"It was time for the Lambertville House to update its web site. After listening to a presentation by Nate Covington at the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce, I decided to break with tradition and work with a new web builder. My objectives were quite clear, I wanted to streamline the site and increase search engine optimization. After meeting with Nate I was confident that he was going to work hard to understand what was needed to communicate our message to our customers. Nate was a patient listener and it was obvious from the start of the project that he wanted to make sure the finished product would exceed my expectations. The professionalism, attention to detail and overall quality of work has been a pleasure. Nate has provided guidance and useful tools to enhance and promote our site in an easy to understand format. I highly recommend Covington Creations and Nate who is reliable and creative. We look forward to a long standing working relationship."
- Mary Ellen Mason, Proprietor, Lambertville House
We felt the first thing that had to go was the daunting navigation menu because was too long and wordy to let people make easy choices.
Before:
After:
We wanted to keep the existing look & feel, but made a few changes:
a. Breadcrumbs
We added "breadcrumbs" to the top of every page; that way, visitors have a quick and simple way to navigate the site. Plus, it gives plenty of extra text links for the search engines to enjoy. Best of all, the breadcrumb menu is automatically generated by the custom-tailored content management system that powers the site.
b. Lightbox (Thumbnails)
Throughout the site, there are small thumbnails that enlarge to show a full-size picture. The best part? They're also automatically generated by our fancy control panel. Want to swap out the pictures? Just upload new ones to a folder on the web server and, bang. Done.
c. Blog. RSS Feeds. Social Bookmarking.
We added an Announcements section to the Lambertville House site and equipped it with all of the latest goodies. First, adding content regularly to the site will feed Google wonderful content to chew up and help gain exposure for the site. Second, social bookmarking links on all of the new articles allow viewers to share the articles through services like Facebook, Digg, Technorati, and Del.icio.us. The best part? You guessed it. Automatically generated by the CMS software.
d. Search, Site Map
Let's make it as easy as possible for people to navigate the site. For those who can't manage the newly simplified navigation menu, let's add a quick and easy site search function. Studies show that half of all web surfers use Search instead of menus. Also, the site map gives visitors a hierarchal view of the content while feeding Google some more links.
View Site:
www.lambertvillehouse.com
