Workshops report new and formative ideas. Conferences are a half-way point between workshops and journals. Typically, authors take their good conference papers, expand them, and turn them into journal articles. Conference is better than workshop. But don't ignore workshops.
International publications are better than national.
In the Australian context, researchers save their best ideas for international forums. This is true in many other countries, except perhaps the United States. Short is better than long. While long articles can give you all the details of an idea, it may be better to read lots of short articles from different researchers than a few long ones. In this way, you can quickly get a better feel for the breadth of a field.