Drupal is a free open-source popular content management system. Drupal CMS stands out with its large and supportive community and if we were to bet, you are most likely to use Drupal-built websites every day. For example, BBC and NBC News, Cisco, Wholefoods and even Twitter chose to have a Drupal website.
So in this article, we will talk about this popular framework and will help you to understand whether Drupal software development would benefit your business.
To begin, let’s talk about its advantages.
Key Advantages of Drupal CMS
In this chapter, we will try to weigh the pros and cons of this CMS. So why Drupal?
It can be used for almost any type of business.
What is Drupal used for? Pretty much anything.
Drupal is a great choice whether you have an agency, an airline company, a charity, a store and almost anything else! Celebrities like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars chose Drupal as their websites’ framework as well as many large corporations. It’s incredibly customizable and it can offer almost any kind of features. If you are curious, you can check Drupal’s official website and see featured Use Case Studies there for the full list of significant Drupal-built websites.
Drupal SEO options are ones of the best on the market
And here is why:
- Complete control over URLs
Each item in Drupal development can be given a custom URL that is referred to as ‘URL alias’. Also, each of these URLs can be adjusted to the content type e.g. blog post, page or description as well as the keywords, date & time, or any other information you want to link to it. In comparison, WordPress limits you to one type of URL for all content and Joomla is lacking the control and customization of the URL’s parameters.
- Extensive content optimization functionality
CCK or the content construction kit is one of the Drupal modules that allows you to create custom content types. Meaning, you can create your specific view of news threads, blog posts, photo albums, tutorials and a lot more. This Drupal module is special because other content management systems require you to write your own code if you want to change the content default look. Views attach, an add-on to ensure Drupal SEO compliance, allows you to create content silos using its point-and-click user interface.
- Great content categorization feature
Another great feature Drupal has is its Taxonomy module which is actually a categorization system. One of the many Drupal modules, Taxonomy allows you to organize and tag content according to important keywords. Just follow basic SEO principles and make sure any content is never more than three clicks away. Thus, with Drupal’s Taxonomy module together with CCK and Views Attach you will be able to make it to the top results by ranking long-tailed keywords. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?
- Seamless Google Analytics integration
Yep, it offers a free Google Analytics module for your Drupal website. This module allows you to manage the analytics code depending on your preferences. For instance, you might not be interested in tracking certain pages or you don’t want to be confused by company employees browsing your website – so you can easily change settings according to your needs. Things like caching the Google Analytics code locally will increase the page load speed as well.
See how SEO-friendly is it? And good thing almost all of the modules above are free of charge so your Drupal developer won’t surprise you with the sudden increase in website development cost. Of course, this is the case if you don’t know how to program and decide to hire a Drupal development company.
Drupal-built websites are easy to edit and update
Drupal offers an amazing built-in version control that a) automatically saves new versions of your website; b) allows you to restore an old version of the page anytime you want. It’s great for various types of A/B testing to see what content works better, which design is more engaging and to pretty much fix the mistakes accidentally made during the updates.
Drupal community support is awesome
Drupal has a passionate and active community that is here for you. Drupal.org has more than 650,000 registered user accounts and around 2,000 developer accounts. You can find a community-contributed module for every taste as well as ask them anything – even such a simple question as “how to install drupal”, no one will judge you:)
Multiple user roles.
Originally, Drupal was designed for community-based websites. Because of this, since the very beginning, it had rather extensive opportunities for various user roles and, as a result, extensive access control functionality. In other words, there is no limit to the imagination when it comes to granting user roles. You’ll most likely have an ‘unknown visitor’, ‘registered user’, ‘editor’, ‘admin’, ‘moderator’ and so on. Or you can have one unique user role. Drupal development is all about freedom.
It doesn’t have any hidden charges
Drupal development services are free of additional charges. Meaning, if you hire a Drupal agency you are paying for the developer’s time and not for using the platform. All Drupal modules including plug-ins, add-ons and widgets are completely free.
Extensive integration options
Drupal software development allows you to include various integrations with applications and services. It means that you can easily add any Drupal-developed product into your existing ecosystem without experiencing much of a change. Like, the data collected from your new website can be stored directly in your CRM or ERP systems. Such custom Drupal development freedom allows the creation even of complicated SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) products. And it’s all within the CMS framework!
In Conclusion
To sum up, the Drupal content management system benefits are:
- It fits all types of businesses;
- It offers extensive integrations options;
- It offers endless content optimization options and as a result, a great Search Engine Optimization;
- Drupal security is ensured by constant support and code updates ;
- And it’s a very flexible (and free of charge!) platform.
In our opinion, it’s one of the best developer tools out there. There are three versions of Drupal that are currently in-use: Drupal 7, Drupal 8 and Drupal 9. Drupal 7 support won’t be around much longer, and we are talking about differences between these three versions and the specifics of Drupal update here.
And if you are looking for more information on Drupal or are interested in developing your website using this amazing CMS, feel free to contact us.
