SEO Step-By-Step Guide – 180. Drupal SEO Considerations

It is a known fact that Drupal is one of the most powerful CMS and programmers love this CMS given the fact that it has a very high level of customizability which is not possible with the other tools. However this does not automatically make Drupal an SEO friendly CMS. One needs to understand this platform fully to make it more SEO friendly.

One of the most important factors that will make your Drupal site SEO friendly is its URLs. You need to create search engine friendly URLs by installing the pathauto module. By default Drupal URLs are not search engine friendly but you can make them SEO friendly using the above module. However the problem is that you will be able to access your pages through two URLS this will lead to duplication issues. You need to overcome this problem using one of the simple Drupal modules called Global Redirect. This module will ensure that there are no content duplication issues by using 301 redirects. Another SEO friendly module is Nodewords. This module can be used to add your meta descriptions and meta keywords. You can also customize your titles of your pages to make it search engine friendly using the page title module.

There are few other factors that you need to take in to consideration with regard to Drupal. When you are customizing your templates, you will be able to incorporate changes that will make your website search engine friendly. You can choose to use a universal template for all the pages or choose different meta tags and titles for specific pages. As always do not use 302 temporary redirects if you want a permanent redirect in your Drupal website too.

A number of big brands make use of Drupal for their websites however they make use of advanced customization strategies to make their websites search engine friendly. You too can make Drupal work for you. However, before implementing any changes make sure how exactly each module will work. For example as we noted above pathauto will lead to duplicate content; if you don’t know about this you will end up in problem with the search engines. Little knowledge is really risky and in this case this is 100% true. Therefore before trying to make any tweaks you must know the implications. If you fail, your efforts will work against you.

Having said that you can benefit from Drupal as no other CMS platforms allow you with such a great level of customization. If you want to hire a company for your SEO, then its best to look for a company that has experience in dealing with Drupal SEO.

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