If your company is having discussions regarding which content management system (CMS) or content management framework (CMF) to deploy, Drupal is likely to come up.
With just under 20% usage in the top 10,000 sites using a CMS, Drupal's "growth is clear.” Large scale government sites such as whitehouse.gov have already made the migration to Drupal with private enterprise close behind. The growth in enterprise level sites migrating to Drupal has also caused an increase in the Drupal adoption rate.
Whether for internal systems, company websites, or ecommerce platforms, Drupal can fit the bill. It's easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and can handle any marketing goal you might have. Here are a few other reasons we think Drupal stands out from other content management systems.
Drupal is adaptable
Drupal isn’t built as a blog platform with other content simply accepted, nor is it built for one specific use case. Drupal is popular among organizations of every size, from boutique companies to government agencies and non-profit organizations, to enterprise-level organizations. With Drupal, all content types are simple to setup without the need for code. This allows for complete distinctions between different facets of your business. A pressroom of articles can be built just as quickly as product reviews or an internal customer database.
Drupal has low startup cost
Drupal is open source which means no heavy licensing fees or recurring monthly costs. In addition, a basic site can be quickly created while allowing for future enhancements. Features can be built in small stages and extended as the needs of the site grow. We recently worked on Ga.gov which saved tax payers 4 million dollars just by moving off of a proprietary cms onto Drupal.
Drupal is extensible
Drupal is easily extended via plugins called “modules.” Many of these modules have come from use cases at other large organizations including some of the biggest Drupal sites such as examiner.com. This vast array of modules allows non developers to quickly add functionality such as social sharing, media files, and contact forms to a new or existing Drupal site.
Drupal is search engine and social media friendly
Drupal’s content management system is perfectly structured for search optimization. Clean urls are enabled by default when a Drupal site is created and the community module Meta Tags provides unique page titles, keywords, descriptions and social sharing images/descriptions for your pages. The Drupal community also provides an excellent tool to check the “SEO health” of your website
Other modules allow quick sharing of your content to social media sites.
Want Facebook Like Buttons, Tweet buttons or Google+ icons? A module will quickly add those items to your site.
Drupal makes your website mobile
Mobile traffic is growing exponentially and according to Forbes.com over 30 percent of users consume content from a mobile device. Drupal has themes to help build your website responsive from the ground up such as Omega, Zen and AdaptiveTheme. Drupal 8, which is expected in late 2013, is built with mobile in mind from the ground up including responsive design at its core. Many of these improvements are available for the current versions of Drupal as community modules now.
Drupal has vast community support
When a business chooses Drupal, a vast community of support is available with a simple web search. Whether it be Drupal’s extensive project issue queues, forums or IRC channels, the chances are the problem encountered has been faced before and the resolution has been documented. If not, thousands of developers and commercial organizations are available to help.
Drupal bridges the gap between IT and Marketing
When building a Drupal site, the amount of coding required to maintain or build the site is up to you. A full-featured site can be built fulfilling many business requirements with point and click ease. Site maintainers can access administration interfaces to override Drupal configuration or settings without ever touching a line of code.
Conclusion
Drupal does have a higher learning curve than other CMS systems, but the benefits of this learning curve mean the infrastructure cannot only support your site today but any changes in the future as well. Drupal should be at the top of your list in the search for your next content management system or framework.
