Search engine optimisation aka SEO is the lifeblood for successful digital presence. If you want your website to rank high in search engine results, then you have to bring together SEO focused activities that could encompass:
- Using the right keywords
- On-site optimisation
- Social media strategy
- CMS or content management system
Among all the activities, a content management system (CMS) is the most important one, because it allows you to take control of your website and make changes that are necessary from an SEO perspective. So you can not only create a website from scratch but also control a lot of its elements and effect changes as quickly as possible.
There are quite a handful of choices as far as CMS go and perhaps the top ones are Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. It would be worthwhile to look at the features of each one of these offerings.
Skill level
All three CMS are enough easy to use and have free offerings, too. But if you were to try each one out, then you will see that Drupal perhaps has the most complex learning required. It will need you to be familiar with CSS, PHP and HTML in addition the native interface and features. WordPress lies on the other end of this spectrum and is one of the most popular choices for small to medium sized business owners and beginners. It is really easy to use! You will need to have a few technical skills to master Joomla, and it works rather well for social networking websites.
SEO plugins
An SEO plugin allows you to do plenty of things on-site to help it fare better in search engine results. Some of these functionalities include:
- Adding SEO title
- Write custom titles for each page
- Meta descriptions
- Meta keywords
WordPress seems to score rather high with the tech community on the plugin front. This is one host that has the most number of SEO plugins.
Drupal is known for its modules that can help you track web statistics and SEO activity. It also has the capacity to automatically generate meta tags that are customisable.
With a bit of knowledge on how things work, you can use Joomla also to add global meta descriptions and meta keywords. Do keep one thing in mind though – this open source CMS needs quite a bit of skill and expertise when it comes to turning on search engine-friendly URLs.
To sum up this section on SEO then – WordPress has a lot of plugins that can make CMS based SEO a breeze. Joomla will take a lot of effort from you when it comes to optimizing the website for SEO. Drupal has clean code and in-built SEO capability but still needs technical knowledge to unleash its full potential.
Third-party support and community
By sheer size, WordPress has the most to offer. If you have any query regarding SEO and your CMS then you will find the quickest and most comprehensive answers for WordPress. 140 million downloads is a pretty impressive number. Isn’t it? Joomla and Drupal have 63 million and 15 million downloads each. As far as a do it yourself CMS go – WordPress leads the market here thanks to its application in websites that are based on CMS. More than 40 percent of this sector goes to WordPress. Joomla comes to second in this space.
Social networking
If social media marketing is one of the more important components in your SEO strategy, then you may be best served by going with Joomla. It is interesting to note that experts say that Joomla treads the middle ground as far as the ease of use of WordPress and the technical power of Drupal goes. It is one of the most popular choices of social networking sites and e-commerce sites too.
Technical performance
Drupal has pulled ahead of the race here. It is easily the most technically progressive option from the three CMS choices here. However, this can majorly be an advantage if you know how to handle the technical side of things.
If you can work on the technical side, then you will get a site that:
- Has faster load times,
- Uses fewer resources,
- Loads quickly and
- Runs even on a less expensive server.
With some basic web programming skills, you can get a Drupal-powered website to serve your SEO needs.
Security is another aspect to look into and here again, all three are more or less equal. Drupal probably has the best security in place. It attracts enterprises because of its security protocols. WordPress is not like Drupal and is highly vulnerable due to its popularity but is known for the highest frequency of updates. Lastly, Joomla comes as the least secured platform among the three.
Finally, it is safe to say that a simple comparison between the three – Drupal, Joomla and WordPress is not accurate. You may like to choose depending on a simple matrix:
Simple use, starting up website – WordPress.
Fairly basic skills, social networking site – Joomla.
More than basic web skills, a site that will grow quickly – Drupal.
All three platforms are free so you can read up on each of them and maybe even go through a short trial and then decide.
