It sure seems like it was... last century or in some sort of "prehistoric age of the web" when website owners or (even worse) SEO “gurus” would pile up their target keywords in the bottom of their web pages, going for white font against white backgrounds or for the all-black shady alternative. This was the “illegitimate” type of hidden content, now just a bad example from the “troubled” past of SEO.
It's the “legitimate” hidden text, instead, that prevails in the digital landscape of the present! That type of content popping up before your site visitors' eyes only once they've made a certain action. More often than not we're talking about clicking on a “Read more” link inserted in your article content.
And it's no trick, no intention to “fool” the visitor, to trick him/her into clicking on that link. Instead, he honestly wants to:
dig in for some more manufacture details about a certain product
gain access to extra informative content about a certain topic
or maybe to some product/service reviews etc.
But now the question that arises is: does Google weight this particular type of content, the legitimately hidden content, any less than the non-hidden one?
We all know it doesn't mark it as spammy and who would be more entitled to ensure us of that if not Google itself, through one of its representatives:
“It’s not deceptive, no one is trying to be manipulative, it’s easy to see that this text is intended for users. And so as long as you’re doing that, I wouldn’t be too stressed out.” (Matt Cutts)
And yet: does “legitimate” or “non-spammy” implicitly mean “valued equally”?
Let's shed some light on this “mystery” here and then allow us to offer you some possible solutions you could consider when you do need to use hidden text, loaded via CSS or JavaSript, on your website, but you still want to make sure Google won't “discredit it”. At least not as much as it will discredit it “by default” (for that's a “cruel” reality that you need to accept and to adapt your site's content and SEO strategy to):
But First: Why Do We Use JavaScript and CSS Hidden Content After All?
If we all (let's admit it!) have at least some remnants of doubts “lurking” in the back of our minds that hidden text (although legitimate) might not be weighted as high as the visible by default text, why is it such a big “trend” to hide certain parts of our content on our Drupal sites?
To keep using all kinds of cool JavaScript or/and CSS technology for technically hiding parts of our content and trigger it under certain, well-defined circumstances only (as already stated: when the user performs a certain action).
Let's point out 3 of the most common reasons:
it makes a handy tracking method
it works as an analytics tool, helping you collect user engagement-relevant data
it can enhance user experience (an otherwise overly long piece of content can thus get shortened and it's the user who decides whether he clicks on the “read more” link and delves deeper into the text or not)
Visible Content By Default vs (Legitimately) Hidden Content from Google's Perspective
Let's assume that:
on one particular page of your Drupal website you have a fully-visible piece of content (page A)
on another page you have its shortened version along with the “Read more” link (page B)
The link will, nevertheless, “unveil” the rest of the content on this last page from our example.
So, you're trying to rank for the same keyword on both of them and you have no “guilty” conscience that you might be doing something SEO-forbidden on page B. It's just technically hidden text and the user knows it!
Yet, Google will always treat these two types of content differently! And by “differently” we do mean “preferentially” when it comes to page A!
Just think about it: it has its text fully visible, entirely displayed, along with that target keyword that you're ranking for.
Instead, on page B, your keyword might appear a couple of times precisely on the hidden part of its content which, obviously, gets disadvantaged by Google.
Whenever you decide to hide a piece of content on your website Google will atomically start treating it as “less important”. Just ponder on this for a while before you jump on the trend of using all kinds of cool Javascript or CSS stuff in the name of web design and user experience!
Try and figure it out for yourself whether it's worth the compromise! A nice, minimalistic web page (with less heavy content) can also mean a poorly ranked one in Google.
To sum up: if it's important content (one carrying crucial keywords or any other type of data that you'd want Google to parse and give your website the due credit for) don't hide it! Not even if it's JavaScript or CSS technology that you're using for loading it!
And, surprisingly enough, this “injustice” only happens in Google! Bing and Yahoo do treat legitimately hidden and non-hidden text equally!
But What if We Still Need to Use Hidden Content? Are There Any Safe Practices?
Let's imagine a real-life scenario where your SEO team has no choice but to give in to the strong arguments that their colleagues from the web design and content writing teams give them: certain texts on your company website should get hidden from users' view using CSS or JavaScript modern “tricks”.
What options do they have to strike this “compromise” without harming your online presence? Your company's whole SEO strategy?
Here are 2 best practices to consider:
A brief, easy to close overlay always makes such an “innocent” little compromise (it won't harm your SEO plan and it still manages to carry out the “mission” that it will have gotten charged with: to hide a certain part of your text). Take it as engagement statistics 'collector”, too, as more than 90% of your visitors will rush in to click the “x” on your overlay before they rush in to scroll down.
Consider placing the most “valuable” elements of your content (keywords, key phrases, key information), the ones that weight heavily in determining your site's ranking, in the non-hidden section of your text. Don't “sabotage” yourself by sprinkling these crucial elements across the post-loading content.
In other words: if you do need to hide some of your text, don't hide the key ranking “boosters” and, also, consider going for an overlay element.
It's not a question of “Google refusing to display your hidden JavaScript of CSS text”. It will still show up in search engine results page!
Just that it will be slightly disregarded and not equally ranked !
Now it's you who'll decide whether this compromise, although supported by the 2 aforementioned SEO best practices, is worth “sacrificing” your site's Google rank!
Adrian Ababei / Jun 26'2017
You know what they say: “there's always a module in Drupal for... pretty much any type of functionality you might need!”. And pop-up messages are no exception! You have a whole “arsenal” of modules for building popups in Drupal, each one of them “specialized” in providing you with a certain type of “refinement” or set of particularities that you might need to leverage on your site.
You might want to trigger a pop-up taking the form of:
an announcement displayed in an overlay
a redirect pop up message
or maybe you simply need a pop-up opening up a form
There's a dedicated module to suit any type of site-specific expectation you might have.
And now, without further ado, let us “unfold” before you eyes the list of 5 useful modules for building popups in Drupal:
Popup
It's not without premeditation that we've put this particular module on top of our list. In terms of pop-up building “tools” in Drupal the Popup module can easily get perceived as an entire “toolkit” at your disposal!
Therefore, it's much more than just a stand-alone module, but rather a “cluster” of sub-modules, each one of them adding its own functionality to the whole suite.
As a whole, it helps you (your team of Drupal site builders) trigger menus, nodes, blocks, forms, php-generated content and views as pop-ups.
Taken individually, these sub-modules are:
Popup descriptions: turns item descriptions into popups
Popup filter: puts an input filter at your disposal, one turning popup tags into popups in filterable content
Popup: delivers a couple of basic popup styles and the basic popup framework, as well
Popup block: the one “responsible” for the block configuration options (the ones that make every turning of a block into a popup possible)
Popup menu: which, as you surely can already guess, provides the needed blocks of popup menus corresponding to each menu within your system
Popup UI: “dealing with” all the display formats, integrating node-reference fields and handling cck, as well
Take the Popup module as some sort of “Swiss army knife” standing out from the group of modules for building popups in Drupal. Just name a pop up-related functionality that you need to leverage on your site and this suite of sub-modules is ready to provide you with!
Popup Message
It's the answer to your “How can I display a pop-up messages, one per each browser session, to my Drupal site visitors?”.
And here's how you configure it so you can “harness” its functionality:
you navigate to admin/settings/popup_message where you define your message's body and title
next you navigate to admin/user/permissions in order to set your permissions
Note: if it's a Drupal 8-powered site that you own/administer, then you should know that the team of developers behind this module is working hard on its migration to Drupal 8 as we speak.
In short: is patience one of your virtues?
Pop-Up Question Redirect
Here's another module that shouldn't miss from your “toolbox” when you need to display a pop-up window to your Drupal site's visitors!
You get to leverage its functionality for:
informing them about a certain promotion running on your website
getting them to complete a survey
putting a certain (new) page or section on your site into the spotlight!
The moment the user clicks on the “Yes” button included in your pop-up window, he/she will get automatically redirected to that specific page that you're trying to draw his/her attention to!
And speaking of them, your visitors, here are the 3 user-oriented functionalities that this module provides:
The “Yes” function, which guides your visitors to the page that your pop-up is targeting
The “No, remind me later” function, which will trigger the pop-up window, once again, after a certain amount of time
The “No, don't show this again” function, which blocks the pop-up
As for all the needed configuration “backstage hocus pocus” that you need to make in order to fully “exploit” this module's functionality, it's actually just a 3-step procedure:
Just define your popup title and message
A textfield where you need to enter a redirect link
Set the time for the “remind me later” functionality
Note: you even get “spoiled” with a more-than-useful “extra” functionality, that of being able to exclude certain user ip's; this way you decide which ones of your visitors shouldn't be “bugged” with your pop-up message.
Popup Forms, One of the Key Modules for Building Popups in Drupal
First things first: you should know that this module doesn't “trigger” any pop-ups itself, instead what it DOES do is provide API for themes or/and modules!
So, it displays any given type of Drupal form as a popup, via an jQuery UI dialog. Compared to other “kindred“ modules, the Popup Forms module does not display any type of popping-up content except FORMS.
This being said, let's see which are the key features that you'll want to use:
It can easily integrate multi-step forms
It enables you to set up various parameters to your form callback
It can pop up https forms from non-secure pages, too
As aforementioned: it uses a jQurery UI dialog for displaying your pop-up forms
Once your forms are successfully submitted, you gain unlimited access to the $form_state from Javascript
Note: you'll need the jquery.postmessage plugin for “harnessing” this module's power on your Drupal site!
Pop-Up Announcement
It's the handy tool to rely on whenever you have an announcement to make; whenever you need to establish this type of interaction with your website visitors.
Basically it enables you to communicate with them via pop-up announcements displayed in overlays.
And it's you who'll determine on which ones of their visits on your site these pop-ups should appear (on their first visits, their third, their fifth; it's you who'll define this parameter).
Moreover, you even get to determine which is that specific page on your site that your announcement should pop-up on, as well!
In short: when you say Pop-Up Announcement you say “utter flexibility”! Basically you get to customize your pop-up interaction with your users the way you like it!
And now, just a quick overview of its most “tempting” functionalities:
The pop-up announcement shows up in an overlay
You'll get your own admin page, your own “control tower” where you get to manage all your announcements
Your announcement pop-ups can be written in html, too
As already mentioned here: you get to define on which ones of your users' visits your announcements should get triggered; and it's on your dedicated configure page that you get to make all these key set ups.
And speaking of functionalities and parameters that you're empowered to define yourself: you even get to set up a specific visibility for each one of your announcement messages; for instance you can have different degrees of visibility on different sections of your site
Note: OK, so you're granted tones of flexibility and power of customization, but there still are some limits, as well. 2 actually: you can't set more than one announcement pop up per page or more than one pop-up per user visit!
As for the configuration part, just navigate to admin/config/popup_announcement/list and make all the right selections and set ups for tailoring your announcement pop-ups to your site's needs!
It looks like our list of useful modules for building popups in Drupal ends here! Do you happen to have other “favorites” that haven't made it to our list?
Which one of the 5 modules mentioned here do you find most effective, most feature-rich and helpful for your own team's pop-up building “tasks”?
Adrian Ababei / Jun 23'2017
It's data that shapes today's digital landscape! This is no news for any player in the online arena! From big data to small data, from data-backed-up decisions to data-fueled digital strategies and data-driven web design, the online revolves around... DATA. And yet, not just around powerful “raw” data, but around perfectly structured, easy to parse through data. And in this respect, the Google Data Highlighter makes such an easy to use webmaster tool for setting up precisely these ideal data structures that Google can easily “crawl” through in order to better “assimilate” websites' particularities.
It's been designed with easiness of use, low budgets, and close to zero coding expertise in mind! So, it's meant to empower any webmaster/admin to get his/her Drupal site a big push up the search engine page results. It's meant to help site admins grow independent of the technical team, of time and budget constraints in their endeavor to put their Drupal sites into Google's spotlights!
Now, let's find out:
Why you should be using Google data highlighter tool
Which are the key advantages of this SEO webmaster tool
How to use it for implementing structured data on your Drupal site
Which are the imminent drawbacks that you should be aware of in order to make an informed decision when you add this tool to your whole SEO “arsenal”:
1. Why Do You Need Well Structured Data on Your Web Pages After All?
“Because Google doesn't have, not just yet, information of critical importance about your site and you should deliver it to the search engine."
Or better said: you should enhance its access to this information!
And this is some of the crucial data that you should make as easy to access and “interpret” as possible:
your target audience
the frequency of web page updates on your Drupal site
how accurate your website is
And it's by tagging the main fields on your site, so via so-called “microdata”, that you can easily deliver this key information about your site and in an easy to “digest” format, too.
We're talking here about articles, event names, software applications, products and so many other types of information that you can turn into microdata and “serve on a silver plate” to Google itself!
So that Google gets to know your site and gains an in-depth understating of its content, goals, and target audience. Of all its other key particularities. And the better it gets to know your website, the higher are its chances to increase its rankings in SERPs.
In other words: don't wait for your website to “be discovered”, but strive to enhance and to speed up its discovery! This is precisely what this tool here, supporting a whole variety of structured data, does!
2. The Key Benefits That You'll Reap From Using Google Data Highlighter
Now let's point out and pin up all the key advantages for leveraging this tool; advantages that we've just more or less vaguely mentioned already:
It's easy to use! Basically it enables you to tag fields on your Drupal site via simple mouse point and clicks. Just select your products, articles, events or/and any other types of data on your website that you'd like to mark up and then select from the drop-down menu their corresponding types ( article, title, event, etc.). Unbelievably user friendly!
It's free! A benefit you just can't afford to ignore when you have a limited budget. It's a money-saving tool whose whole potential you get to “exploit” as we speak (so, a time-saving tool, as well). Money and time: you're practically saving your most valuable resources!
No coding experience required! And this makes Google data highlighter such a handy tool for everyone, the non-technical site owners/administrators here included! Not to mention (although we already have) that it's ideally user friendly, too: mouse select, right-click and tag your data in the blink of an eye!
3. How Do You Use Google Data Highlighter? How Do You Highlight a Web Page?
Now that we've tackled the “whys” and the “which”, let's tackle the “how”, as well! Let us try a step-by-step guide on how to use this tool for marking up structured data on your Drupal site:
1. First things first: you log into your webmaster account (the one where your site is added as a property, of course)
2. Next click on the property whose pages you want to “Google highlight”
3. Access Search Appearance –> Data Highlighter (from the drop-down menu)
4. Next click on “Start Highlighting”; it will open up a dialogue including queries regarding the type of information displayed on that specific web page, an option for auto-selecting other similar pages, too (so that you don't have to go through this process over and over again for pages with similar formats), queries about the web page value, too
5. Then enter all the relevant info
6. Once you've entered the URL of your target web page and selected its type, as well, feel free to click on “Tag this page and other like this”; this way you'll be tagging pages with similar layouts and streamlining this process at the website's level
7. Once you've clicked on the “OK” button, a horizontal bar, divided into 4 tabs/sections, will pop up. These are (as you shall see):
Tag First Page
Create Page Set
Tag More Examples
Review and Publish
8. The “Tag First Page” is the preliminary (and the key one) stage where you actually select pieces of content on your target web page and with a simple right-click on your mouse (which will unfold a drop-down menu) you get to select the category corresponding to each piece of content (Article, Image, Category, Author, Data Published).
Keep doing this till you've tagged each micro-data on your web page!
9. Once you click the “Done” button you'll get to the next stage listed in your horizontal top bar: “Create Page Set”. It's now that you get to select those pages having similar layouts for streamlining the whole tagging process. As you will see, you're also provided with an option that automatically selects all the similar pages for you.
Feel free to use it or to ignore it and choose to create your own custom page set instead.
10. Once you've clicked on the “Create Page Set”, you'll automatically get to the next step: “Tag More Examples”. It's on this page that you get to review your tagged web pages and make any needed fixes.
11. Click “Next” and check the web page tagging one by one, next click on “Review and Publish” the pages.
And this is how you highlight and tag your Drupal site's web pages using the Google Data Highlighter tool!
4. “Are There Any Drawbacks That I Should Be Aware of?”
Yes, there are a couple of disadvantages, as well! And it's only fair that you take them into account so that you can ponder both the pros and the cons of using this tool for structuring the data on your website's pages:
Probably the most discouraging of them all is that your entire data highlighter breaks down as soon as you apply a small change to your site's template or code. And then... well... you need to set it up, once again.
The data highlighter that you will have put together is relevant for Google only! No other search engine (Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, etc.) will be using your structured data markup.
It might be quick and easy for you to nicely structure your data, yet it will take Google a little more time to assimilate your data pattern and then to present your structured data in a more attractive way. So, on one hand, you save time putting together your data highlighter, but on the other hand you “lose” some of that time as you wait for Google to... notice it and “fructify” it. You will have already marked up structured data on multiple web pages on your site by the time Google has fully understood them!
Patience is a virtue, so they say!
As a closing piece of advice: a team of developers is always the best solution when it comes to optimizing your Drupal site. Yet, for those instances when you need to rely on a limited budget and on even lower resources of time, there's Google Data Highlighter!
Adrian Ababei / Jun 19'2017
Let's start by imagining the “bad” scenario! The one where you don't implement modular content components in the creation/editing process on your website! It will only lead to a poor editorial experience, where editors/content authors:
depend on your technical team for every little tweak that they need to apply to content on your Drupal site; which will obviously slow down the processes of updating content and sending it to your various distribution partners
are forced to learn HTML and thus to focus less on creating and polishing content and rather on acquiring some sort of technical “expertise”
Granting your editorial team (even more) flexibility will benefit:
you, as an organization, since they'll be empowered to run all the necessary updates, in due time, with great ease
your site builders and Drupal developers who will then win more time to focus on their own tasks (no one wants to get interrupted from his/her work each time there's content to be added or to be edited on the website).
So, it's a sort of win-win-win type of situation ( where you, as an organization, your content authors, and your team of developers gets to win)!
And now let's detail the concept of “flexible modular content components”, and point out why they shape the future of content creation:
1. How Should The Content Creation Process “of The Future” Be Like?
First of all, it should definitely go beyond:
the "box body" concept
the content management framework that your Drupal development team can program to do anything by using just the proper custom site-building techniques
The future of content creation lies in a redefinition of content in CMS and in putting the spotlight on the creation experience itself! It's that improved creation experience that will easily lead to a unique, easy to personalize user experience.
And there's more:
content of the future should be a “cluster” of modular content components of rich media
creating and editing content should be a simple, few-steps process with no technical “burden” involved
content of the future should be exchangeable across platforms and to support multiple forms of media
content of the future should easily adjust to the requirements of a multi-channel publishing context
Needless to add that a weakened creation experience, where the content writer/editor/publisher is fully dependent on the technical team, will only lead to slow site updates. And you definitely don't want to fall behind with your updates!
2. The Content Creation Process of the Present
Now, before we highlight for you the benefits that you can reap from adopting a structured modular content on your Drupal site, let's take a look at the “current” issues that modular content components come to solve:
the “one and only WYSIWYG” standard
content writers aren't granted as much “independence” as they should in order to create/edit content without any technical support from the development team
leaving content creators no option but to put together layouts within the WYSIWYG editor and to learn HTML
3. But What Is Modular Content After All?
Making your content modular means switching from the practice where you edit a page, on your site, as a whole, to that where it gets automatically generated from other content items. For instance, an example of “content item” could be the “recipes” one on a farmers market website.
The key benefit of adopting modular content is that you're granted consistency across the content on your site and that the entire editing process gets automated.
For instance, once a piece of vendor information gets changed, all the pieces of content on your website that display that particular information gets instantly updated.
Step into the future of automated content updating and leave behind the irksome manual updating process!
Moreover, you get to leverage the power of modular content for putting together page sections and composite web pages, too!
4. What About Modular Content Components? What Are They?
You could see them as “tools” empowering your content creation and editing team to:
easily add new sections without the help of the technical department in your organization
send their pieces of content to several distribution channels (sending them, each, specifically those content formats that meet their requirements).
And all this in just one single step!
5. “Should I Be Integrating Modular Content Components in My Content Creation Process, too?”
It depends!
It depends on whether it's crucial for the whole workflow within your team that your content editors should be able to update content on the fly and to send it to your network of distribution partners “in the blink of an eye”.
If it's the case, then you should definitely leverage the modular content components' functionality on your Drupal site, too!
This way, you'll be empowering your editorial team with a simple, yet highly effective drag-and-top tool that they can use for adding new content components quick and easy.
The next step is to send it to your content distribution partners, whether it's Facebook, AOL, or Apple News, or none of these three.
6. Key Modular Content Functionalities Worth Your Attention
5.1. Consistency Across Your Website
And you can't underestimate the advantage of keeping a consistent branding throughout your Drupal site!
This is precisely what you can achieve using modular content components:
you'll eliminate those situations where your team uses inconsistent layouts when publishing content, taken from legacy website designs
re-branding your website will turn into a streamlined process with a solid and scalable architecture as its foundation; it will be a lot easier to “implement” the new look and feel across your website and to achieve a consistent branding
the current situations where content authors just drop “slices” of HTML into the WYSIWYG editor will become “history” on your new future platform, a highly maintainable and nicely structured one; a modular content components-powered one!
5.2. Easily Adjustable Content According to Your Distribution Partners' Restrictions
It will be far easier for your content editing team to tailor it to their specific restrictions! Since with modular content components they get to edit and update content with such ease!
Whether it's:
links that they need to remove in order to comply with your distribution channels' requirements
certain formats that they should stick to
any other special requests that they need to meet while creating or editing their articles
… with Modular Content components integrated into their article creation process, it all gets much more streamlined!
5.3. Marketing Power
And you surely can't afford to underestimate digital marketing-oriented tools that help you build targeted and ideally creative advertising campaigns:
you have the Double Click for Publishers module
you have flexible ad tags that you get to use for implementing your campaigns
you have built-in identifiers helping you achieve your “smart targeting” goals through your campaigns
Need we add any more reasons that modular content components make the future of content creation? Are you ready to embrace the future?
Adrian Ababei / Jun 15'2017
If content is king, then content personalization sure is queen! Which leads us to content globalization, an ever increasing demand that many organizations strive to adapt their marketing technology stack to. Yet manually getting heavy loads of content translated not just in one, but in several languages, and then sending it out precisely to their target audiences, at high speed and ideally scaled, is almost a “mission impossible”. And this is the particular context that the Cloudwords for Drupal 8 was launched in!
It's the answer to organizations' challenge of dealing with users' expectations for personalized experiences while striving to spare their valuable resources of time, as well!
For users do expect to be “served” promptly, you can't compromise on quality (by delivering them poorly translated content) and you surely can't waste their time (delivering them the translated version of the content on your website weeks or months later).
And this complex workflow involving:
large teams of content authors
loads of content being constantly moved in and out of the Drupal website(s)
a whole network of translation vendors to send it over to and to receive it from
... has its limitations!
Therefore, integrating Cloudwords with Drupal 8 comes to turn all this from a cumbersome, time-consuming process into a fully automated workflow!
Now let's get into more details about the “happy marriage” of these two innovative web technologies, Clowdwords and Drupal 8:
Why Drupal? Why Drupal 8? What Does This CMS Bring To The Table?
As you probably already know, it's been a while since we've got to use the Cloudwords for Drupal module. Why was Drupal “chosen” for the happy union? It's pretty logical: back then it was and still is large organizations' top favorite content management system! The one “equipped” with all the capabilities (flexibility, scalability, extensibility and all the other crucial “ity”-s) that are crucial for content-packed websites!
So, since now we have Cloudwords for Drupal 8, a more than valid question would be: “But Why Drupal 8 in particular?”
“Because it's been built with content globalization in mind! It provides companies with multilingual support right in its core!”
What is Cloudwords? What Does It Bring to the Table?
Simply put: Cloudwords is a software that automates the entire global content localization process!
Basically what it does is eliminate all those resources-consuming tasks, that are now being carried out manually by “armies” of teams, and deliver a highly enhanced visibility into the projects' statuses.
A “dream come true” for all the digital marketing teams involved in the production and the delivery of personalized content within large organizations. Like yours!
Cloudwords's key role in this integration with Drupal 8 is precisely this one: turning your Drupal website's localization into a streamlined, automated workflow! Far easier to monitor and far easier to handle!
Workflow automation + Unmatched project management capabilities
The Challenge
More often than not enterprise organizations need their websites' content translated in several languages (not just one or two) and also have not just one multilingual site to manage, but an entire “constellation” of sites.
So, as you can imagine (since you're probably facing the same challenge) monitoring the entire translation process, promptly updating it whenever new content gets added to the website and adding new and new multilingual websites to the group is resources-consuming and prone to error!
And this is the challenge that Cloudwords in Drupal 8 comes to help your own organization respond to!
Cloudwords for Drupal 8: A Big Leap Ahead Into the Future of Content Globalization
Now that we've:
glided through each one of the two technologies' key capabilities relevant for this integration
pointed out the “problem” that this “union” comes to solve
… let's have a close look at this groundbreaking solution, shall we?
First of all, what we can easily state is that it speeds up the whole website localization process. And that it protects it from human error, too, obviously!
Since the entire workflow (implying the creation and the delivery of personalized content) gets automated, living up to higher and higher standards of speed, quality and scaling gets so much easier.
Secondly, we're talking about efficiency in terms of quantity, as well: a high volume of web pages can now get translated at high speed, to more and more users located in different corners of the world and in more and more languages, as well.
In short: accelerating translation at scale, that's what you'll achieve, within your enterprise, once you start leveraging Cloudwords for Drupal 8's capabilities!
And How Exactly Does It Streamline Content Marketers' Workflow?
The very first “present” that content marketers get is an increased visibility into their content translation projects! A key benefit coming to complete all the other ones deriving from the fact that all the time-consuming tasks, otherwise manually handled, are eliminated from the whole process.
“Automated convenience”, that's how we could call Cloudwords for Drupal 8 from content marketers' standpoint!
And there's more! The future has in store even more (more or less “surprise) “goodies” for content authors and editors:
improved multilingual support (since we're talking about Drupal 8, after all)
improved content authoring and editing experience
CloudWords for Drupal 8: Features That You'll Want to Use
Now let's outline specifically those key functionalities that you'll be using the most in your translation at scale projects:
enhanced visibility into each project's status (a feature that we've just talked about)
OneReview: in-content review functionality
collaboration among all the teams and vendors involded, across departments, too; and good collaboration sure is a touchstone of any large scale project!
How Does It Work?
“You simply select the content on your Drupal site that you want to localize and let Cloudwords for Drupal 8 handle the rest!”
The translation vendor that you'll choose for the job will get the content to be translated, then it will have it delivered into Cloudwords. A step-by-step website localization process that Cloudwords will streamline for you, taking an incredibly heavy burden off your team's shoulders!
Moreover, it will also automatically detect and point out to you those specific translations that are outdated, as well as the new ones.
And this is how Cloudwords for Drupal 8 works! Looking forward to hearing from you your very first impressions once you start integrating it into your organization's translation at scale processes!
Adrian Ababei / Jun 14'2017
Standard web pages have ceased to be the only data delivery medium available! And there's no way around it. You either respond to users' “pressing” expectations to be delivered up to the moment data, context-based data only, or, well, you'll be left behind! In this respect, Drupal-powered digital signage systems might just be the best solution to meet your customers' “new” needs and to remain relevant in your business!
There's no reason to “act surprised” or be skeptical about Drupal being the right technology to go for! You have:
data-rich APIs
outstanding content management functionalities
… so collecting data, turning it into “relevant”, contextual data, detecting a whole network of devices and sending out that data following a certain content model already looks like a plan.
A solid plan for you to build your first digital signage system on!
But let us dive into more details, (hopefully) answer all your legitimate questions and deliver you some of the key information you need for getting started with your digital signs project:
Digital Signage Systems: A Few Examples
What forms do these new types of digital experiences take? Where do we interact with digital signage in our day-to-day lives?
Here are some representative examples:
mall kiosks
touch screens placed in various means of transportation (planes, cars, trains)
voice interfaces
These are all real-data delivery means! Digital signage solutions that we interact with daily (even if only visually) and which have already become indispensable to us.
But Why Drupal? Why a Drupal-Powered Digital Signage System?
… when you have Angular, Node, Amber React and the whole “suite” of cutting-edge, modern technologies at your disposal?
The answer lies in Drupal's whole “culture” of empowering the end-user!
In other words: Drupal provides an improved user experience compared to other modern technologies focusing mostly on enhancing exclusively the developer's experience instead.
As simple as that! You need to build your signage system with your client (his team of content editors) in mind! It's them who will need to be able to grow independent once you pass them over the device; to be able to edit everything about it with the utmost ease.
And Drupal excels at empowering the non-developer, the non-technical user!
Real-Time Data Streaming = Managing Content With Great Ease
And Drupal's well reputed for its capabilities as a content management system.
It empowers those “in charge” with content with a whole structure of features and functionalities aimed at better organizing the editorial team, at handling and “refining” the delivered content (making it context-sensitive, as well).
Now, let us point out some of its “star” capabilities:
its whole “infrastructure of roles and permissions
its revisioning feature
its translation functionality
its content types building tool
How Does Drupal Handle External Data?
Having data “flooding in” from “outside” providers is something to consider when you decide to develop your Drupal-powered digital signage system! This data can range from:
social media
to weather data
to stock data
to news
to all kinds of crucial (for the passengers) public transportation-related data
And the way Drupal 8 copes with this “flood” of data goes like this: the provider API is sent out to collect this data, then Drupal gets it processed according to the content model.
Note: If content is king, then context is queen!
Make sure you contextualize the data you deliver via your digital signs, that you perfectly adjust it to the given context (you don't want to send out information about a train's schedule on the “wrong” platform or data news from Baltimore to people living in L.A. etc.)
Getting Started: How to Use Drupal for Powering Your Digital Signs
Here are the very basic steps to take:
enter the right command in Drush for collecting your data
next store your credentials in Drupal 8
“trigger” caching (yet, be cleverly selective about what you cach, since you can't, obviously, cach everything when it's real-time data that you need to deliver)
parse your collected data, using Drupal 8 to “spread” it to all the right devices, following the right content model path
Getting Data from Drupal to Your Digital Signs: How Does It Work?
Before you go ahead and pick the obvious answers to this question, “pull” or “push”, you'd better consider all the “pieces of the puzzle”:
you can't really rely on the pull method since that would put a tremendous pressure on your server's shoulders (and heat up your devices)
you can't rely on a “multiple APIs” method either, since real-time data restricts you to a to a highly selective caching (unlike on web pages)
you can't reload as many times as needed, like on the web
there's limited or no user interactivity involved (the huge blue screen can be viewed by thousands of people and the only thing they can do is just... stare at it)
“Can't do this, can't do that: but what is it that I CAN do to make this data transfer work?”
“You use websockets!” It's this solution that will provide you with an almost instantaneous, two-way type of communication for a longer time!
It's One of Those Perfect Contexts of Use for “Exploiting” Drupal's Scalability
Apart from being incredibly flexible, Drupal's highly scalable, too! We all know it, even those that don't use Drupal know it!
A Drupal-powered digital signage system is the perfect “context” for leveraging this scalability. And it's going to be of great help when you think of the whole network of devices involved here!
Drupal's powerful enough to send out the collected data via one of the websocket channels that you'll use for transferring your data to your devices.
Moreover, it can multiply that data for as many devices as your network has. Unlimited scalability!
Think Beyond Content Model: Think “Device Model”, Too!
… for Drupal has the right capabilities for collecting, processing data and following the content model, yet you need to “give it some hints” regarding the devices, too. The devices that those digital signs will get displayed on.
Let it know what is it that these devices can do, which messages get “triggered” by which one of the digital signs.
In short: a well structured, crucial information-stuffed device model's needed, too!
Overall: What Does Drupal Need to Know?
If you want your Drupal-powered digital signage system to work at its full potential, then you need to “empower” Drupal 8 with all the key information:
1. what data goes to which one of your interconnected digital signage devices
2. the format that Drupal needs to display that data in (along with language, size screen, and other related key data)
And now in order to “proof” your data, to ensure that it's just your own devices that have access to it, you can:
whitelist your digital signage system (leveraging the metadata that Drupal can collect for you)
establish TFA for all the involved users
ensure that your services of choice (whether it's Google, Amazon or another one) ask devices for authentication
How Does a Drupal-Powered Digital Signage System Handle Security?
And this is, indeed, a “sore point” when dealing with digital signs! They're particularly vulnerable in case of cyber attacks.
Now that we've pointed out the “problem”, let's jump to the possible solutions that you have:
1. this is a no-brainer and yet, we feel like adding this “rule of thumb”, too: always change the passwords that your devices ship with!
2. consider restricted access to them
3. ensure that the software you're using comes along with a patch/updates schedule, too, and that you remember to run those updates, periodically
4. secure your source data: get it validated and audited before you “release it out into the wild”
5. use SSL
And now all there's left for us to add is: good luck with your first Drupal-powered digital signage system!
Adrian Ababei / Jun 10'2017
Back in the old days, when we didn't have the Group module to “save the say”, whenever we needed to set up a certain user group hierarchy and a more or less intricate structure of group roles, with different levels of permission and different types of content to be accessed by each one of these groups, we used to call the Organic Group module for “help”. It used to be the one and only solution to our “challenge” actually.
Yet, no matter how familiarized we already are with it, we still cannot ignore its “flaws” and “aspects that could be improved” (that we'll be tackling in this post in a bit).
And so, with an enhanced Drupal site builder's and developers' experience in mind and due to the context of a slightly flawed Organic Groups module, the Group module was built! A so much more than just an “alternative”: a soon to be the norm whenever developers deal with user groups on Drupal social sites.
Now let's give you some key arguments for why you should consider using it for creating and managing user communities on your website and some guidance on how to harness its full power:
First of all: Which Are The Contexts of Use for the Group Module?
Which are those “scenarios” that call for the creation of user groups with shared content and shared permissions precisely to that specific content?
Let us point out some of the most common ones:
1. a (high) education Drupal website, where a professor having an admin role, too, can group his own students into communities and share certain resources, certain information with them exclusively while keeping them hidden from the other visitors on the site
2. a library with multiple branches, where the staff from a physical location is given access to specific dedicated sections and, therefore, to specific content only on the library's website
3. a speaker's website where he/she also organized online conferences and needs to group the participant and grant them (paid or not) access to informative content and resources
What Makes It a Better Alternative to The Organic Groups Module?
You can't ignore the Organic Groups module's “sore points”, even if it might have turned into a “familiar” tool to use each time time you're in a “setting up granular permission” type of situation:
it hasn't always leveraged Drupal's new functionalities in core
it doesn't “spoil” us with API
And now, let's “dig up” all those improvements brought to the Group module which easily turn it from “just” an alternative into a replacement module for Organic Groups:
1. Better Structured Data
“Tempting flexibility”, that's how we could call this improvement.
Remember how in the Organic Groups module everything was intertwined, interconnected? User groups had to be attached to a node or a taxonomy term or to a...
Well, not anymore! In the Group module, each user community is an “independent” entity and this is where the “tempting flexibility” derives from.
2. A More Intuitive UI
And this is, no doubt, one of the Group module's most heavy weighting improvements. We're talking about Drupal after all, with a “culture of empowerment”, so a clear and super intuitive UX was a must!
Practically you'll be provided with everything you'll need to use, served to you right on a “silver plate”: once you've installed the module, simply look for the “Group” section “neighboring” the “People” section!
Your admin toolbar will provide you with all the tabs/options that you need to navigate through and select from.
Therefore, don't expect a whole “marathon” of tabs and pages and sub-tabs that you would need to swim through for configuring your Drupal 8 site's user groups! A simple UI grants you a “fewer clicks” experience!
3. It Provides Group Roles to Choose From and Assign To
It's a “new” concept that this Drupal 8 module introduces. Well, almost new, for these roles are very similar to Drupal's user roles and their functionality is the same. Except that they're applied to group types instead (not to individual users)!
They fall into 3 types:
member: a member of the user group with a user account on the website, too
outsider: not a member of that specific “community”, yet he/she has an account on the website
anonymous: has no user account on the given website
4. Site builders Can Define Permission Sets for Each Type of User Group
Basically, this functionality that the Group module provides site builders with eliminates the risk of group members “not playing fair”.
The set of permissions can be configured and then assigned to each group instance.
5. An Improved Developer Experience
The Group module in Drupal 8 “spoils” Drupal developers with a well-documented code.This way they get quickly familiarized with it and do the right tweaks for extending the module's functionality.
And now speaking of its extensibility feature, we have some really good news /spoiler alerts for you:
you get the Group Node module, too, out-of-the-box, once you install Group in Drupal 8; this enables you to quickly add your nodes and grant access to that specific private content exclusively to the members of the group that you will have created
it “plays well” with other Drupal 8 modules, too
thanks to its plugin system, it turns the writing of a module into a matter of just a few lines of code; developers get to easily enhance its functionality
How to Use the Group Module in Drupal 8?
The whole step-by-step process, from the very first step, where you enable the module itself (a 3-in-1 module, actually), to the very last one, where you add your groups, is very well detailed HERE. What tabs to click on, what drop-down menus to unfold and selections to make, it's all there.
So, we won't go on rephrasing the whole tutorial in this post, since you'll find all the steps (screenshots there included) that you'll need to complete explained there:
you install and enable your module
you set up your group types (for instance: content editors, publishers, content creators, interns)
you link group types to content types, too
you pick groups from the group types that you will have created as step 1 and populate them with members
There are a couple of key aspects of this Group module installation, enabling and properly configuring process that we'd like to draw your attention to:
once you get started with the installation, you'll be “warned” that you need to rebuild your permissions
you get to create custom fields for each one of your group types (it's you who'll decide what personalized content goes there: that specific user community's logo, its location, etc.)
And that's it! You can now step into and enjoy a new era of user groups creating and granular permission granting made easy!
Have you tried the Group module on your Drupal 8 site yet?
Adrian Ababei / Jun 08'2017
Before we delve any deeper into the topic of progressive web apps, let's highlight the context that “produced” them: the limitations of the web itself (poor internet connection, low performance and so on).
Therefore, a solution was needed so that users (and here we're referring mostly to users from emerging markets, although poor internet connection is a “sore point” for users from other countries, as well) faced with this type of drawback could enjoy some native-ish, app-like experiences, too.
And so, evolving from the “standard” web-hosted apps and “rivaling” native apps in feature-rich user experience, loading speed and (most of all) unmatched accessibility, progressive web apps “were born”!
Now let's get to the bottom of the growing “fascination” for this “new” type of apps, pointing out why they're preferred by developers (front-end developers in particular), by users and by organizations (Google being this web technology's most “notorious” advocate) to the same extent.
But First: What Exactly Are Progressive Native Apps?
And this leads to another another legitimate question: in what way are they different from “conventional” web apps?
“Web browser APIs”, this is the answer! It's this feature alone that makes all the difference! Progressive web apps are “clusters” of multiple modern web technologies, the great majority of them deriving from the web API's itself.
Basically this opens a whole new web era for developers, an era where they can build powerful dynamic web apps using web APIs. Where they can deliver native-ish user experiences without the need of using hybrid frameworks.
“Progressive enhancement” (or “brewing” top performance even from the early stages of development), this is how we can call the whole development process that sets this type of apps apart from web apps and gets them so close to native apps.
Developers get to add new enhancements/features progressively, while users get to enjoy some native app-like experience, irrespective of their internet connection's quality or of the mobile browser that they're using. A win-win situation!
And now, let's point out the key “requirements” for a “regular” web app to “level up” to a progressive one:
to be responsive: a progressive web app runs on any type of device (any browser)
to run offline relying on service workers (to be connectivity-independent): one of the main reasons why these apps have gained so much ground so quickly; “poor or no internet connectivity” is the issue that progressive web apps have been created to compensate for after all
to feature an architecture enabling progressive enhancement (developers should easily add on new features, new functionalities hassle-free)
to be be easy to install locally, on the user's home screen, on smartphones and tablets
to be re-engageable: via features such as push notifications
to be built on HTTP, therefore addressing the security issue
to be easily accessed via one basic URL
And the list could easily go on and on with features deriving from these very “requirements”:
they're app-like (with content and functionality playing, each, its separate role)
they're discoverable (since Google and other search engines can easily track them down identifying them as “apps”)
they feature dynamic app-like pages with separate URLs, etc.
What's most important for you, as a Drupal site owner and as an organization, is the aspect of ACCESSIBILITY! Being responsive, progressive and connectivity-independent, these new-generation type of apps (the “future of web apps”, as many call them) is a huge leap forward into the future of web.
Once there the user's freed from the chains of performance and other types of dependencies (platform dependency, internet connection dependency...)
And Again: How Precisely Do Progressive Web Apps Benefit Your Own Business?
Is your organization's future projects include seizing business opportunities in the emerging markets (for, after all, they are “responsible” for 70% of the global growth, according to Forbes)? Markets which are known as having the mobile in their DNA while they face, at the same time, poor internet connectivity challenges?
Then progressive web apps come as a sure “recipe” for your business' growth!
As for your direct customers, it's all the new possibilities that this type of apps, built with unmatched accessibility in mind, unlock. Your users will be able to access your PWAs from any device (PWAs put an end to Android's “dictatorship”), from any network access (or none) and still enjoy a native-ish experience.
They no longer need to limit themselves to “super light” type of mobile apps or to access their favorite apps only for short periods of time.
Progressive web apps can be adjusted to these particular customers' context of poor network performance and used devices. An enhancement that will smooth your access through and ensure your business' growth in a 3.9 billion person market.
From our own team of Drupal developers' standpoint: they'll get to focus on configuring your company's web apps for 2G only, thanks to their “connectivity-independency” feature.
Now if we are to point out some business stories of success, we could mention Jumia and Konga. The two companies operating in Africa have both implemented progressive enhancements into their their web apps' development process and they've both succeeded to increase their conversion rater and to reduce data usage.
To Sum Up:
your users don't need to compromise a rich native app-like experience in order to save their data or due to a poorly performing network
you'll make your web apps accessible to everyone (increasing visibility for your own brand)
you'll manage to cut down your bounce rate (no more “annoyed” users unable to access your app or constrained to access it for a shorter period of time)
you'll be able to more effectively safeguard your data
Service Workers: What Are They and How Can They Improve Your PWA?
First of all we feel like adding that: service workers are indispensable when building progressive web apps! They're the JavaScript-like scripts handling everything data-related: where it comes from, how it should be structured and cached in the background, where it should be pulled to etc.
Each time your users perform an action, it's these service workers that makes the right data requests in the database and transmits it between views. They coordinate all the background processes that go from data requests to content delivery.
And speaking of service workers, we need to stress out that it's the Service Worker API that's the truly indispensable service worker that you should be using for ensuring a connectivity-independent PWA.
It makes the very foundation of your progressive web app!
Start with the Service Worker Api and build on it; take it from there and continue to enhance your app!
For inspiration, we recommend you to visit Service Workers Cookbook, a great source of “enlightening” demos and great examples for you to learn from!
A Few Words About The App Shell That Progressive Web Apps Use
If you're familiar with the native app's architecture, then you surely are familiar with app shells.
They're the pre-established patterns that guarantee the clear separation of the UI from the data and code. It's also the true “culprit” of native apps' high performance, of their undeniable power: the interface remains visible and identical for the user, while different sets of data can load each time.
It can be cached locally, making it easy for it to load with each access of your app, and guaranteeing a dynamic content: data and functionality filling in the views can differ depending on various factors.
And this shell-like structure remains identical on every single page of your app. It's only the data/functionality that vary, creating that sense of dynamics and ensuring the best loading times, too.
And that's it for today! This is our short 2-in-1 presentation and pledge for adopting progressive web apps. What do you think? Are they the future of the interweb or you don't see their potential?
Adrian Ababei / Jun 06'2017
It's time you embraced the DATA! That's if you still want a leads-generating website and not just a “pretty painting on a wall”, in an art gallery, that, well, everyone's briefly looking at, but no one's buying! The days of aesthetics' “dictatorship” and of the instincts and personal preferences-based decisions are over. It's time you leveled up and took ONLY smart, data-driven web design decision within your organization!
It's data, cold facts and numbers that will hep you get your website from “just pretty” to “both effective and pretty”. It's data, again, that will speed up the design decisions making within your organization and help you launch your Drupal site on time and on budget.
It will filter all your options down to those that are numbers-backed-up. Those that you can then leverage for ensuring a hassle-free, enjoyable user experience on your website.
And now, let us point out to you the main questions that you should be asking yourself and the key mindsets that you should adopt once you engage in a data-based website designing process.
1. Which Are The Specific Results That Your Website Should Target?
Do you want to attract more subscribers via your website? Or maybe you want to convert your website visitors into customers? Or you aim, instead, for social media sharing or for the downloading of the materials that you're offering on your website?
In other words: which is your specific conversion goal? The one that you're trying to achieve via your website? It's the answer to this basic question that will make the keystone of your whole web design strategy!
2. Move the Spotlight From Your Business Goals to The User's Tasks
First of all, let's get one aspect straight: you are not your website's target user! Therefore, all the data-driven web design decisions that you will make should target the “real” user's needs, pain points and expectations and not yours, as a company!
Now, speaking of expectations, in web design we prefer to call them “user tasks”. The tasks that your website visitors need to complete (to make a booking, to buy a product, to subscribe to a newsletter, to read blog posts etc.)
Your “job”, as the “entity” behind the “front store”, which is your Drupal site, is to make carrying out these user tasks as effortlessly as possible:
design with user experience in mind
stick to the generally-accepted design conventions, thus creating a sense of familiarity
And it's precisely on those pages on your site where their tasks and your business goals, as an organization, intersect, that your main sources of conversions will be (let's say subscriptions: they can be both something the users need to do, some filling-in forms tasks, and your objective as the website owner, as well)
3. Set Up Your Data-Collecting Tasks, a Key Step in a Data-Driven Web Design
“OK, OK, I get it; I need to make data-based web decisions only, but how do I collect that usable, key data?” you might ask yourself.
Glad you asked, actually! Here are some examples of tests you could run and to-do tasks you could set up and assign to different members of your Drupal team:
identify your users' current pain points, determine the causes why you're losing conversions on your website, it's own weak points (run some surveys, rely on your customer service team's gathered feedback from your clients etc.)
analyze your competitors' own sites, see what works and what doesn't in your own industry
turn Facebook Audience Insights into a powerful tool for getting to know your users better
try identifying the reasons why your users won't convert: find what the key differences are between your visitors and your customers
4. Make Empathy-Driven Design Decisions
Welcome everyone on your website! Users with disabilities here included!
Especially since Drupal makes it so simple for you to meet the web accessibility standards.
Therefore, you have no excuse left for refusing to empathize with your users and, this way, for knowingly refusing to achieve your conversion goal.
5. Guarantee Your User a “Painless” Visit
And by “painless” we actually refer to common-sense design “rules” that are constantly being broken by organizations, on their websites, for the sake of innovation.
Remember: when aesthetics interferes with website usability, it quickly turns into a “trap”! Don't fall into it!
Now here are those “common sense rules” that we were referring to:
always choose context-sensitive icons with meaning (no need to demand your users to “solve mini-puzzles” for figuring out what action each icon triggers)
resist the temptation of breaking the tried & true conventions ensuring usability on your website (place your shopping cart, your sing in button, your navigation bar and all the other key elements on your web pages precisely where your visitor's used to finding them)
always “bid on” high contrast for your written content
guide them through the steps of their tasks with the help of gestural interactions
We're more than sure that these web design conventions are nothing new to you. Nevertheless, what we're trying to point out by enlisting them here is that: you should never compromise usability for the sake of innovation, of breaking the norms!
Serve your users' needs of usability first and impress them later!
6. Keep Key Information Above the Fold
Although some might argue and feel like going against this convention, keeping the top benefits, the key information above the fold still is a more than relevant “rule”.
You might be thinking that not revealing your products'/services' “luring” benefits from the very beginning builds up suspense, yet you'd better handle your visitors' time with great caution. The more time you ask them to invest in the visit on your website, the fewer your chances to convince them to convert will get.
To sum up: display all your main benefits, your CTA elements and all the other crucial information above the fold. The deeper you'll bury them, the better you'll hide them from your users, “bidding” on suspense, the more frustrated they'll get.
7. Go for an Ideal Number of Choices, A Key Rule in Data-Driven Web Design
And by “ideal” we mean that too many options could get their decisions making process way too cumbersome and challenging. While too few will only confuse your users and make them feel not properly cared for and attended to.
How do you achieve this ideal number of choices? Well, here are some simple tips you can easily put into practice:
create filters that will help them “swim through” the whole set of options, but make sure you make them as specific as possible and that you add them to the most popular (and therefore the choices-packed ones, too) categories on your site
opt for simple, straightforward categories
structure them in a hierarchy by assigning priorities
8. Tailor A Personalized Experience for Each One of Your Users
Is there any point in stressing out that we're living in a personalization-dominated digital world?
Users already expect you to “orchestrate” some perfectly tailored experiences for them on your website, so... there's no hiding from this trend anymore.
How do you comply with it while ensuring that all this effort will translate into conversions? Well, by studying your visitors and collecting a whole load of key data regarding their browsing histories on your website, regarding their geolocation, their purchasing histories etc.
Next, you get to leverage all that data for crafting your personalized content (in the format of personalized recommendations) for each one of them.
It's not going to be a quick and easy process, we won't hide this from you, yet a personalized content marketing strategy still remains THE most effective one. If Amazon keeps using personalized content for boosting their sales, then it must be (still) working, right?
9.Leverage The Power of Video Content on Your Website
We won't be focusing on this aspect, since we've already dedicated it a two-parts blog post on this site. Using video content on your Drupal site is not even a matter of a “web design trend”, but a data-driven web design decision. It's plain, "cold" data that supports the usage of video content.
10.Use Social Proof For Building Credibility
Testimonials, previous partnering companies' logos, an “impressive” number of sign ups, customer reviews, these all make the type of data that the user, too, collects before he makes his own decision while on your website.
So, make sure you have them all there, displayed and visible enough for your users to easily spot them. This type of social proof is the type of credibility evidences that your users expect to see on your website!
11. Constantly Monitor Your Data and Make The Due Adjustments
So you've launched your website, created based on data-driven web design decisions only. What now?
Well, now you get back to work and you collect even more data! Site monitoring never ends and designing your website's a continuous process.
Therefore, always be ready to make some small adjustments here and there if the data you'll collect via GoogleAnalytics, Hotjar or via any other business intelligence tool that you prefer indicates that you should:
monitor your users' clicks and scroll behavior
leverage all the information that the heat mapping process delivers you and make the right changes on your Drupal site
How about you? Have you already incorporated and turned data into a key component of the web designing processes within your organization?
Adrian Ababei / Jun 01'2017