OPTASY: Drupal Web Development Agency Toronto
(416) 243-2431Drupal SupportRequest A QuoteQuote

Main navigation

  • Home
  • Services
    • Digital Strategy
    • Design
    • Web Development
      • Drupal
      • WordPress
      • Magento
      • Laravel
      • Shopify
      • Sharepoint
      • Contentful
      • Gatsby
      • Next.js
      • Node.js
      • React
      • AngularJS
    • Mobile & App
      • IOS
      • Android
      • Augmented Reality
      • Artificial Intelligence
      • Virtual Reality
    • Maintenance & Support
      • Drupal Maintenance
      • Wordpress Maintenance
    • Staff Augmentation
  • Portfolio
    • Web
    • Mobile
    • Ar
  • About
    • Who we are
    • Values
    • Events
    • Awards
    • News
    • Careers
    • Partners
      • Acquia
      • Google
      • Pantheon
      • Shopify
      • Wordpress
  • Blog
    • Drupal
    • Drupal 8
    • HTML
    • CSS
    • Javascript
    • PHP
    • Microsoft
    • Web Design
    • Design
    • Tips
    • News
  • Contact
(416) 243-2431 Drupal Support Request A QuoteQuote

In light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic - OPTASY would like to offer DRUPAL website support for any Healthcare, Government, Education and Non-Profit Organization(s) with critical crisis communication websites or organizations directly providing relief. Stay Safe and Stay Well.

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Redesigning Your Drupal Website
Drupal
Drupal 8
Tips

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Redesigning Your Drupal Website

by Raluca Olariu on Mar 15 2021

 

Drupal web development can be challenging sometimes—depending on the knowledge of the one performing it. On one side, this popular content management system provides amazing opportunities for customizing websites to meet the specific needs of brands, boosting web traffic, and business recognition. 

On the other hand, Drupal web development requires skilled developers and site builders that master the art of the Drupal project. We, at Optasy, know that Drupal web development can be challenging and keep many developers up at night. That's why we crafted this article to help you on your journey with Drupal.

More exactly, this post covers five mistakes to avoid when redesigning your Drupal website. It will help you gain key insights into the technical, creative, operational, financial, and strategic decisions that you have to consider through your Drupal web development journey. 

Let's roll up our sleeves and start learning from the mistakes of others.

But first, how do you identify when it's time for a website redesign?

 

  • Your website is not mobile-responsive. To avoid losing credibility and value, your website has to be optimized for a wide range of devices. Since 52% of all website traffic comes from mobile nowadays, optimizing your Drupal website for mobile is a must. 

  • Navigation on your website is slow. Online visitors are now expecting seamless digital experiences at the tip of their fingers. A poorly functional website will chase them away and affect your brand's credibility. 
  • Your website is more than five years. As the digital landscape is changing at a rapid pace, a complete revamp for your Drupal website is necessary from time to time.

 

Now that you have a clearer picture of whether you should plan a redesign project for your Drupal website or not, it's essential to understand what you should avoid doing in this process. 

 

#1 Mistake

Skipping the analysis of your existing website.

To solve an issue, you must be aware of it in the first place, right? The most successful companies are proficient at analyzing and identifying challenges in their workflows and proactively search for ways to overcome them. 

To evolve you must focus on your vulnerabilities and clearly define your weak spots. Only then, you can gain a sharper perspective of your destination. 

Key questions to ask yourself when analyzing your current Drupal website are:

  • How many visitors is my website attracting?
  • What's the average loading speed of my site?
  • Is the bounce rate too high?
  • Where does my website rank on SERPs?

 

#2 Mistake

Redesigning without a clear purpose.

Like all things in life, your redesign strategy should have a well-defined goal (or goals). You can't build a lasting plan without first outlining its primary purposes. With that in mind, here are the main questions that can help you craft precise objectives:

  • Where do you want your Drupal website to be in the next six months?
  • How will the new versions of my pages help me reach my goals?
  • What digital tools do I need in order to accomplish my objectives?

When drawing your redesign plan, you need to know why you are doing it and then align your site updates with your marketing goals.

 

#3 Mistake

Not establishing analytics benchmarks.

Now that you've gained a clearer perspective of your Drupal redesign plan and goals, it's time to start focusing on setting metrics related to the performance of the old version of your website. Google Analytics is a reliable resource that can help you with this, by providing these types of benchmarks:

  • Visits that actually lead to sales conversions
  • How much time users spend on site, overall visits, and banner click-through rates
  • Lead generation 

When it comes to SEO, these are the metrics you should try to benchmark:

  • Website traffic
  • Organic traffic-generating pages
  • Inbound links
  • Conversion rates

 

#4 Mistake

Not investing enough resources in a robust content strategy.

Content is still king. Around 70% of companies actively invest in content marketing. Why is content marketing so important?

Because it answers your audience's questions. It helps businesses build trust and generate more high-quality leads. 

That's why you should redesign your Drupal website with content in mind and consider the pain points of your audience when crafting your content strategy. 

What does a content strategy for the website look like?

  • Defined goals and target audience
  • Analytics & SEO review
  • Content inventory & audit
  • Style guidelines and publishing strategy
  • Omnichannel/cross-platform considerations
  • SEO strategy and metadata standards

 

#5 Mistake

Ignoring your competition. 

Competitive intelligence refers to the ability to gather, analyze, and leverage insights related to your competitors in order to better understand the market and make stronger strategic decisions. 

How to get started with competitive intelligence?

Step 1: Know your competitors. Determine which are your top five direct competitors and then your indirect, aspirational, and perceived rivals. 

Step 2: Collect your intel. This might be the most time-consuming part of the competitive intelligence process. At this point, you want to take the time to explore your competitors' online presence, products, websites, social media posts, teams, content, etc. 

Step 3: Craft your competitive analysis. Once you've gathered your intel, you should focus on breaking down the data and organize the findings such as trends or key insights so that you can easily communicate them throughout your enterprise. 

Step 4: Turn competitive intelligence into results. Make your data actionable and leverage it to benefit your overall business tactics. 

 

Wrapping up

Having these key insights on board when you start your Drupal redesign project will help you navigate the whole process a lot easier. 

Optasy can also support you in getting more out of your Drupal website with top-notch Drupal web development, maintenance, and support offerings—whether you want to build or upgrade your Drupal site.

Have a look and contact us if you want to accelerate your digital transformation.

 

Image credit: mohamed_hassan on Pixabay.

 

 

Share the article

Development

We do Web development

Go to our Web development page!

Visit page!

Do you want a website

or app developed?

 

Get a Free Quote

and let's make it work!

Get a Quote

Recommended Stories

DrupalTips
How SEO Helps Your Website Grow

How SEO Helps Your Website Grow

  Search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool for helping your website grow and reach its full potential. SEO involves optimizing your website to make it easier for search engines like Google to find and rank it in their search results. By using SEO techniques such as keyword research, content optimization, link building, and more, you can increase the visibility of your website and attract more visitors. With the right SEO strategy in place, you can drive more traffic to your site and generate more leads and sales. In this article, we'll discuss how SEO can help your website grow and become successful. What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is the process of optimizing a website to make it easier for search engines like Google to find and rank it in their search results. SEO involves a variety of techniques, such as keyword research, content optimization, link building, and more. By using these techniques, you can increase your website’s visibility and attract more visitors. SEO helps your website become more visible in the search engine results pages (SERPs), which can lead to more traffic, leads, and sales. Benefits of SEO for Website Growth Let's have a look at some of the top benefits of SEO for website growth: Increased visibility: SEO helps your website become more visible in the search query, which can lead to more traffic and leads. Improved user experience: SEO also helps enhance the user experience of your website by making it easier to navigate and providing relevant content. Increased brand awareness: SEO can help boost brand awareness by making your website more visible in the SERPs, which can lead to more people recognizing your brand. Higher conversion rates: SEO can also help increase your website's conversion rate by making it easier for visitors to find what they are looking for and take the desired action. More organic traffic: SEO can help you drive more organic traffic to your website, which is free and highly targeted. Keyword Research for SEO Keyword research is an important part of SEO, and it involves finding the right keywords to target for your website. Keyword research helps you identify the words and phrases that people are searching for when looking for products or services related to your business. By targeting these keywords, you can increase your website’s visibility in the SERPs and attract more organic traffic. When doing keyword research, you can use specialized software to make the job easier. Content Optimization for SEO Content optimization involves optimizing your website’s content to make it more relevant to search engines. Content optimization includes optimizing titles, meta descriptions, headings, images, and other elements of your website’s content. Many companies rely on a solid blog approach to boost their content optimization strategy and highlight their SEO efforts. Link-Building Strategies for SEO Link-building is another top SEO strategy, and it involves creating backlinks to your website from other websites. Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your website, and they can help improve your website’s visibility in the SERPs. There are a variety of link-building strategies you can use to build backlinks for your website. These include guest blogging, directory submissions, social media marketing, and more. Conclusion SEO is an important part of website growth, and it can help you increase your website’s visibility in the SERPs, attract more organic traffic, and boost your conversion rates.  In the competitive digital world, brands that harness the power of SEO are on top of the game.  If you, too, want to integrate SEO into your web development project and are looking for professional advice, don't hesitate to contact Optasy. Optasy is a web development company that provides complete web development and maintenance services that support business growth.  Photo credit: Unsplash.  ... Read more
Raluca Olariu / Feb 14'2023
DrupalTips
Top Drupal Debugging Techniques

Top Drupal Debugging Techniques

  Debugging is an essential part of developing any website, and Drupal is no exception. Debugging in Drupal can be a complex process due to the complexity of the system and its many components. However, with the right techniques, it is possible to identify and resolve issues quickly. In this article, we will discuss some of the top debugging techniques for Drupal that can help you troubleshoot your website more efficiently. We will cover topics such as using the Devel module, using Xdebug, and other helpful tips and tricks. With these techniques in hand, you'll be able to recognize and repair any problems on your Drupal site quickly.     Using the Devel Module for Debugging The Devel module is a powerful tool for debugging Drupal websites. It provides a suite of tools to help you quickly identify and resolve issues. The Devel module includes features such as the ability to view database queries, generate dummy content, and debug PHP code. It also has an API that allows developers to create custom debugging tools. Using the Devel module can be helpful when trying to identify the source of an issue. It can also be used to generate dummy content for testing purposes.     Utilizing Xdebug for Troubleshooting Xdebug is a powerful debugging tool that can be used to troubleshoot issues on Drupal websites. It provides detailed information about the code execution, including stack traces and variable values. This can help developers quickly identify the source of an issue and resolve it more efficiently. Xdebug also has features such as breakpoints, which allow developers to pause the execution of code at certain points to inspect the application's state. This can be helpful when trying to identify and fix complex issues.     Leveraging Drupal's Logging System Drupal's logging system is a powerful tool for debugging websites. It provides detailed information about the events that occur on the website, including errors and warnings. This can be helpful when trying to identify the source of an issue. The logging system also allows developers to set up custom log levels, which can be used to filter out unnecessary information and focus on specific types of events. This can help developers quickly identify and resolve issues.   Using the Drupal Console for Debugging The Drupal Console is a command-line interface that can be used to debug Drupal websites. It provides commands for inspecting the database, generating dummy content, and running tests. This can be helpful when trying to identify and fix issues quickly. The Drupal Console also has an API that allows developers to create custom commands for debugging purposes.   Have You Completed Your Drupal 10 Migration? The release of Drupal 10 marks a major milestone for the platform, and it is important to ensure that your website is up-to-date with the latest version. Migrating to Drupal 10 can be a complex process, but it is essential for ensuring that your website remains secure and performs optimally. When migrating to Drupal 10, it is important to test the website thoroughly and use debugging techniques to identify and resolve any issues. The Devel module, Xdebug, and Drupal's logging system can all be used to troubleshoot any problems that may arise during the migration process. Don't forget to ensure that all of the modules and themes used on the website are compatible with Drupal 10. It is recommended to use the Update Status module to check for any available updates and apply them before migrating to Drupal 10. Additionally, it is a good idea to create a backup of your website before beginning the migration process in case something goes wrong. By taking these steps, you can ensure that your website is properly migrated and running smoothly on Drupal 10.     Conclusion Debugging in Drupal can be a complex process, but with the right techniques, it is possible to debug your website faster and easier. If you need more advice on your next web development project or on your Drupal 10 migration, our team of experts is here to help you. Contact us for more details.   Photo credit: Unpslash.... Read more
Raluca Olariu / Jan 16'2023
DrupalTips
Troubleshoot Your Website in 8 Easy Steps

Troubleshoot Your Website in 8 Easy Steps

  Having a website that runs smoothly is essential for any business. Unfortunately, website issues can arise from time to time and can be difficult to troubleshoot. The good news is that there are some simple steps you can take to identify and resolve common website problems. In this article, we'll discuss eight easy steps you can take to troubleshoot your website quickly and efficiently. With these tips, you'll be able to get your website back up and running in no time. 1. Check Your Server Status. The first step in troubleshooting your website is to check the status of your server. If your server is down or experiencing issues, it could be the cause of any problems you're having with your website. You can check the status of your server by accessing the control panel for your hosting provider. This will give you an overview of any issues that may be affecting your server and allow you to take the necessary steps to resolve them. 2. Review Your Website Logs. After checking your server status, your next step is to review your website logs. Logs are a great way to identify any errors or issues that may be occurring on your website. Reviewing the log files lets you pinpoint the exact source of the problem and take steps to resolve it quickly. Logs can also provide valuable insights into how visitors interact with your website, which can help you optimize your website for better performance. 3. Test Your Website Performance. The third step in troubleshooting your website is to test its performance. This can be done by using a tool such as Google PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest. These tools will analyze your website and provide you with detailed information about its loading speed, page size, and other performance metrics. This will allow you to identify any areas of improvement that could help improve the overall performance of your website. 4. Inspect Your Code for Errors. If you've tested your website performance, your next step is to inspect your code for errors. This can be done by using a tool such as Firebug or Chrome DevTools. These tools will allow you to view your website's HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code and identify any errors that may be causing issues. Once you have identified the errors, you can take steps to fix them and ensure that your website is running smoothly. 5. Check for Broken Links. The fifth step in troubleshooting your website is to check for broken links. Broken links can cause a variety of issues, such as slow loading times and poor user experience. Various tools can help you identify any broken links on your website, such as Screaming Frog or Xenu Link Sleuth. Once you have identified the broken links, you can take steps to fix them and ensure that your website is running smoothly on all platforms, including mobile devices. 6. Ensure You Have the Latest Updates Installed. Ensuring that you have the latest updates installed is imperative if you want a highly performant website. Outdated software can cause a variety of issues, such as security vulnerabilities and compatibility problems. It's important to keep your website up-to-date with the latest versions of any software or plugins you may be using. You can check for updates by accessing the control panel for your hosting provider or by using a tool such as WP Updates Notifier. 7. Analyze Traffic Patterns to Identify Issues. You should also analyze traffic patterns to identify any issues that may be causing your website to perform poorly. Analyzing traffic patterns can help you identify any areas of your website that may be causing problems, such as slow loading times or high bounce rates. You can use tools such as Google Analytics or Hotjar to track and analyze user behavior on your website. This will allow you to identify any potential issues and take steps to resolve them. 8. Monitor Your Website Regularly. Finally, remember to monitor your website regularly, as it will allow you to identify any potential issues before they become serious problems. You can use tools such as Uptime Robot or Pingdom to monitor your website's uptime and performance. In this way, you can ensure that your website is running smoothly and that any potential issues are identified quickly so that they can be addressed promptly.   Drupal 10 for High Website Performance Drupal 10, launched last month, is the latest version of one of the most powerful content management systems that can help you achieve high website performance. Drupal 10 offers a range of features designed to improve the speed and efficiency of your website, such as caching, minification, and optimization.  Among the best features we can find: Symfony 6 compatibility. Site owners and module developers will benefit from as much Symfony 6 compatibility as possible, and Symfony 4 deprecations in Drupal 9 for Symfony 5 will be resolved. Supported solutions for rebuilding jQuery UI functionality by using either vanilla JavaScript or frameworks like React. jQuery UI components used by Drupal core will be removed. Best practices for deprecating modules. Users will be able to use a proper mechanism for naming, versioning, deprecating wrappers, etc. A 'lifecycle' - property can be used in info.yml files for themes and modules. Better decoupled developer and site builder experiences, especially for menu and URL handling. Introduction of CKEditor 5 with better authoring experience and more modern editing (replacing CKEditor 4). PHP 8.1 compatibility for Drupal 9 and Drupal 10. Theme Starterkit tools for bespoke theme creation. You can learn more about how Drupal 10 can take your website to the next level in this article. Drupal 10 Migration If you're considering migrating to Drupal 10, we can help. Optasy's team of highly skilled developers can help you migrate your website to Drupal 10 quickly and efficiently. We can also provide ongoing support and maintenance for your website, ensuring it runs smoothly and optimally. Contact us today to learn more about our Drupal 10 migration services.   Photo credit: Pixabay.... Read more
Raluca Olariu / Jan 11'2023

Browse cities

×

Toronto

WordPress Development Services in Toronto
iOS App Development Services in Toronto
Drupal Development Services in Toronto
Magento Development Services in Toronto
Laravel Development Services in Toronto

Montreal

WordPress Development Services in Montreal
iOS App Development Services in Montreal
Laravel Development Services in Montreal
Drupal Development Services in Montreal
Magento Development Services in Montreal

Vancouver

Magento Development Services in Vancouver
iOS App Development Services in Vancouver
Drupal Development Services in Vancouver
WordPress Development Services in Vancouver
Laravel Development Services in Vancouver

New York

WordPress Development Services in New York
Laravel Development Services in New York
iOS App Development Services in New York
Drupal Development Services in New York
Magento Development Services in New York

Need a new Project?

Dare us to shape and boost your idea(s)!

Start a Project

(416) 243-2431

Contact

(416) 243-2431

contact@optasy.com

Toronto Downtown

First Canadian Place,
100 King St. W. Suite 5700, Toronto

Toronto West

2275 Upper Middle
Rd. E, Suite 101
Toronto

New York

1177 Avenue of the
Americas, 5th Floor,
New York

Newsletter

Get the latest OPTASY news, tips and how-to’s on the go, right in your inbox!
OPTASY
clutch
Pantheon Premier Partner
  • Drupal 8
  • Services
  • Contact Us
  • Partners

  • Drupal
  • Google
  • Magento
  • Shopify
  • Wordpress
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Drupal
  • Cities
  • Support

© 2023 All Rights Reserved. Built with Drupal