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6 Reasons to be a Drupal Fan

How Do You Orchestrate a Great Website?

Creating a great web experience for your audience is similar to putting on a great concert. For the latter, you need the right production company that can pull everything together and dazzle the audience. For a website, you need the right content management system or CMS to put on a spectacular web show!
A content management system (CMS) is a computer application that allows publishing, editing and modifying content, organizing, deleting as well as maintenance from a central interface. If you are building search-engine-friendly website and want them to be scalable, you should be using a content management system rather than building sites with plain HTML pages or Dreamweaver templates.
A content management system:

  • Keeps the design of the site separate from the content
  • Allows you to make updates once and automatically populates where needed on the website
  • Provides complex sites with the ability to quickly set up features, such as blogs, photo galleries, and even e-commerce
  • Let’s nontechnical users add and edit the content without needing to know any HTML or web design

Which Content Management System Will Rock Your World?
There are many CMSs out there. Choosing the right one really comes down to your site’s purpose. The two most popular in terms of ease of use and functionality are WordPress and Drupal. Of course, there are many more systems available, but each has its flaws and failings compared to the big two. It's true that for most smaller websites, either CMS will work. Both have features such as search engine optimization (SEO) custom page types, such as a gallery or profile page, and revision control. But there are several key elements that make Drupal the rock star for more sophisticated needs.

Security
Every site needs a strong bouncer! Hands down, security is the biggest differentiator between Drupal and other CMSs. Drupal has enterprise level security and site scale. Numerous government websites are built with Drupal, with the most famous being Whitehouse.gov. Other platforms that require plugins are very vulnerable to attack. Any good show will have tight security. You have to protect your star from crazy fans, and if you want to make sure no one gets behind your stage, then Drupal is your bouncer.

Plugin/Module Interaction
Great lights and sound work together to enhance a concert experience. Likewise, a great website has plugins/modules that work well together to create an engaging website without conflicts.

User Accounts and Permissions
Similar to passes to get into a concert, Drupal controls who has general admission and who has a backstage pass. Drupal is built around user accounts and permissions with fine grain control over what users can view on the site, and what actions they can perform. Drupal controls whether a user can see a particular page, or even a block of text on a particular page. It controls who can edit content on one or more pages. It can control whether a user can create content. When user level control is needed for any purpose for a website, Drupal is by far the leader in this area.

Image Control
With out-of-the-box image control, Drupal is superior. This allows users to upload any size image and Drupal will scale the image down to save page load time. This is very important since large image sizes are one of the main culprits of slow loading web pages.

Forms
Something as simple as a contact form shouldn't be complex, and it’s not with Drupal. From three fields to multi-page savable forms, Drupal allows content managers ease and flexibility when adding forms to their sites.

Scalability
Drupal’s biggest advantage is scalability. It is ultimately more scalable in every department, and will allow the website to grow to any size and with few restrictions on functionality.

Let's Make Sweet Music Together
To create a great website, you need a great partner. jamgd has extensive experience in designing, developing and maintaining dynamic websites. For your next web project, contact us. We’ll make sure your website sing!