I’ve been invited to present at the first ever WordCamp event in The Netherlands, on October 31 at Seats2Meet in Utrecht.

I will be presenting a very practical use case of the integration of WordPress and OpenX. OpenX is an ad server. More information about OpenX can be found on my blog. OpenX is free open source software, just like WordPress, and can be downloaded from www.openx.org.

On large websites with a variety of sections, it can be a good strategy to enable advertisers to place their ads only next to those sections that match their product or service. By assigning a category to each blog post, this can easily be achieved. In my presentation I will demonstrate how the post category can be passed on the ad server, and how the ads can be targeted to the precise category or categories that the advertiser is looking for. That way, the ads will only show up on articles that match the targeting criteria.

There are many advantages to helping advertisers target only relevant blog posts:

• advertisers can target their ads more precisely, and as a result their ad spending will have a higher return on investment
• publisher of a site or blog will be able to sell advertising more easily and find multiple advertisers for a better segmented website
• site visitors will see more relevant ads, which means they will appreciate them more than just ‘random generic advertising’

This presentation is intended for beginning WordPress users with some experience adapting their theme (or a willingness to learn).

More information about WordCamp NL 2009 is on the webite, including a registration form. there are only 200 seats, and they are filling fast, so speed is of the essence!