Who is this session targeted towards? • Web site administrators and owners • Project Managers & Content Managers • SEO Consultants • Beginner and intermediate level programmers An Overview of what is to come … This session will provide an overview of some builtin Drupal functionality as well as highlight some common modules for administering a website and ensuring you've taken the basic steps for search engine optimization and indexing. Topics will include: • Managing sitewide or section specific content via BLOCKS and CONTEXT • Usage of the Webforms modules and some of the associated addon modules to go with it for your contact forms, lead generation forms, and more. • Modules for managing metadata and XML sitemaps • Modules to help search/filter content and users in Drupal's backend more efficiently Where can you get a copy of the slides you’re about to see? Drupaldelphia Session Page or Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/AnsonHan)
Transcript
Who is this session targeted towards?
• Web site administrators and owners • Project Managers & Content Managers • SEO Consultants • Beginner and intermediate level programmers
An Overview of what is to come …
This session will provide an overview of some built-‐in Drupal functionality as well as highlight some common modules for administering a website and ensuring you've taken the basic steps for search engine optimization and indexing. Topics will include:
• Managing sitewide or section specific content via BLOCKS and CONTEXT • Usage of the Webforms modules and some of the associated add-‐on modules to go with it for your contact forms, lead-‐
generation forms, and more. • Modules for managing metadata and XML sitemaps • Modules to help search/filter content and users in Drupal's backend more efficiently
Where can you get a copy of the slides you’re about to see? Drupaldelphia Session Page or Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/AnsonHan)
Drupaldelphia 2013
MAKING YOUR SITE MORE FRIENDLY TO SEARCH ENGINES AND ADMINISTRATORS: COMMON MODULES FOR SEO, EFFICIENT CONTENT MANAGEMENT, AND SITE ADMINISTRATION
Where can you get a copy of the slides you’re about to see?
Drupaldelphia Session Page or Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/AnsonHan) Presented by: Anson W. Han Developer, Star Group www.stargroupdev.com Twitter: @thecraftycanvas Drupal.org Profile: ansonwhan GitHub: ansonwhan
A Brief Introduction
• Background: Born & raised in New England, migrated to Philly after college • Education: Boston University, Computer Systems Engineering
• Experience: Development on both Open Source & Proprietary Platforms including:
o Drupal o WordPress o SilverStripe o ExpressionEngine o Microsoft .net o NetSuite
o PHP o Javascript/jQuery o C# / C++ / C o VB o MySQL o SQL
• Current Employer: Star Group
Administering Your Site More Efficiently w/o the overlay
Why not use the built in overlay? While you may see this,
others might see this. note how the tabs are cut off screen
With the overlay disabled, administrative screens take up a standard screen size rather than try to be responsive as shown below.
Installation/Setup: Simply disable the built-‐in Overlay module under the CORE module group.
Administering Your Site More Efficiently-‐ Find content and users faster with Administration Views
Why use this…
When you can be using this…
AND…
Why use this…
When you can be using this…
Administration Views module: https://drupal.org/project/admin_views Primary Benefit: • Extends the built in view of users and content for administration, adding user intuitive search and filtering options.
Installation/Setup: Once you’ve copied the module to your site, enable “Administration views” under the ADMINISTRATION group.
After enabling it, both your content and people administration pages should reflect the additional search and filter capabilities.
Administering Your Site More Efficiently-‐ Admin Toolbar
Why use this…
When you can use this …
Administrative Toolbar alternative -‐ https://drupal.org/project/admin_menu Primary Benefit: • Dropdowns provide faster access around the Drupal backend
Disadvantage: • Some menus may extend beyond your viewport and you can’t scroll down to see the lower items
Installation/Setup: Once you’ve copied the module to your site, disable the built-‐in toolbar under the CORE module group; and under the ADMINISTRATION module group, enable both Administration menu and Administration menu Toolbar style.
Admin Menu Toolbar Bonus-‐ Collapse those long lists!
An added bonus to using the admin menu toolbar module is an ability to set modules and permissions setting pages to default to a collapsed state on load.
vs.
Installation/Setup: Once you’ve enabled the module, go to CONFIGURATION-‐>ADMINISTRATION-‐>ADMINISTRATION MENU. Then click the System Tweaks tab and enable the collapsed setting(s).
Administering Your Site More Efficiently with Blocks
What use do blocks serve? Manage content used repeatedly throughout a section of or globally across the site on any predefined region of the page.
Benefits: • Worry less about updating all instances where a promotional advertisement or featured content appear-‐ because one block can serve them all.
• Blocks can be included or excluded by URL/path structure Nota bene: • Try to use a standard convention for assigning descriptions so that you can distinguish custom blocks from those out of the box or generated by other modules
• Not all user roles may have access to edit blocks Installation/Setup Blocks are built into Drupal’s core, no additional modules or configuration required. You can find the “Blocks” menu under “Structure”.
Administering Your Site More Efficiently with Context
Who should use it? If the built-‐in contextual options for showing/hiding content and blocks makes sense to you, and you have a clear delineation of items required globally or per section, then this is the module for you! Context does very simple conditional logic to toggle values, toggle display of elements, and much more. Context module: https://drupal.org/project/context Benefits: • Do everything you would do repeatedly on individual pages in batches • Show or hide elements and entire theme regions conditionally • Set active trail on menus • Display secondary menus conditionally
Disadvantage: • This requires a clear understanding of the big picture-‐ what features are duplicated that could be consolidated?
Installation/Setup: Once you’ve copied the module to your site, along with any prerequisites, enable both Context and Context UI.
You can find the “Context” menu under “Structure”.
Collecting Information with Webforms
Who should use it? If you are looking to setup more than a basic contact form, the webform module is what you need.
Date module: https://drupal.org/project/date Email module: https://drupal.org/project/email URL module: https://drupal.org/project/url Webform Phone module: https://drupal.org/project/webform_phone Phone module (required by above): https://drupal.org/project/phone
Benefits: • Requires minimal knowledge about programming • Stores submission data to your Drupal database, and can be readily exported
Disadvantages: • Stores submission data to your Drupal database, perhaps taking up significant space and hindering performance
• Limited to the field types currently installed with Drupal or your other modules
Installation/Setup: Once you’ve copied the module to your site, enable it under the WEBFORM group.
Additional modules for the add-‐on field types should also be enabled prior to setting up your custom form(s). Depending on the module, it could appear in almost any module group. • Date & Date Popup appear under DATE/TIME • Email appears under FIELDS • URL appears under FIELDS • Phone appears under FIELDS • Webform Phone Number appears under WEBFORM
Once enabled, a new content type of “Webforms” should be available under “Structure-‐>Content Types” and “Content”
SEO Best Practices-‐ Metatags
Webform module: https://drupal.org/project/metatag Benefits: • Allows for assigning metatags to individual nodes of content • Also allows for metatag assignment with Context • Assign metatags to pages generated with Views
Installation/Setup: Once you’ve copied the module to your site, enable it and its sibling modules under the SEO group.
Nota bene: Ideally, this module should be setup and configured prior to any content entry.
A new tab for its settings should appear on each content type as shown below.
SEO Best Practices-‐ XML Sitemaps
XML Sitemap module: https://drupal.org/project/xmlsitemap
Benefits: • Allows for automatic XML sitemap creation based on your selections • Includes sibling module with functionality to automatically transmit/notify search engines of updates.
Installation/Setup: Once you’ve copied the module to your site, enable it and any desired sibling modules under the XML Sitemap group.
Once enabled, a new menu should appear under CONFIGURATION -‐> SEARCH AND METADATA.
SEO Best Practices-‐ Hierarchical URL Structure
Who should use it? If you are looking to setup a more hierarchical URL structure, then the built in URL alias might not be enough. That’s where Pathauto comes in… Ideally, it should be setup before any content types are created and content entered.
Webform module: https://drupal.org/project/pathauto Primary Benefit: • Allows distinct URL patterns to be assigned per content type, taxonomy type, and more, elimination the need for manually setting URL aliases
Installation/Setup: Once you’ve copied the module to your site, enable it under the OTHER group. As depicted at right, a new set of options should appear under CONFIGURATION-‐>SEARCH AND METADATA-‐>URL ALIASES
Questions?
Where can you get a copy of these slides? Drupaldelphia Session Page
or Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/AnsonHan)
Presented by: Anson W. Han Developer, Star Group www.stargroupdev.com Twitter: @thecraftycanvas Drupal.org Profile: ansonwhan GitHub: ansonwhan
