SEO is a game of taking chances. We all have tried tricks that would get us rewarded by Google and rank our sites on the first search page.
However, the keyword stuffing activities are long dead and no more get you to the top of the SERP ranks. In this age of smart algorithms, Google is looking at the content quality and thus, content became the real king. However, only informative, attractive and value-creating content pieces make their way to the peak.
Let’s find out how you can heighten your SEO practices instantly!
How Drupal came into the picture?
Drupal, an open source Content Management System (CMS), is specially designed keeping major SEO factors in mind. It plays a vital role in bridging the gap and helping you reach your SEO dream. It assists you in practices like adding metadata, tags and optimizing the keywords.
Drupal 8 – the latest version of Drupal – has further brought new functionalities and a robust way of creating and marketing your website.
Drupal has also proven to be a great CMS for building search engine optimized websites for major brands like NASA, Entertainment Weekly, ABS-CBN News and more.
Build Your SEO with Drupal
Following are the key points that will make you choice Drupal for your SEO practices:
- Direct Communication with Search Engines
The CMS helps you communicate with the search engines via modules like XML Sitemap. This module creates an XML sitemap, a formatted summary of your content which can be submitted to Google and other search engines. It helps in creating a list of sites that you wish them to crawl and rank eventually.
Similarly, the Google Analytics Module is an incredible module for marketers. It provides insights on all fronts like demographics, audience behavior, and keywords searches. The module adds the Google Analytics code snippet to your website and gives you data control and useful reports that can be utilized for additional SEO endeavors.
- SEO Friendly Drupal 8 Modules
There are several modules available on Drupal 8 that can upgrade your site and boost the SERPs. It includes well-known modules like Pathauto which cuts down on your maintenance and simplifies the site navigation by creating rules and patterns for your URLs.
Another module called Linkit creates an easy interface for well-formed links in the WYSIWYG content editor that can be placed as a powerful strategy for your SEO campaigns.
There are many other compelling modules like RDF UI, Metatag, Redirect and SEO Checklist that you can optimize for your website.
- Add Speed & Security To Your Website
A vital aspect of SEO is the loading speed of your website on both desktop and mobile. Google undertakes Pagespeed insights when ranking your site, too.
With Drupal 8 you can bring the impulse and speed to your site as it hooks all entities and doesn’t load the JavaScript unless it has to. It also preserves the cache on content and further reduces the load time.
The CMS provides you with the tools for building a marketers-friendly site that effectively contributes to your SEO practices like responsive design, velocity, and publishing new content.
- A Cost-Efficient Way
Being an open source CMS, Drupal is available free of cost to everyone. It doesn’t entail any financial burdens on the enterprise when installing the software or the modules. Thus, a fully optimized website can be built hassle-free and cost-free with Drupal. You can directly download it from Drupal.org and begin your journey as an SEO-friendly site.
- Accessibility Is The Key
Closely intertwined with SEO, accessibility is a major factor in site-building. The release of Drupal 8 has brought improvements in web accessibility with increased community communications. It also advances the SEO of the sites built on it. Thus, you can customize the workings of the site according to your accessibility needs and deliver a prominent site to the end-user.
- Reliable & Scalable Mode
For security purposes, Google uses https with a valid SSL certificate and renders rewards accordingly. And who doesn’t want to secure their website? Building a site on Drupal gives a higher reliability score and ultimately places you higher in the SERP ranking. With Drupal, you are assured of security for both SEO and other threats that can hinder your enterprise.
Best of SEO practices
Listed down are some more significant SEO practices that can be initiated with Drupal 8:
- For better data and for search engine crawlers to reward your site configure Site Verification module.
- Page titles are important data articles that help search engines connect to your web pages. Giving unique names to each web page with a keyword helps in improving the chances of getting hits.
- For updating metadata, the Metatag module in Drupal 8 can easily populate the data with entities like keywords, page description and thus, give a user-friendly interface.
- In order to track every user that wants to visit your site, the .htaccess redirect can help you track them.
- Make your homepage title descriptive, maybe with a slogan, that represents your business objective to give a good SEO impression.
Over to You
These curated methods and schemes can definitely accelerate your organization’s SEO expertise and the website’s success at large. In extension, your CMS can make a huge difference with the unique and helpful content that will be pushed in the SERPs.
Building such SEO-friendly websites with Drupal is our niche at OpenSense Labs. Take that turning point in your site’s SEO and climb the search engine ladder with us by dropping a line at [email protected].
Guest article written by: Vid is the Chief Engagement Officer at OpenSense Labs, leading Drupal and IoT practices. He is an active contributor and member of the Drupal Community. He writes regularly on Medium about Drupal and related technology of interest to many.