As you may already know, Drupal is a content management system that is used by websites all over the Internet. With premium Drupal hosting platforms, developers use this CMS to create everything from personal blogs to thriving businesses. Despite being one of the most common platforms, not all websites using Drupal work efficiently. Below are eight of the best tips that you can use to create a reliable Drupal-run platform for your business.
1. Avert Bad Designs
Ask any business owner why they choose to build a website using Drupal, and they will likely point out the flexibility of the software. It gives you the ability to customize your website according to your specific needs as a business. Taking advantage of this flexibility is an important step in running a successful business, but it may also be your undoing. When using Drupal to design a website, you need to avoid bad techniques. Your main goal is to make your website both efficient and effective for you and your visitors. One of the main factors to consider is speed. Studies show that website speeds effect traffic, revenue and SEO rankings. Speeding up your Drupal website is as easy as
- using the latest version of Drupal,
- taking advantage of Drupal’s built-in caching options, and
- optimizing your images to minimize website load.
Remember that images make up nearly 56 percent of the data for a webpage. Due to this, optimizing your images can drastically shorten the load time for your site and improve its overall Drupal design.
2. Set Up a Content Delivery Network
Using a CDN is a great way to increase the overall speed of your website on a Drupal-run platform. It ensures that you’re receiving the site assets such as Javascript, images and CSS from locations all over the globe. The end result is reduced latency for you and your web visitors.
3. Reusing Graphical Elements
Using standardized graphical elements makes it easy for you to reuse certain code on your website wherever that graphical element appears. This includes using standardized bullets and buttons. Doing this is as simple as not re-sizing your graphical elements in conformity with layout size and colors.
4. Leave the Drupal Forms Alone
When setting up a website using Drupal, it’s tempting to redesign and customize the overall structure of the form. However, doing this is a time-consuming endeavor. When you have little time to spare and need your site up as soon as possible, it’s best to restrict the amount of adjustments you make to the design of the form. While it’s true that one of the benefits of using Drupal is that you can design your site the way you want without having to stick with the defaults, you have the opportunity to download various templates before you nail down your design.
5. Manually Check for 404s
There are numerous modules to add to your Drupal-designed website to check automatically for broken links (404 errors). However, these modules waste resources on your server. Instead, consider checking your website manually using external services. There are several online tools that quickly check your website for broken links without you downloading a module to do it for you.
6. Aggregate Your Javascript and CSS Files
Want to improve the performance of your site while cutting back on download times? Consider aggregating your Javascript and CSS files. This prevents browsers from having to fetch so many files and reduces HTTP requests. Aggregating these files applies to both logged and non-logged users.
7. Show Similar Related Content Together
A common feature in CMS programs like Drupal is grouping similar content together. The goal here is to create blocks of content that interest users in the hopes that they will stay on your website longer. Studies show this also increases the probability of your website being bookmarked. There are a number of modules that will gather content together.
8. Focus on SEO
Getting traffic to your website is essential to the success of your business. Search engine optimization is easy with Drupal. Enable elements such as clean URLs from the Site Configuration option under the administrator tools when log into your Drupal account. Also use modules such as XML Sitemap, which helps you create a site map for your website that automatically conforms to specifications set by sitemaps.org.
Using these eight tips, you can build a unique and easy website for your business using Drupal. Many of these tips help speed up your website, which will increase your overall SEO ranking. Of course, nothing speeds up your site quicker than having a reliable Drupal hosting provider. Once your website is finished, you can use website speed test tools to analyze its performance.