Nate Covington

Another free service that I found recently is Uptime Robot.  You can use it to monitor your website’s uptime and receive alerts if it finds a problem.  The free version monitors up to 50 sites and checks them every 5 minutes.   

Learn more:  www.uptimerobot.com

What is your preference?  And if you’re a client and are now realizing that your website was built with two spaces and you’d prefer a single space between sentences, or vice-versa, please just send us an email so that we can make the necessary adjustments.  

Personally, I’m not sure which is better, I just enjoy watching people argue about it.  From my angle, this is a generational thing.  I attended grade school in the 90's and early 2000's and two spaces after a sentence was standard at the time.  

Articles:

• One space between each sentence, they said.  Science just proved them wrong.
• Two spaces after period are better than one, except maybe they aren’t, study finds.

Hire us to manage your overall online presence, ranging from Google Maps and local business listings, to on-page SEO and optimization.  We submit your business information to online directories (citation submissions) with all of our plans.  On an ongoing basis, we allocate time each month to spend researching and fine-tuning your website and related social profiles, directory listings, etc.  

Message from Nate:
I wasn't aware of Google's Grant program for nonprofits to advertise on the Google Adwords campaign - in general - until just recently.  So this is a two-part post, for my clients.  One is to announce that this program exists for nonprofits, and the second is to announce that Google recently made changes to the program.  

Google Ad Grants changes and your PPC strategy: Where to go from here

Is your nonprofit organization involved with the Google Ad Grants Program? Contributor Pauline Jakober shows how you can benefit from the recent ad changes with a few creative tips and workarounds.

This past December, Google communicated changes to its Google Ad Grants program. If you’re a nonprofit or an agency working on behalf of nonprofits, these changes may apply to you.

Some of the changes are good, but others may create new challenges for you. In this article, I’m going to briefly walk through some of the new rules and then detail a few strategies and creative workarounds you can use.

I want to take a quick moment to reiterate why I love Open Source software so much.  Not only is open source software free to use and customize to your liking, you can also run it on almost any hosting server.  You could even host it on a server in your basement if so desired.  

I recently noticed that the “Captcha” field on my website’s comment form was still showing the old “V1” anti-spam check:

(Yikes!)

Rather than the newer, friendlier format: 

The solution, which actually came as a surprise, was quite simple.  All I had to do was update the “K2 Component” in my site to the latest version and generate a new API key for the new “V2” Captcha.  And it just so happens that the developers behind K2 took the effort to make the latest version of K2 (released in 2017) compatible with Joomla 1.5, which dates back to 2010.   

Shareaholic 2017 Data Report
Notable findings include search volume outperforming social for the first time in 3 years. Facebook also had a 12% reduction in usage for 2nd half of 2017 compared to 2nd half of 2016.

New Google Search Console
Free tools to make sure that Google is properly indexing your site. If you're not using this along with Google Analytics, you're missing out!

Chrome will Mark Non-HTTPS as Not Secure in July 2018
This is a big deal because over half of internet users browse with Chrome.  If you don't have SSL enabled for your site yet, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. today to get this resolved.    

A Thorough Migration Checklist
This is a great article to show all of the moving parts when changing domain names.

Keyword infringement: Edible Arrangements files $209M trademark suit against Google
Ouch!  Apparently, you can only BID on trademarked keywords using Google Adwords.  You can't use the trademarked keyword in your actual ad.  

Dear Microsoft:

This is disturbing.  

1. MOBILE-READY DESIGN

From template or custom artwork

2. CUSTOMIZABLE URL’s

Custom landing pages allow for new content to easily be found

3. CLIENT CONTROL

Open source (no vendor lock-in), customizable, manage from any browser Compatible with almost any hosting service

4. NO CONTRACTS

Hourly pricing, 48-hour support ticket response

5. FIXED-COST PROJECTS

No billing surprises

...using custom PHP confirmation message:

I needed something that would allow a client to provide name, email, invoice number, and amount.  All of the solutions I could find were either for the older version of Webform, or they were too cumbersome... too many modules required... not enough simplicity and control.  Many of the solutions would only allow for "donations" of fixed amounts. 

My solution was to adapt the solution found here (which was written for a specific scenario, also using the older version of Webform), adapt it for my needs, and recode for Webform v4.  

Note that this solution requires that you enable the "PHP Filter" module, which is a potential security issue if configured incorrectly.  

I recently had to come up with a way to track a client's Drupal site, using the Webform module, from within Google Analytics.  Since the Webform module generates the "submit" button automatically, there is no easy way to include the "onClick" tracking code provided by Google into the form:

onClick="ga('send', 'event', { eventCategory: 'Legacy Event Signup', eventAction: 'Sign Up', eventLabel: 'Legacy Signups', eventValue: 1});"

My solution was to write a short "hook" script in the template.  To incorporate into your site, you need to modify this file:

/sites/all/themes/YOURTHEME/template.php