Website Management

It was about a year ago that I wrote my first post on the best Drupal 7 themes. At the time, it was slim pickings coming up with a list of strong choices. Fortunately, a lot has changed. 

A couple quick points before we get to the themes. The criteria I used in putting this list together has changed a bit since last time. First of all, these are all free themes. Extra points were awarded if the theme uses responsive design or an installation profile, especially if it includes a WYSIWYG. These are things that I think show extra attention to user experience.

The most basic function of a content management system is the ability to create a page. However, this fundamental activity of website building is often an unexpected hassle for new Drupal users. Yeah, I'm talking about the lack of a built-in rich text editor.

I know there are some strong feelings in the Drupal community about this, but let me try to persuade you that whatever the philosophical or technical reasons for not including a default editor, they're hurting adoption of Drupal and needlessly creating a usability issue for those who are evaluating the platform.

I was recently asked how much a web manager should care about Drupal SEO. Isn't that something for the marketers, after all? I think optimizing for search engines is something everyone who manages a Drupal website should understand, but it can be tough for those new to the subject to know where to start. The good news is that basic search engine optimization (SEO) is something that every site administrator can learn. Here are seven tips to get you on Google's good side.

In order to get the most out of Drupal, you need to understand content types. A CMS can (and in most cases, should) have different content types defined to assist in classifying and displaying site content in a flexible and efficient way. Examples of content types include news articles, blog posts and basic pages. But with Drupal, the types are only limited by your imagination.