The Exprance Blog

For Small Businesses

Moving To a Fully Secure Website

Moving To a Fully Secure Website

This post is a bit outside the realm of WordPress and the WordPress difficulty level I usually write at. I still decided I wanted to write about the topic and document my process though. This would be helpful for those that have purchased a secure certificate, have it working for portions of their website but … Read more

Free vs Premium WordPress Themes

Free vs Premium Wordpress Themes: this guide will help you choose

There are so many WordPress themes out there to choose from. Some are free, some come with a one time cost, and others come with a yearly cost. After my little story below, I’ll go over the pluses and minuses of free vs premium WordPress themes. Four years ago it was really hard to get … Read more

My Major WordPress Update Process

Wordpress

WordPress 4.2 was recently released so I wanted to take this opportunity to share the WordPress update process I use. Here’s a short summary of what the changes include: My WordPress Update Process This isn’t comprehensive instructions on how to upgrade and all the steps before I take to do it. I go over it broadly … Read more

Why Use WordPress For Blogging?

Why Use Wordpress For Blogging

There are a lot of blogging platforms out there, so why use WordPress for blogging? LinkedIn For Context I’ve been working with WordPress and LinkedIn lately as a blogging platform. After the experiment, I’ve concluded that LinkedIn isn’t a blogging platform for the long run. I’ve moved most of my content away from it, but … Read more

10 Reasons You Should Build a Portfolio Website

Build a Portfolio Website

Investing time and money to build a portfolio website seems like a daunting task, it isn’t though. There are enough reasons out there why you should take the time and invest the money to build your portfolio website right the first time. Don’t get caught walking around the professional world naked, that’s what you’re doing when you don’t … Read more

Livefyre vs Disqus: Which One Should You Use?

Livefyre vs Disqus, which comment plugin is the best?

There are options for comment systems on your WordPress website. I will compare two of the biggest in this Livefyre vs Disqus comparison and make a recommendation for which has proven the best. You’ll also find a good plugin that you can use to easily make comments faster in WordPress.

How To Do Mobile Wrong

Don't do mobile wrong

I recently wrote about why you need a mobile-friendly website. That leaves the doors wide open to different ways of doing a mobile friendly website, many of them wrong. When I talk about doing mobile wrong, that doesn’t mean they are wrong, but in most cases don’t create the right type of experience for visitors … Read more

11 Reasons You Need a Mobile Friendly Website

Your visitors are mobile. You need a mobile friendly website.

I’ve noticed a trend lately and it seems to be echoed all over the Internet. Mobile traffic accounts for most traffic to my websites, I estimate it at about 60% or more. Catering to mobile users first is the best way to start. Responsive web design is a great path for thinking mobile first and having … Read more

Make Yourself Accessible With A Contact Form

Person on an iPhone

Visitors to your website should be able to contact you easily and without thought, a contact form is the best solution. You went to the trouble to create a website to bring traffic your way, you also want visitors to be able to contact you if they want. You could take the easy way out and put … Read more

Bring On The Connections!

City at night with a bridge connecting it

I see a lot of people writing about why they don’t accept unknown connections on LinkedIn. This is about why you should connect on LinkedIn with everyone. The only way these people claim they’ll connect with you is if you know them in real life, work with them, or talked with them on social media. Some limit … Read more

Always Maintain Personal Brand Consistency

Build Your Personal Brand Website

Putting your finger on exactly what a personal brand is isn’t the easiest thing to do. While the brand of an organization is a complex web of people, it’s still not as complex as people. Think of all the different skills that go into making you successful at your job. There’s a common theme I speak … Read more

Why You Should Promote Your Skills Beyond Social Media

Why You Should Promote Your Skills Beyond Social Media

There are a lot of places to promote your skills online today for free. Social media sites are a great place to increase your personal brand awareness. Top of this list in social media is Linkedin followed closely by Facebook and Twitter. There are even sites like about.me and WordPress.com where you can have a … Read more

Font Awesome And the Cool Eye

New Font Awesome Icons in v4.2

When I walked through setting up my blog on my Udemy course I set up the cool little-estimated reading time you see just above this text. You’ll notice that there’s now a cool eye right before the estimated reading time text. That wasn’t there before! You can use these instructions to use Font Awesome icons on any part of … Read more

Build Your Personal Brand Website

Build Your Personal Brand Website

This is my first post on the website I’ve created to help people promote their personal brand using a website. There are many great ways you can promote your personal brand including LinkedIn, Facebook, Behance, Twitter, Pinterest and lots of other social media sites. These are great websites but they don’t give you full control … Read more

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