One of the most widely used content management systems available is Drupal. It was introduced in 2000 and currently holds the third position in the CMS market, behind WordPress and Joomla, with a 4.7% market share. Drupal is an open-source content management system (CMS) created in PHP that is utilized by many bloggers worldwide. This post will discuss how a blogger may get started with Drupal and will also examine the capabilities that Drupal offers.
This information will enable you to determine whether Drupal is a good fit for your blog or not. If you choose to use Drupal for blogging, there are some pointers and advice in the post.
Why Drupal is Good for Blogging?
Open-source
Drupal is free to install and use for everybody. Any blogger or developer can use it for free. Additionally, you can copy the code and alter it to suit your needs. The idea of Drupal, like that of most open-source software projects, is to provide its source code for anybody to use, modify, and even share changes with others in order to further the program’s development.
Flexible
Drupal, like the majority of widely used content management systems on the market today, is very adaptable. It allows novices to begin working with themes even in the absence of much website building or design knowledge. It also enables seasoned developers to code their website in accordance with their specifications. Because of its versatility, Drupal is a CMS that many bloggers prefer. However, novices who are unfamiliar with web programming should avoid using Drupal. These bloggers most likely wouldn’t be able to construct their websites on Drupal without hiring a developer.
Strong community support
Given that Drupal is an open-source content management system, community support is crucial. Even though there are a ton of tutorials and informative videos available, users can easily ask questions and receive prompt responses if they are having trouble with a code issue or a design feature. With almost two decades of existence, Drupal boasts a sizable user base. On their official community, Drupal.org, there are 600,000 users and close to 1000 developers.
Excellent security
Online safety is a major worry for both large and small website operators. As bloggers, you can have sensitive data on your site that could be exploited in the event that your website’s security is compromised. By implementing stringent security mechanisms at many framework levels, Drupal’s security team makes sure that all security threats are reduced to a minimum. Additionally, Drupal offers security best practices to its users, which can lessen the likelihood that security events will impact your blog site.
SEO friendly
The expanding amount of internet real estate has made SEO crucial for websites in recent years. It’s crucial to consider SEO while creating a blog because an increasing number of individuals are creating new websites on the internet every day.
A permalink is a feature of Drupal blogs that is known to improve the website’s search engine ranking. Users can also generate URLs that are friendly to search engines and their audience by using Apache’s URL-rewrite feature. There are numerous additional ways that Drupal helps blogs get greater search engine rankings.
Responsive themes
Make sure you select a content management system (CMS) that allows your blog to be adaptable, so it can adjust to multiple screen sizes, as your readership might be dispersed over several screen sizes. For bloggers, responsiveness on mobile devices is paramount.
Drupal is responsive, so visitors to your blog site on various screen widths won’t experience any issues.
Updated regularly
Any CMS must regularly upgrade the technologies it uses in order to provide high-quality functionality and an outstanding user experience. Drupal maintains its competitiveness in the CMS industry by providing frequent updates that address known bugs or issues and give users access to new capabilities. The most recent version that is currently accessible is Drupal 10.
Drupal is able to draw in a sizable blogger audience thanks to these features. Many additional websites, both for small and major businesses, are powered by Drupal. Additionally, it has been the CMS of choice for official websites, such as the State of Colorado’s.
If you think Drupal might be the CMS for you, continue reading to learn how to set up a blog with Drupal.
How to set up a blog using Drupal?
To begin it, you will need a web host, a website name and a blog concept. It is likely that by now, you would have already decided the content and your target audience. With this is mind, you will be able to design your blog and begin creating content. But before that, let us look at the process of choosing a suitable web host and installing Drupal.
Pick a web hosting company of your choice
Probably because Drupal is one of the oldest CMS available, most web hosts offer optimized Drupal hosting. This means that you will not be limited in choice. People are divided on which web host is the best for Drupal. This is why we suggest that you identify web hosts that can meet the minimum technical requirements for installing Drupal and who offer features that support quality user experience.
The minimum technical requirements for running Drupal are:
- Apache web server
- PHP
- MySQL Database
- FTP access
- At least 128 MB PHP memory limit
In addition to this, you must look for the following features from your web host for better user experience:
- Fast page loading speeds
- No downtime
- Excellent customer and tech support
We recommend ASPHostPortal for you who want to build a blog on Drupal. This is because it meets the minimum technical requirements and all the three features mentioned above. Additionally, the control panel is user-friendly, making it easy for you to manage your website.
Download and install Drupal
With the web host selected, you can proceed to installing the latest Drupal at https://drupal.org/download. Instead of installing Drupal from the website and manually going through the setup process, you can ask your web hosting provider to handle it through the one-click install option. Most Drupal hosting providers offer a one-click install option to allow you to easily install Drupal without the hassles of getting caught in the manual installation method.
Build your Drupal blog
Follow these step by step instructions to set up your blog on Drupal:
- Log into Drupal using your ID and password which you would receive in the admin email mentioned for Drupal.
- Click on ‘Structure’ tab from the top menu.
- Choose content type menus and click on add content type
- Since you will be using Drupal for blogging, type in the content type as blog or blog post. On the same page, you will see customization options to help you personalize the manner in which your content will appear on the blog. It includes submission form settings, publishing options, display settings, comment settings and menu settings.
- Configure the blog according to your requirements and save the changes.
- Click on ‘Content’ tab from the top menu and click on ‘Add content’. Choose blog/blog post as your content type. You are now ready to start posting.
- Drupal has publishing options in which you can promote your blog posts too. If you want to promote a post then go to publishing options and find a suitable option for you before you publish the blog post.