{"id":1745,"date":"2011-09-13T12:44:23","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T10:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2011.capetown.wordcamp.org\/?p=1745"},"modified":"2013-01-21T20:17:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:17:42","slug":"speaker-spotlight-rafiq-phillips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/speaker-spotlight-rafiq-phillips\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker Spotlight: Rafiq Phillips"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rafiq<\/a>\u00a0Rafiq Phillips is a Cape Town based SEO Specialist, Social\u00a0Entrepreneur\u00a0and Innovator. He will be presenting a session on the\u00a0Importance\u00a0of SEO as a part of the Publisher Track.<\/p>\n

Tell us a bit about yourself<\/h3>\n

SEO at MIH SWAT<\/a> by day Web AddiCT<\/a> all the time<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why WordPress?<\/h3>\n

I have been publishing content online since 1999 in the style of what today is known as blogging and have been using WordPress since 2005.<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on the WordPress community as a whole? And the South African WP community?<\/h3>\n

The free support and valuable resources available with WordPress is unlike any other publishing platform available today. This would not be possible without the open source WordPress community.<\/p>\n

In South Africa I have to tip my hat to the WooTeam<\/a> who have contributed some<\/em> code to the open source community and the various projects they have helped found which educates many South Africans about WordPress’ endless possibilities.<\/p>\n

Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Cape Town?<\/h3>\n

I participated in the last WordCamp Cape Town, and it changed my life. I hope my contribution this time round will positively impact the attendees who will learn and share the tips I’ll disseminate.<\/p>\n

What is your talk going to be about?<\/h3>\n

SEO Fundamental…ism<\/p>\n

What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Cape Town?<\/h3>\n

An event free of arrogance, pride and company pitches \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?<\/h3>\n

The importance of SEO for WordPress.<\/p>\n

What is your favourite WordPress theme and\/or plugin, and why?<\/h3>\n

The theme on Web AddiCT(s); designed by Foxinni. Before the theme my bounce rate was 70%, after it has remained below 20%<\/p>\n

Share one WP tip<\/h3>\n

WordPress is only a tool.<\/p>\n

Who in the WordPress community inspires you? Who do you follow?<\/h3>\n

Everyone who contributes to the core, themes and plugins without a hidden agenda (usually financial gain).<\/p>\n

What is the most exciting feature\/addition\/improvement to WordPress that you have noticed in the last year?<\/h3>\n

I’m not sure how long it’s been around but the one-click theme & plugin installation has been, I believe, the most exciting improvement in the past 5 years. In the last year it has been working much better without leaving maintenance behind.<\/p>\n

Where do you see WordPress 2 years from now?<\/h3>\n

Start-up publishers who use WordPress as a CMS will be eating the cake of those well-established publishers who rely on a legacy, buggy and bespoke CMS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Rafiq Phillips is a Cape Town based SEO Specialist, Social\u00a0Entrepreneur\u00a0and Innovator. He will be presenting a session on the\u00a0Importance\u00a0of SEO as a part of the Publisher Track. Tell us a bit about yourself SEO at MIH SWAT by day Web … Continue reading Speaker Spotlight: Rafiq Phillips<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7694169,"featured_media":1776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9463],"tags":[9480,9518,29],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speaker-spotlight","tag-publisher-track","tag-rafiq-phillips","tag-speakers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/files\/2011\/09\/Rafiq-Phillips-W.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1wS7r-s9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7694169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3184,"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/3184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capetown.wordcamp.org\/2011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}