New Drupal Web Site for the Steel Framing Industry Association

Today, we launched a new CMS-based¹ web site for the Steel Framing Industry Association.

The site features RSS news feeds for the entire site, as well as for the press releases only.  Additionally, it has several members-only areas, accessible only to those who have registered on the site.  (Currently, registration is invitation-only.)

This web site represents what can be done on a small scale for a reasonable budget.  At the same time, it highlights the Drupal's flexibility.  We were able to create a basic web site that is easy to maintain, and yet still provide the client with a tiered administration system (multiple site editors and registrars).

One of the challenges of developing a CMS-based web site is to give the site editors a solid WYSIWYG² editor, while still maintaining design integrity and search engine optimization.  This is where Drupal really shines.  With such an extensible platform, we can customize the administrative interface to take into account site editors with varying degrees of experience maintaining a web site.

Additionally, we can build each site to conform to web standards for search engine optimization.  While Google and other search engines rely first and foremost on content, it is the job of the web developer to ensure that the site presents that content in the manner that Google expects to see it.

¹ CMS = content management system.
² WYSIWYG = what-you-see-is-what-you-get.  Similar to working in a word processor.