Chances are you’ve come across the term Drupal if you are involved in designing, developing or managing digital content, but for those not entirely confident on what it actually does and how it works, this article will cover some of the basics about its main features and benefits.
Choosing the CMS (Content Management System) for your website can have a very wide reaching impact on what you can create, what the cost will be and how well it will turn out. It can feel like there’s always a compromise, do you pick functionality over price, or vice versa? What if you could have the best of both worlds? Speak with experienced Drupal developers in Melbourne to discuss how it can meet the needs of your mobile app development or other digital project.
When you have a clear idea of what you are trying to implement on your website, it can be tricky to know which software will help you achieve it – and not go over budget. This is where the flexibility of Drupal can really stand out from other products on the market. Part of the reason it offers such adaptability lies in its modular construction. You can choose your own blocks, rather like LEGO, to create your own solution. This can be just one block, or several combined together, to create the specific features you need. This is in contrast to other solutions that might only offer a pre-set range of options, rather like a kit car, to choose from.
Flexible options
Because Drupal is based in the open source community, it is able to be modified continuously by a worldwide range of developers and literally anyone who wishes to be involved. This commitment to best practice ensures continuous global reviews of the code, resulting in a product that is being improved all the time.
If having a multilingual feature is important to your website to reach customers in many different countries, this software offers that functionality. From the back-end, developers are able to choose their own native language from over 100 options in the admin interface. Whilst in the front-end, users can experience your content in a variety of language options. This enhances your reach to different communities and countries.
When accessibility matters
Drupal is an API (Application Programming Interface), which means it can enable different software components to talk to each other. For Drupal developers in Melbourne this means content only needs to be created in one location, but can easily be displayed via whatever media interface a user chooses, it doesn’t matter if it’s a smart phone, tablet or smart watch. This makes your mobile app development or other digital project so much simpler.
For government agencies and some other sectors, creating websites that are accessible for the visual, auditory, cognitive or mobility disabled is a key consideration. Fortunately, Drupal has this functionality built in to its core code. As accessibility should be an area for improvement across the wider online community, search engines recognise it as a key feature and rank sites higher on this basis.
Key features
Even though all website content is different, the way it is presented tends to follow a similar structure so users can easily navigate around. These common features will typically include a home page, from which a menu will sub divide information into groups, a logo, a search function, a contents page, a blog page and a contact page. There may be others of course but these are commonly used themes. Additionally, a site may have something particular which requires extra development. Drupal can really excel here, as it offers all the common features just listed but with the added flexibility to create customised features via its bolt-on modules.
Some of the key advantages to using Drupal are:
– A simple authoring tool that gives editors the ability to fully manage their content from draft to publishing stages and everything in between.
– A non-coding interface for users to drag and drop content in to templates, enabling a wide range of people to build pages, not just developers. Themes can also be added to ensure all uploads meet company branding guidelines.
– Version tracking so all content updates can be stored and reverted if necessary.
– Media Library to upload or store media content to the site.
– Caching mechanisms to ensure data loads rapidly for a responsive end user experience.
– A Migrate system enables data to be fed in to Drupal.
– Content scheduler to push data live at future dates.
Want more?
Understanding how this CMS can really add value to your digital projects and mobile app development can be a game changer for many companies. Search for experienced Drupal developers in Melbourne to learn more about how this software can work wonders for your website.
