Drupal As a Flexible CMS
Some of the biggest brands in the world are using Drupal, and the numbers seem to be increasing on a weekly basis. There's no denying that the simple CMS has come a long way over the years. Many top websites have jumped on board with Drupal recently including ING, IKEA, and even Twitter's developer page.
Drupal is most commonly known for its dominance and flexibility in the e-commerce realm, but it is not limited to only e-commerce sites. Seeing so many sites jump on board with Drupal is a sure sign of its usefulness and age. If you are interested in a Drupal website, you can contact us to learn more about what Drupal can do for you.
E-commerce
Using Drupal for e-commerce allows a site owner to experience all of the features associated with a common e-commerce formula while leaving room for growth in other areas to allow for a truly content-rich site. The use of nodes is an e-commerce store allow the user to create content for posts and pages on top of products. Unlike WordPress, Drupal gives you precise control over the URL structure used on your site. Having custom URLs gives you better control over your site's visibility on the web.
News
Drupal offers a content construction kit and views modules to allow you to create new content types and advanced custom views for each content type without the hassle of writing extra code. Some content types would be:
- blog posts
- news stories
- forum posts
- classified ads
- podcasts
You are able to create as few or as many custom content types as you want. You can display these content types in several different ways. Several other CMS platforms would require custom coding or plugins to accomplish this.
Community
Drupal was initially designed for community-based websites and allows the webmaster to have complete control over user roles and access levels. With Drupal, you can create as many custom user roles and access levels as you need for your site. The level of control you have varies from user all the way to super moderator or admin. Building a community site with Drupal gives you the flexibility to allow user-submitted content, while not breaking the framework of your site. You can even implement a voting system.
Resource Directories
One of Drupal's most important features is its taxonomy system that allows for easy categorization of all content. Using taxonomy you can add categories and tags to every piece of content that you customize. Drupal integrates a vocabulary for your site that acts as a set of categories, and users can limit vocabulary to specific content types. You could have a blog section with user-submitted content that allows for anyone to designate tags and categories, or you can have a structured vocabulary that can only be used with pre-designated categories. If you want a central directory for a given topic, Drupal suits your needs well. Users can register and suggest new resources while editors can screen their submissions.
