Nate Covington

I recently received an email that is referenced in this forum thread.  I was going to post my response on this other site but it tried to get me to sign up for a premium plan in order to post a response.  Instead, I am posting it here:

"Thank you, too, for everything you've done with our site and helping us to get it launched so efficiently.  We are very pleased the look-and-feel, the flexibility we have with content, and how mobile friendly it is.  Thank you!”

- Barry

We built a custom Drupal CMS theme for this site using Photoshop (PSD) files provided by a graphic designer. The layout is responsive (mobile-friendly) so that it performs well on any mobile device and ranks well with search engines:

"Blatt Communications with Nate Covington developed and executed our new B2B website and the entire Axcentria Team is thrilled with the results! The implementation, under a constrained time frame, was executed flawlessly and most importantly, on time." - Paul

We built this site from scratch using the Drupal CMS.  It features a responsive (mobile-friendly) layout for maximum effectiveness and search engine visibility.

We recently received this announcement from Google, they are replacing the "old" reCaptcha system with a newer, smarter, easier to use system.

Many of our clients have asked about adding a reCaptcha anti-spam mechanism onto their site's contact page (get a quote form, etc) and our advice was typically as follows:

1. Avoid adding a reCaptcha field at all costs because it makes it more difficult for legitimate people to send messages through your site.
2. Typically, we start by adding a security mechanism called Project Honeypot onto the site, which blocks malicious visitors based on their IP address. 
3. If blocking malicious IP addresses still doesn't cut down enough on the amount of spam that is sent through the form, then we look into adding a reCaptcha system.

"As a small business owner I struggled to build and maintain a modern and functional website until I was referred to Covington Creations!  Nate has established an infrastructure in Joomla that now allows me to easily and effectively keep our website current and up to date.  During the development process Covington Creations was very responsive and helped explain things in a way I could understand.  I would recommend any business big or small to call Nate for help with their website." - Brad

"Nate provided very attentive and professional web designing serves.  His work is professional, his pricing very fair and he is responsive and accommodating.  Utilizing his services to improve my own business was a great decision!"

Building optimized sites has always been a major part of our strategy: they are easier to maintain, easier to upgrade, and they load more quickly.  I have never built a site using only Flash, and have always built sites using HTML-and-CSS based navigation menus.  They are search engine friendly and easy to expand or rearrange.

With that in mind, I have recently come up with a few other ways to speed things up.  A faster site will generally rank better in the search engines, plus it will have less people abandoning the site while waiting for it to load.

A Discussion Drupal vs Joomla Theming

I think this might be my first post specifically about Drupal.  I’ve been using Drupal for a few years now, but as many know, I’ve been a Joomla guy for a lot longer.  One of the nice things about Drupal’s theming structure is their “content” is rendered as a regular block.  So, when you’re managing blocks in the admin panel, you can assign a contact form block to the content area block area, and it shows up right below it.  No need to tweak the template files create a new block area (in Joomla speak, a module position).

First, a bit of clarification because my clients frequently ask this question: what’s the difference between "social icons" and "social sharing icons”?  Social icons are links to your company’s social pages, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN.  On these pages, people can directly engage with your organization by posting photos, asking questions, and the like.  

Social SHARING icons are visually similar as well, they will typically include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, Google+, Pinterest… these are used for sharing content from your company’s website on your site visitors’ social media accounts (newsfeeds, or pages).  When your site’s visitors share your content throughout their social circles, it translates into free exposure for your content.  Assuming that you are producing relevant, high-quality content, this should translate into increased revenues, profits, and market share for your organization.