A well-designed website can help businesses connect with their audience, showcase their products and services, and drive conversions. In this ever-changing digital world, users demand more personalized experiences, extensive connectivity between devices, and interactive web solutions.
Managing a website can be a daunting task, especially for those with a lack of technical expertise. This is where Drupal comes in. Businesses of all sizes can use this popular and powerful content management system (CMS) to manage online content.
It has helped various enterprises to create a robust online presence. If you are considering investing in Drupal development services, this blog post will be helpful to you. Here, we will understand why Drupal is an ideal CMS for businesses.
Benefits of Considering Drupal Content Management System for Businesses
Security
To grow your business or build its credibility, it is essential to ensure your data is well-protected and secure. However, no software can be considered entirely secure, and vulnerabilities can be discovered anytime. To eradicate such risks, Drupal has a team of security experts that monitors and resolves all security issues. They are responsible for identifying and fixing vulnerabilities in the software.
Additionally, Drupal has a number of security features built into the software, such as:
Access controls: Drupal provides fine-grained access control for users so that site owners can restrict access to specific content and functionality.
Regular security updates: The Drupal community regularly releases security updates to address known vulnerabilities in the software.
Community support: The Drupal community is active and engaged, providing support and guidance to users with security concerns or questions.
Scalability and Customizability
Drupal’s modular architecture and flexible API make it highly customizable and scalable. It enables developers to create customized functionalities, features, and modules to meet specific business requirements.
Besides being the most flexible and scalable CMS for developing any kind of site, Drupal is also highly customizable. This helps developers create a more customized, memorable experience tailored to the needs of website visitors.
It also allows your site to scale as per the growing needs of your business. Drupal also offers your website the ability to scale based on the increasing needs of your business. It was built to support content-rich websites with high volumes of traffic.
SEO-Friendliness
Drupal has built-in features that help optimize your website for search engines. Its clean URLs, sitemaps, and meta tags help search engines crawl your website and improve your visibility in search engine results. The code of Drupal lets you automate website optimization that makes SEO tasks easier and automated.
Discover the key reasons why Drupal is the go-to platform for large businesses.
Multi-Lingual Content
Drupal can manage websites in multiple languages, which is ideal for businesses with a global presence. It has an extensive collection of language translation modules, making it easy to create multilingual content.
With Drupal, you can create and manage content in multiple languages and serve it to visitors in their preferred language.
Here are some of the features and modules in Drupal that support multi-lingual content –
Language Support: Drupal has built-in support for multiple languages, and you can configure your site to support any number of languages.
Language Selection: Drupal provides a language selection mechanism that allows users to choose their preferred language. This can be done through the language switcher block or through the URL.
Translation Interface: Drupal has a translation interface that allows you to create translations of your content. Depending on your site’s configuration, this interface can be used by site administrators, content editors, and even site visitors.
Multilingual Content Types: Drupal allows you to create content types that support multiple languages. You can configure each field in a content type to be translatable or not.
Multilingual Views: Drupal’s Views module allows you to create views that display content in different languages, depending on the user’s language preference.
Multilingual Menus: Drupal’s menu system supports multiple languages, so you can create menus in different languages and display them to users based on their language preferences.
Translation Management: Drupal’s Translation Management module provides a centralized interface for managing translations, including tracking translation progress and assigning translation tasks.
Overall, Drupal provides robust support for multi-lingual content, making it an excellent choice for building multi-lingual websites and web applications.
Third-Party Integrations
Drupal integrates with other third-party tools and systems, such as marketing automation platforms, eCommerce solutions, and CRMs. These integrations help to create a more comprehensive and streamlined digital experience for businesses.
Here are some examples of third-party integrations that are commonly used with Drupal:
Social media: Drupal can be integrated with various social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to allow users to share content or log in with their social media accounts.
eCommerce: Drupal can be integrated with eCommerce platforms, such as Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce, to allow users to purchase products or services directly from the website.
Payment gateways: Drupal can be integrated with popular payment gateways, such as PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net, to enable online payments.
Analytics: Drupal can be integrated with analytics platforms, like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics, to track website traffic and user behavior.
Marketing automation: Drupal can be integrated with marketing automation platforms, like Marketo and HubSpot, to automate marketing campaigns and lead nurturing.
Customer relationship management (CRM): Drupal can be integrated with popular CRM platforms, like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, to manage customer interactions and data.
Content delivery networks (CDN): Drupal can be integrated with CDNs, such as Cloudflare and Akamai, to speed up website performance by caching content closer to users.
These are just a few examples of the third-party integrations available for Drupal. With its modular architecture and vast community of developers, Drupal provides a flexible and powerful platform for building websites and applications that integrate with various tools and services.
Mobile-First Approach
Drupal 8 and later versions follow a mobile-first approach, which means that they are designed to work seamlessly on mobile devices. This feature is especially critical in today’s mobile-driven world, where most website traffic comes from mobile devices.
This approach emphasizes creating a user-friendly interface and prioritizing the mobile experience while still maintaining desktop and tablet usability.
To implement a mobile-first approach in Drupal, you can follow these steps:
Choose a responsive Drupal theme: A responsive theme is one that adjusts its layout and design based on the device’s screen size. There are many responsive themes available for Drupal, both free and premium.
Prioritize content: In a mobile-first approach, content is king. Make sure your content is accessible and easy to read on small screens. Prioritize the most important information and present it in a clear and concise way.
Optimize images: Large images can slow down the loading time of a website on mobile devices. Optimize images to reduce their file size without compromising their quality.
Use mobile-friendly navigation: Make sure your navigation is easy to use on a small screen. Use a menu that is simple and intuitive to navigate.
Test, test, test: Testing is crucial to ensure that your mobile-first approach is effective. Test your website on multiple devices to make sure it looks and performs as intended.
By following these steps, you can create a Drupal website that delivers a great experience on mobile devices. However, for perfectly developing a platform-independent site, it is also necessary to hire a prominent Drupal development company.
Active Community Support
Drupal comes with an active community of developers and users. They contribute to the ongoing development and maintenance of the platform, making it a reliable and robust CMS platform. The Drupal community offers a wide range of resources and support options to help users get started with the CMS, troubleshoot issues, and develop and customize their Drupal websites.
Here are some of the ways how Drupal community provides support –
Drupal events: The Drupal community holds a variety of events, including conferences, meetups, and training sessions, that provide opportunities for users to connect with other Drupal enthusiasts and learn from experts in the community.
Online forums: Many online forums and discussion groups are dedicated to Drupal, including the Drupal subreddit and the Drupal Answers Stack Exchange. These forums are a great place to ask questions, share knowledge, and connect with other Drupal users.
Contributed modules: Drupal has a vast ecosystem of contributed modules that extend the functionality of the CMS. Many of these modules have active maintainers and support communities that can help users troubleshoot issues and customize their Drupal sites.
Drupal service providers: There are many companies and individuals who specialize in Drupal development and support. These service providers can help users with everything from site setup and configuration to custom module development and ongoing maintenance and support.
Overall, the Drupal community is a strong and supportive network of developers, contributors, and users who are passionate about the CMS and dedicated to helping others get the most out of it.
Limitations of Considering Drupal
After covering the benefits, let’s see some downsides of considering Drupal CMS for making websites.
Steep-Learning Curve
Making websites on Drupal is complex for non-technical users or beginners. Those who have not previously built a website, they will find its creation and promotion difficult. An alternative approach to this aspect is hiring a Drupal development company to save time and money in the long run.
Can Consume a Lot of Resources
Drupal can be a resource taker if not configured properly. However, it can be an efficient and reliable CMS platform with proper optimization.
A site that is not optimized properly can lead to slow page load times, server crashes, and other performance issues. You can use caching and optimization modules, compress images, and other site assets to handle the expected traffic and site usage.
Moreover, the number of resources that Drupal consumes can depend on several factors, including the size and complexity of the website, the number of concurrent visitors, and the hosting environment. In general, a well-optimized Drupal site with efficient code, caching, and server configuration can run smoothly with moderate resource usage.
Lack of High-Quality Design in the Free Version
Most system users are engaged in self-development designs that lead them to a shortage of designs for their website development. The free themes Drupal offers lack high-quality design features that require you to opt for their premium versions. It is considered a limitation due to the sometimes unavailability of the features you require for your website development.
Which is Better: Drupal or WordPress?
Both WordPress and Drupal are excellent CMSs. Let’s compare both platforms for making a choice when it comes to choosing one.
- Flexibility – When it comes to flexibility, many people choose to work with WordPress. It is due to easily finding and installing plugins for everything from SEO to social media and more. In contrast, Drupal also offers plugins that contain many of the same pieces of functionality available using the WP plugins. Though, you need to have professional assistance to install or update a Drupal module.
- Ease of Use – Drupal has a steep learning curve making it complex to start using the platform. It requires you to be technical but is capable of developing advanced web solutions. On the other hand, WordPress is easier to understand. So, when you are less technical, choosing WordPress is suitable.
- Security – Drupal provides in-depth security reports. It is known for having a security team and a standardized set of policies and procedures to deal with security issues. Whereas WordPress is also a secure CMS platform but sometimes is vulnerable to hacking attempts as they are often hosted on shared servers.
- Custom Functionalities – Both WordPress and Drupal are flexible in nature, but Drupal is considered a better platform for supporting extensive customization. WordPress themes and Drupal modules come with an array of options to customize websites. Besides selecting extensions and templates, you can modify them and assemble new combinations and create your own to meet specific organizational needs.
Conclusion
Being an advanced CMS system, Drupal offers plenty of functions. It is often the best choice for developing complex, content-heavy, and high-traffic websites. It is extremely flexible, powerful, secure, and functional. It is more suited to developing complex and large web solutions. These benefits make investing in Drupal development services worthwhile for developing a top-notch web solution for a business.
