Drupal is a fantastic open-source CMS (Content Management System) platform that accounts for 30% of websites over the internet. Today, its latest version, Drupal 8, can build modern websites, whether an e-commerce website or any personal blogging site.
By using Drupal 8, you can create a secure website. Compared to WordPress, Drupal offers more scalability, flexibility, and power. Before going into step by step guide let’s get into its remarkable benefits:
Figure 1: REMARKABLE BENEFITS OF DRUPAL 8
Drupal 8 allows you to start testing out some great new features.
following are the reasons you will love Drupal8:
1. Easier content authority
2. HTML, mobile-first input
3. Responsive admin
4. Better language and global support
5. More digital ecosystem integrations
6. Allows integration of advanced technologies
How does Drupal help in building your Websites?
Drupal 8 is a great tool to build a website because it includes less coding, more customization, module integration, element addition, etc., to create a solid, stable, creative, and attractive designed website.
Drupal uses a popular text editor module to control basic HTML features while writing content.
Domain name registration
A domain name is a unique address where your website can’t be found. A name is always a substantial investment. We recommend buying a domain name from a good domain name registration site like GoDaddy. Try avoiding slang terms, hyphens, etc., in your domain name. A simple domain name is easy to remember; always try to keep the short name of your domain. In addition to this, try to stick to extensions like com,.org,.info, business, .net, etc. in your domain name.
Choose a good hosting plan
You will find several options in the market to choose a hosting provider company, but we want to help you better—many web hosting providers like Everdata, A2Hosting, GoDaddy, etc.
All these hosting providers have their data centers in different parts of the world. Thus, a guaranteed 99.9% uptime for your Drupal website is in your hands. But you must know the specifics of choosing reliable Drupal hosting services.
Also, the hosting plan should make use of the leading cutting-edge technologies such as SSD, Intel Xeon processor, cPanel, Plesk Onyx panel, and server optimization software.
How to install Drupal 8
If any hosting provider company offers you 1-click installation functionality with Softaculous, then downloading & installing Drupal is relatively easy.
You can visit the Drupal website www.drupal.org, click the Drupal 8 download button (the latest version). After that, the Drupal application will quickly install via the cPanel or the Plesk Onyx panel.
Now, log into the Plesk Onyx panel account; go to Applications > Featured Applications > Find Drupal icon > click on Install.
The latest version of Drupal 8 will be installed in your system. However, perform a custom install option if you want your Drupal version.
Create users using Drupal 8
The default installation settings only allow you (the website owner) to edit and manage the content. Alternatively, if you plan to share content creation and content management activities with others, create accounts for all your Drupal users.
The above picture is Manage Administrative Menu! Go to People > click Add user > fill the required fields.
Select layout and theme
Visitors’ first reaction depends upon your website’s first appearance. If your Drupal site is attractive, then visitors stay longer at your site, and it might improve your business relationship with them. Thus, pay more attention to Drupal 8 layouts and themes.
Go to the Appearance menu > click Install New Theme.
Now, you will see many themes and website designs. Select one based upon the ease of customization, design vision, responsiveness, simplicity, attractiveness, and color blending. The website should be eye-soothing for each online visitor.
Once you select the Drupal website layout, it becomes your default layout which you can see by visiting your website.
Drupal website homepage development
The homage is the famous and informational page on any website. The homepage is the first thing that visitors see. Therefore, to set up a static page, follow this procedure;
Go to Content > Add Content > Basic Page > add a title > fill the body with content
To add more fields to your homepage, follow this;
Structure > Content types > Basic page > Manage fields > Add field
We have taken the home page as an example, you can create About Us, Contact Us, etc., and pages related to your website services.
Let’s bring the module into action
Expert Drupal developers in the Drupal community contribute many excellent and well-tested modules to the platform. These modules expand your Drupal 8 website functionality.
Visit www.drupal.org/project/project_module to search the modules. You can download the modules in two different options tar.gz and zip.
After downloading the modules, upload them to the sites/all/modules of the Drupal installation by using an FTP client (File Transfer Protocol).
Now, unzip the downloaded module files. Finally, enable the module on the Admin> Modules page
Drupal 8 block feature utilization
Blocks are one of the great features of Drupal 8. They create widgets for displaying User Login, content in the header, footer, sidebar & many other regions on your created webpage. The block feature allows creating your own space on your webpage, which you can use for anything as per your creativity.
Every time you create a new page, you will have to repeat the last five steps mentioned in the guide! So never hesitate to follow the guide to creating a new website using Drupal 8 step by step.
How does Drupal win hearts?
Drupal CMS has always been a secure, scalable, robust, and flexible platform. Truly with its features today, it contests CMS–WordPress’s captain in the web development industry.
As long as it continues to amaze with its feature, Drupal will win the hearts of the website developers and website users!
The tutorial or the guide to creating a Drupal 8 website might look very simple to you, but the practical experience of website development is the other side of the mirror. So if ever you come across difficulties and want to modernize your website, we are one call or email away; you can contact us now by clicking on the following button:
