A recent comparison of the top CMS/blogging platforms found that WordPress is growing at a significantly higher rate than competitors Joomla and Drupal. However, upon closer inspection of the data, it is apparent that Drupal ranks first in one very important category - earnings. At least among freelance and work-at-home Web professionals.
The State of the Work-from-Home and Freelancing Economy Report was conducted by job search engine DoNanza, and the key finding was this: While more professionals are using WordPress, professionals using Drupal are earning more.
In short, the average project for a Drupal user earned twice the amount of a WordPress project. Joomla, incidentally, was slightly higher than WordPress, but an average project still earned about half that of a Drupal project.
More people are turning to WordPress to accomplish their, let's say, simpler Web business goals. But when a more flexible infrastructure with advanced features is required, Drupal fills that need more effectively.
Much of that flexibility and functionality within the Drupal platform comes from modules, essentially the same thing as WordPress plugins or Joomla extensions. Below are 10 Drupal modules that can launch your web enterprise to higher earnings:
- SEO Checklist - A must-have for Drupal users, this module optimizes your site for the major search engines by tracking the modules you have already installed and telling you what areas still require attention. Once you have tended to the unchecked items on the list, your site will perform better on Google, Yahoo, Bing and the rest.
- Content Optimizer - This module also helps to increase search rankings by improving on-page optimization factors. An SEO analyzer provides instant analysis of your site's content, displaying key statistics about the content and offering recommendations for methods of improvement.
- Content Analysis - This is actually an API designed to help modules designed for analyzing your site's content. The module enables a suite of analyzers such as Quick SEO, Scribe SEO, Readability, W3C Analyzer and Keyword Research.
- AdSense - A great tool for maximizing your revenues through Google's Adsense, this module helps Web content providers manage the process with extreme efficiency. Site owners are protected from displaying more than the maximum amount of ads allowed by Google, can display search results on their sites, can easily use ad blocks and disable ads for certain roles, and the AdSense module is also the best tool for ad revenue sharing.
- Google Ad Manager - Allows you to easily configure DoubleClick for Publisher ad slots for Drupal. Each defined ad slot becomes a block that can be added to a region.
- Ubercart - This is the doorway to Drupal's entire suite of ecommerce functionalities, which include coupons, product tools, payment systems and much more. Ubercart is a highly effective solution for users that want to sell physical goods, digital downloads and site memberships, and each module focuses on three key areas: store configuration, product and catalog creation and order management.
- Administration Menu - An excellent tool for new Drupal users coming from other CMS providers, as well as a must-have module for site builders and administrators. It renders all administrative items in a clean, CSS-based menu at the top of your website, and contains local tasks as well as regular menu items.
- Views - This module can be used to generate reports, create summaries and display collections of images and other content. Views provides a flexible method for Drupal users to control how lists and tables of contents are presented on your site. Given enough information, the tool can build a query, execute it and display the results.
- Contemplate - This module was built to fill an aesthetic need within Drupal's Content Construction Kit (CCK), adding a Template tab to editing pages and making it easier to rearrange fields, remove headers and anything else to make your content look better. The Contemplate module can also be used to add files, images and any other media to RSS feeds as attachments.
- Link to Us - This module allows users to create a page of banners that can be used by other sites to link to your own. Visitors, contributors and partners can all use consistent banners that link back to your Drupal site, and the links are all SEO friendly with titles and alternate text.
There are many more modules available for Drupal, each of them designed to help Web professionals excel in their specific categories. Visit the site for more information about the latest and most popular Drupal modules, and how they can lift earnings for your Web business.