With the changing digital landscape, many new businesses are turning towards the online marketplace. The increasing demand for delivering a more personalized experience to the customer has created a rush in the newbies to make this significant shift as per the market trends.
Although for this shift, one requires a platform on which they will build their website. With ample options on the table, let us introduce you to the superhero of the industry, Drupal.
Introduction
Drupal has over 1 million websites on the web. This open-source CMS platform is the first choice for organizations of any scale. With low cost of implementation, really available community support, flexible architecture, and no fear of vendor lock-in make it the first choice for all, even the small businesses looking out for a way to start an online marketplace.
There is more to the list of benefits of using Drupal. Let’s discuss them in detail.
Smooth integration
In the growing ecosystem of digital technologies for marketing, Drupal is a great foundation to choose for digital experience management and web content management. It can easily integrate with the best-of-breed technologies and freedom and flexibility to marketing automation or email marketing software.
So, while starting with your small business, you will get all the leverage with Drupal for your small business growth, and that’s a reason why Drupal development is gaining popularity!
Content authoring
For someone responsible for creating or editing content for any small business, relax as this work has become much easier than before. Drupal provides a smooth content creation page with two columns. One column is for the content fields, while the other is for optional settings.
In the new interface, the WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor is efficient for content creation and publishing. And this out-of-the-box feature enables you to edit the content straight on the front-end. This way, you can also take a look at the content on the web page that will be visible to the visitors. To summarise, it makes you efficient enough to deliver the best possible experience to your audience.
Out of the box features
Multiple currencies, multi-language support, multiple stores, and various order types with custom workflow are easily handed in while using Drupal for your small business.
Some other ready-to-use features that would help you in managing your website are listed below.
- Tax calculations
- Including VAT and US sales taxes
- Stock management
- Coupons or discounts, and much more.
Seamless mobile shift
For an exceptional mobile experience, the idea of providing your business accessibility on mobile enables you to offer a rich and personalized experience to your customers.
Drupal 8 is abode to a robust architecture that helps in enabling responsive experiences across screens and also on the supporting mobile apps.
These benefits are just the starters on the plate. With the new and improved capabilities of Drupal, the experience gets much better.
So, to start your online business, we have listed down some effective tips that will prove to be extremely beneficial for your small business. With these implemented on your website, you can make the most out of the Drupal foundation of your small business.
Join the Drupal community
It’s important to stay informed and take help from the right source when you get stuck. Drupal has a large group of designers and developers working across the world. Being a part of such a community helps you solve your queries within minutes.
You can start by signing up for an account at drupal.org. When you get stuck anywhere, post a message on the same page to get a discussion started with the people of that community who will help you sort the problem out.
Eliminate the unnecessary modules
Drupal comes with a whole suite of Installed modules. Not all of them may be of your views for which you need to check them and eliminate the ones that you do not require. It is necessary to de-clutter the admin UI and eliminate any security risk that can harm your website.
Database backup
It is vital to back up your database secure location for which the backup and migrate a module is an ideal option. It is perfect when you need to move from one host to another while grabbing the SQL dump of your database for storage.
Flush the cache
When you work with Drupal, the caches for every content is created. Therefore, when a page is requested, there is no need to change it all the time. By reducing the number of screen queries in PHP processes made in this, you can enhance the performance of your website.
Although, if your Drupal website starts acting strange suddenly directly uses the cache function. It will clear out all the Drupal cache and will enable the website to rebuild itself with the latest information.
Create Mockups and Wireframes
While using a custom team on your project, firstly, you will need to decide on the design layout of the key pages. You need to give a thought to the entire website and design Wireframes for which only two or 3Wireframes are necessary for many projects.
Start building with the same and generate the Mockups only for the ones you need. Although, it is not necessary in many cases when you have a solid style guide and good Wireframes. It is better to avoid mock-ups when time and budget are limited.
Get started!
There is so much on the ground to cover we have just scratched the surface above with few points. However, some of them might seem obvious, but this will help you make big wins for your small business. If you feel like you need an expert to lay the best foundation for you, we are always here to help you out of it.
Author Bio
Rajesh Bhimani is the Founder of Skynet Technologies, Website Design, and Development Agency. He has 20 years of experience in the Technology and Marketing industry. When he isn’t working, you can find him cooking for his family or reading some fiction. You can connect with him on Twitter.