About Us” page would be just that… A PAGE. If you are talking about something that is more time sensitive, then you want to do a post. Connected to this would be Categories and Tags. What are they? When creating a website, you can edit a menu to include not only pages, but also category archives that can create a more complete experience for small businesses.

What do you want folks to learn from your presentation?

In this session, you will learn how to create a menu based on your content from categories, links and pages. Lead your visitors to your content in three clicks, which is the art of data architecture. Bring your post-it notes!

What attracted you to WordPress in the first place?

I wanted an easy way to create websites without going back to learn the code, since I’d learned so long ago. Learning WordPress actually gave me the drive to go back to the code and now I teach it!

What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Toronto?

Al Davis’s Sunday Workshop on converting PSDs into WordPress Themes.

Why did you decide to speak?

I did this exercise with one of my clients a few months ago and again with another organization who both found it incredibly helpful, not only for laying out the menus, but for division of content and understanding how to create your content. I needed to share this!

What is your favourite plugin or theme, and why?

WordFence. It’s free and it protects my WordPress sites. For a fee, I can have it schedule the scans. A second one is Backup Buddy. Not free, but extremely versatile and easy to use. I demo this to my students and set it up for all my clients in addition to WordFence.