How Can the Drupal CMS Improve Your Website’s SEO?
As a search engine marketing firm, TriMark Solutions is a constantly fighting the uphill battle of optimization and rankings. One of the most important things I personally have realized while interning here is that it’s not always about creating the wheel, but utilizing your resources to the most effective purposes.
Our web developers and optimizers use the open source content management system, Drupal, to better optimize client websites. There are a number of reasons why Drupal is a great CMS, not only because it’s free and simple to use, but also because one of the best systems to use for SEO. An article in SES Magazine gives a Top Ten Reasons list for Drupal’s functionality with search engine optimization, and we think these best practices are so relevant, I’ve decided to touch on the highlights.
1. You have total control over the URL. Some people say if you own the domain name, you own the search. While this might not always be true, there’s definitely some validity to the statement. Having control over the URL lets you optimize the content of the page, making the search queries relevant to your site.
2. You can create, edit and update your own content. Using the Content Construction Kit (CCK), you can write your own content without having to write codes for other types. Not only can you create the content, but you can edit and update it easily. Drupal lets you write fresh content to keep your site optimized, edit mistakes or subject matter, and then revert back to your old versions any time you want.
3. You have access to multiple user management and a community atmosphere. In marketing and SEO, many people utilize and access different parts of a website multiple times throughout the day, so it’s vital for a system to have organized user management. Drupal allows different user roles and access, as well as create community-oriented modules for developers and optimizers.
4. You can optimize the Page Title. The article quotes, “The page title is the single most important on-page thing you can do to improve the SEO of your website.” Page titles hold keywords, are the titles of Bookmarks, head the search result, and ultimately tell the user where they are. In Drupal, you can use Drupal’s automatically-placed titles or generate your own optimized titles wherever you write content.
5. You have precise data when combined with Google Analytics. Drupal realizes the effect of roaming through your own website has on Google Analytics. It can distort the data collected in Analytics, therefore giving you inaccurate data and essentially rendering itself useless. Drupal can automatically disallow data based on how you’re logged in or where you’re accessing the pages from without having to create specific codes or programs.
Because Drupal is easy and completely free, it’s a wonder why more SEO firms don’t utilize this hidden power. TriMark is excited about the possibilities Drupal provides and plans on using this resource in future cases to see what opportunities lie ahead.
