Nate Covington

Nate Covington

I build websites that build businesses. 

Every month, my work is seen and used by hundreds of thousands of people.  I am available for hire with building new web sites, and managing existing sites, help with updates, consulting, new features, training, etc…  

I work with directly with business owners to build streamlined, effective web sites.  I also work with advertising agencies and marketing consultants on their clients' sites. 

The large majority of my projects are built using Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla, although I also support Magento, OSCommerce, and almost any other open-source platform.  

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Experience

Covington Creations, LLC (CEO)
Builds and maintain web sites for small and medium businesses, mainly in the PA/NJ/MD area. Main focus is customizing open-source content management systems, frequently working with graphic designers, photographers, copy writers, and project managers to produce and implement cutting-edge web applications. Over 15 years of programming experience.

Mangos, Inc. (Internship in Account Management)
As an intern with Mangos, an award-winning full-service ad agency, I assisted account managers with competitive research, worked alongside creative directors, as well as various designers, writers, and managers. Worked within all three major departments – account management, creative, and production.

Education

Graduated from the Marketing Program at Shippensburg University with a BSBA.  During his final semester, was hired by the College of Business to redesign the school’s web site.  Coursework included a concentration in sociology, psychology, and art.

Technical Skills
Programming (HTML, CSS, PHP, etc)
Open-source Software
Graphic Design
Photography
Google AdWords

Software Toolkit
Mac and PC
Adobe Creative Suite 
Microsoft Office (including Access)
Slack, Asana, other collaboration tools

Wednesday, 11 January 2017 14:46

Beware of Fraud: Web Design Scam

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:

Monday, 07 November 2016 17:27

FloridaDivorce.com (Attorney)

After much research and effort to find a programmer for our website, I had the good fortune to become aware of Covington Creations.  I have worked with Nate Covington for several years now and can state without hesitation that he is a highly skilled, hardworking, trustworthy programmer.

Nate takes his work very seriously and gets projects done on time and on budget.  He understands the needs of a small business and is always there to answer questions, fix problems and offer ideas.  Moreover, he explains things in language that a non-technical person can understand.  I have worked with programmers in the past who were very good, but I have to say that Nate is a cut above.  I highly recommend his services.

Monday, 07 November 2016 15:31

Online Education Resource: LoveToTeach.org

"I began my longstanding relationship with Covington Creations when I started my website in 2006.  Nate is a great businessman; he’s not happy until you’re happy with your website.  He is intuitive and explains the “behind the scenes” aspects of what your site needs or may need in the future.  He is also a thoughtful and patient teacher who has taught me everything I know about maintaining and updating my site.  Any request or concern I have, I just email him and it is promptly handled in a professional and thorough manner.  Thanks to Nate’s guidance and abilities, my website is now earning money through Google Adsense (paying for itself and then some)!"

- Jessica, Editor
LoveToTeach.org

Monday, 07 November 2016 15:11

Community Site: Barrett Township, PA

When we relocated to our current home in the Poconos in 2009, we had trouble finding things to do in our area, contractors who could work on our house, and more.  Our solution was to build a community website to the general benefit of our area.  Businesses are listed in the directory for free, and real estate agents can post properties for sale at no cost.  The site now receives over 700 visitors per day and we are able to sell advertising space to local businesses. 

Solution after finding myself unable to print multiple lines on my Quickbooks Invoices.  Seems like there are a lot of other people who posted similar problems and Intuit was fairly unresponsive.  Hopefully this video will help shed some light on the issue.  I almost wound up typing an amount and hourly rate for EVERY line on my invoices, even though only 1 line per invoice was actually required.  Yikes! 

I noticed that after installing the Joomla 3.6.4 security patch, the background color of the /administrator control panel login screen changed.  It seems that with today's release of Joomla 3.6.4, and ease of which the exploit can be executed, it's really bad timing to make it so easy for hackers to see whether or not a site has been patched.  This latest Joomla exploit allows for a person to do two things:

I just encountered an issue after upgrading a client's site to Joomla 3.6.4.  I was presented with the following error message on both the front end and back end of the site:

Error displaying the error page: Illegal mix of collations (utf8_unicode_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,IMPLICIT) for operation '=' SQL=SELECT id, home, template, s.params FROM #__template_styles as s LEFT JOIN #__extensions as e ON e.element=s.template AND e.type='template' AND e.client_id=s.client_id WHERE s.client_id = 0 AND e.enabled = 1: Illegal mix of collations (utf8_unicode_ci,IMPLICIT) and (utf8_general_ci,IMPLICIT) for operation '=' SQL=SELECT id, home, template, s.params FROM #__template_styles as s LEFT JOIN #__extensions as e ON e.element=s.template AND e.type='template' AND e.client_id=s.client_id WHERE s.client_id = 0 AND e.enabled = 1

I received another "Is this legit?" questions from a client today, and wanted to share so that others can also avoid this.

These people are combining “SEO” with “Registration” in their tactics, which is total shenanigans… it’s like a mechanic telling you that your car needs a new muffler bearing.  There is no such thing. 

I was recently frustrated when trying to find a freely available, open source responsive slider / slideshow plugin for Joomla K2 items.  It seems there are plenty available if you are willing to pay, but for something this simple, I figured I would roll my own and share. 

Notes:

  • This particular example is for using the K2 Joomla component, but the same overall concept will apply to any type of module that supports the standard Joomla template override structure.
  • Since it's hand-coded, it will apply to all versions / platforms of Joomla: 1.5.x, 2.5.x, 3.x
  • See "attachments" area for downloads, including the flexslider library, readme, template override, and new CSS.
  • Click here for demo

Directions:

=============

1.  Add the following jQuery and FlexSlider script to your template’s index.php file:

Background:

From the dawn of time, Google has provided you the exact keyword queries people have used to find your site. So, anybody that goes to Google, types in a keyword combination and winds up at your website, Google has told you the keywords they’ve used to find that. And that’s highly valuable information because you can use those keyword combinations to optimize your site around to get even more people to your site.

Well recently, they stopped doing that, and this was a big hit to a lot of people. But today, I’m going to show you three reports that Google has started including inside of their analytics dashboard, that can help you get around this, to identify what keywords people are using to find you, and to optimize your site around those keywords. So, let’s get going.

Areas of Expertise

360-Degree Campaigns
Affiliate Marketing
Analytics & Data Reporting
Automation
Blogging

Brand Development
Brand Identity & Standards
Brand Messaging
Brand Positioning
Brand Strategy
Content Development
Content Management
Copywriting
Corporate Communications
Creative Direction
Differentiation
Digital Marketing
Employee Engagement
Executive / Stakeholder Communications
Graphic Design
Key Messaging
Integrated Marketing
Internal Communications
Public Relations Management
Public Relations Strategy
Social Media Marketing
SEO & Optimization
Storytelling
Strategic Planning
Visual Communication
Web Design + Development
Web Maintenance & Updates

UI/UX
Workflow Process Engineering

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Design & Development

Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla
New custom websites
Bespoke themes and extensions
Redesigns, upgrades, migrations

Web Design & Development


Optimization & SEO

Let us optimize and manage your overall online presence. We offer full service monthly SEO as well as one-time projects.  

Optimization Plans & Pricing


Maintenance, Patching

White glove monthly backups, security updates, maintenance and testing for your Wordpress, Drupal, or Joomla site.

Maintenance Plans & Pricing


Email Newsletter

Bring your web & marketing performance to the next level: monthly blog post roundup via email.  

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