There are two choices when it comes to building a website: an open source platform like Drupal or WordPress, or a proprietary platform overseen by a company like Adobe or Microsoft. How to know which is best for your website?
Things to consider:
For organizations with limited budgets, the choice is either an open source site or something less flexible like Wix or Squarespace – the cost attached to a proprietary platform might be out of reach. However, for a large enterprise organization, both approaches have their pros and cons that are worth addressing.
Proprietary platforms like Sitecore, Microsoft SharePoint, or Adobe Experience Manager are attractive to many large organizations for several reasons. In addition to promising great platforms customized to the client’s business needs, proprietary arrangements typically offer full hosting plans. The company behind the CMS handles all updates, upgrades, security issues, and bugs – often 24/7.
While proprietary comes with some sticker shock, there is a sense of justification behind it: at least you get what you pay for.
It’s worth noting, though, that many of the world’s biggest corporate brands use Drupal as their CMS of choice. These include General Electric, Tesla, IBM, Twitter, Paramount Global and United Airlines. The Government of Australia operates on Drupal, as does the Government of Ontario, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), several US state governments and countless other government agencies around the world.
So, why do organizations that have large budgets for web development opt for an open source platform, despite the advantages touted by proprietary providers?
The answers are numerous, ranging from a need for financial accountability to the supportive nature of the Drupal community. These factors more than make up for any potential shortcomings of the open source model.
Let’s run through some popular myths around proprietary and open source platforms that continue to influence decision making.
One of the main selling points of proprietary platforms is that its vendors promise 24/7 client support should anything go wrong with the site, or if you need anything customized. This 24/7 support comes at a cost. For institutions concerned about sudden emergencies, this is obviously an appealing offering that for many justifies the price tag.
What proprietary vendors won’t tell you, however, is that open source platforms like Drupal provide much of the same service (typically in tandem with an agency and an infrastructure partner like Acquia or Pantheon) at no cost through their networks of volunteers and sponsored contributors.
Drupal, for example, is supported by a global community of hundreds of thousands of contributors who work collaboratively to address technical issues and improve the platform.
In the Drupal world, when you find a bug and create a report within the community, the response–while not necessarily instantaneous–is typically fast. While mission-critical sites like government platforms will need to pay somebody to be available for 24/7 support, this broader community support is of enormous benefit to all Drupal users.
Proprietary platforms do have counterparts to this type of community, but they’re oftentimes much smaller. Sitecore, for example, advertises that it has a community of 20,000 developers – a drop in the bucket compared to the scope of the Drupal developer community.
This is a stubborn myth - understandably. Open source code, by its nature, is publicly available to anyone, including individuals with malicious intent. In contrast, proprietary platforms keep their codebases under lock and key. The for-profit nature of proprietary vendors, we’re told, gives them a greater (financial) incentive to track down and neutralize bad actors.
The unpopular truth is that proprietary platforms are every bit as vulnerable to attacks as their open source counterparts – if not more so.
For one thing, most security breaches don’t come from hackers scouring source code for weak spots, but from avoidable human lapses such as failures to follow security guidelines, improper software setup, use of easy passwords, lack of data validation processes or absence of data encryption techniques. These lapses are no less likely to occur on a proprietary platform than they are on an open source one.
Paradoxically, the open source nature of platforms like Drupal is actually more of a help than a liability when it comes to cybersecurity. Open source code means that anyone with the know-how can search for and identify vulnerabilities. And with an army of over a million developers contributing behind the scenes, Drupal can rightly claim to be one of the most secure platforms on the planet. Proprietary vendors, by contrast, are limited in this capacity by their cybersecurity staffing numbers.
It’s widely believed that when you opt for a less expensive product–in this case, an open source website–you’re either settling for a “less-good” quality product or setting yourself up for additional costs down the road in the form of upgrades and modifications. Proprietary websites, we’re told, may cost more at the outset, but at least you know you’re getting something of real quality and the costs are predictable.
In truth, there is no difference in quality between open source and proprietary websites. It all depends on the quality of workmanship that goes into building the sites.
And while any website project is vulnerable to budget overruns, proprietary platforms are actually more prone to them than open source ones.
When you opt for a proprietary platform, you automatically commit to paying for a licence. This may be a one-time cost or a recurring subscription fee. In many cases, proprietary providers charge on a “per-seat” basis, meaning that the larger your team gets, the more expensive maintaining your website becomes. An open source site, by contrast, costs nothing beyond what you spend on design, and is in fact much more predictable from a cost standpoint.
This is of particular importance to governments, whose website development and renewal costs are publicly available and subject to intense media scrutiny. The Government of Canada faced negative press after it hired Adobe to restructure a vast swath of federal websites under the Canada.ca URL. A project originally valued at $1.54 million in 2015 had by the following year ballooned to $9.2 million. While details were scant, some of this budget overrun was attributed to costs due to additional staffing requirements. Cue impending doom music.
Websites built on open source platforms like Drupal aren’t cheap to develop, but the costs are almost always more predictable. And when it’s the taxpayers who are footing the bill, this is a major advantage.
If you’re a large government organization with complex web needs, chances are you’ll be looking to hire in-house developers. From this standpoint, it makes much more sense to opt for an open source web platform in terms of available talent. The magnitude of the Drupal community relative to, say, Sitecore, means that your LinkedIn search is far more likely to turn up Drupal specialists in your area than Sitecore experts.
Similar disparities exist when it comes to providing your staff with training. Drupal training is widely available and affordable. Hint: we offer customized training. Becoming a licensed developer for something like Adobe Experience Manager, by contrast, is a much more complex and expensive undertaking.
We’ve touted Drupal extensively throughout this post, as Evolving web is the home of many Drupal trainers, developers and experts. However, it’s far from the only open source CMS option out there. WordPress remains the world’s most popular CMS platform, being used by some 43% of the world’s websites.
Drupal does, however, stand out from the pack in a number of important ways. The Drupal platform simply has more features and is a lot more supportive of customization than most of its open source competitors. This is perhaps less of a big deal if you’re a small business or organization with a narrow area of focus, but government websites are generally complex, high-traffic undertakings responsible for disseminating a wide range of content to a diverse array of audiences.
Evolving Web recently redesigned the official website for the City of Hamilton. As the main online hub for Canada’s ninth largest municipal area, serving some 800,000 people, the City of Hamilton website caters to a wide range of audiences, from residents and local business people to tourists and foreign investors. Its services run the gamut, enabling residents to plan public transit use, pay property taxes, find employment, apply for a marriage licence and get information on recreational activities, among many other options.
The City of Hamilton site exemplifies many of Drupal’s strengths. Like many government websites, it encompasses vast swaths of data and resources and is subject to considerable surges in traffic, both of which Drupal is well equipped to handle. The site revamp also involved corralling various third-party services (including the recreation sign-up and council meeting scheduler) and a half-dozen websites that existed outside of Drupal, which required creative solutions of the sort that the Drupal community excels as developing.
A further advantage of Drupal for government websites is that its publishing platform, along with all of its other features and services, is designed to be fully accessible in accordance with WCAG standards. Drupal’s default settings ensure accurate interpretation of text by screen readers, provide accessible colour contrast and intensity recommendations, generate pictures and forms that are accessible and incorporate skip navigation in its core themes.
All this attests to the strengths of the open source model–and of Drupal in particular–underpinned as it is by an army of over a million contributors. Thanks to this, the platform is in a constant state of improvement and innovation, of which every single Drupal user is a beneficiary.
At Evolving Web, we specialize in helping organizations harness their online presence with open source platforms like Drupal and WordPress. Let’s keep in touch!
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Matt Kleve gets three front-end developers together who have been working hard on Drupal core and are excited about the great things newly released in Drupal 10.
Join us TOMORROW, Thursday, February 16 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)
No pre-defined topics on the agenda this month, so join us for an informal chat about anything at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits. Got something specific on your mind? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google doc: https://nten.org/drupal/notes!
All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.
This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone.
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At DXPR, we're committed to empowering everyone to create beautiful, responsive websites without needing any technical knowledge or experience. That's why we're excited to announce the launch of our new Growth subscription tier for DXPR Builder, the no-code page builder for Drupal that makes website creation easy and accessible for all.
Our new Growth subscription tier offers all the features of our Standard subscription tier, but at a lower price point starting at $8 per month. The only difference is that users are limited to creating 30 content items (pages) with our drag-and-drop builder. This makes it an ideal choice for small businesses and individuals who create smaller websites.
Drupal is an open-source platform that empowers organizations to build powerful, scalable websites. However, one of the main barriers to entry for Drupal has always been the perception that it requires technical expertise to use. With DXPR Builder, we aim to democratize website content creation and make Drupal accessible to non-technical users.
Our new Growth subscription tier aligns with this mission, and we believe that it will help make Drupal and DXPR more competitive with other platforms like WordPress, which has similarly priced page builders like Elementor. We are confident that our no-code page builder is one of the best available, and we want to make it accessible to as many people as possible.
By making it easier for non-technical users to create beautiful, responsive websites with Drupal, we hope to contribute to the growth and success of the Drupal community. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to create a professional website that reflects their brand and values and that the open web is stronger when there are more voices and perspectives represented online.
We offer a free tier that limits editing to 10 content items per website and does not include commercial customer support. For those who need more, our paid plans come with commercial customer support to help you get the most out of our products. Whether you're a small business, a freelancer, or an individual, DXPR Builder can help you create professional, responsive web pages quickly and easily.
By creating a no-code page builder for Drupal, we hope to contribute to the growth and success of the Drupal community and to help make the open web a more diverse and inclusive place. We invite you to join us in this mission and to help us build a web that is accessible, responsive, and open to all.
If you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to reach out to us!
With almost 2 billion websites on the Internet today, it’s no longer enough to have an appealing design and great content. You need to do everything you can to make customers’ experiences on your website more relevant, impressions more positive, and conversions more likely. This is not easily achievable because there is no “average user” — your website’s users are diverse in every way (and that’s great!). Luckily, there is a website strategy that can work wonders for you, and that is called web content personalization. Read on to discover more about creating digital experiences with a personal touch.
The key idea behind content personalization is that a website’s message needs to be tailored to match the needs, interests, backgrounds, activities, and motivations of individual users. In other words, your website should display the content that is most useful to a given user at a given moment so they are most likely to be interested in your offer and make a positive decision about it.
Implementing a successful content personalization strategy is like telling each customer “Hi, we know what you need, so we are happy to offer it to you!”. Imagine walking into your favorite bakery where the salesperson is meeting you with your favorite blueberry muffins before you even asked. They are also informing you about their latest offering — chocolate strawberries because they know you like everything chocolate. Finally, they are inviting you to drop by next week so they can give you a little tasty birthday gift.
Similar personalized experiences can be provided on a website with the help of tailored product recommendations, exclusive offers, special CTAs for different visitors, and so on. Personalization enables marketers to craft their message to make it look like it has been personally created for a given visitor. Instead of being overwhelmed with irrelevant options, your visitors see exactly what they expect to see at the moment.
Content personalization is so common that users expect it from websites. A study by Epsilon shows that 80% of customers are more likely to purchase from companies that use content personalization. According to Forrester, 89% of digital businesses invest in personalization, including famous brands like Sephora, Netflix, and USAA.
To display the content that best resonates with each user’s expectations, you can rely on various user data signals. Ways to collect these data signals include using various online forms (for registration, subscription, feedback, surveys, quizzes, etc.), wishlists on the website, marketing analytics tools, CRMs, specialized personalization platforms, customer support tickets, website cookies, browser fingerprinting, and more — of course, with respect to all privacy regulations.
The hair product manufacturer Aveda collects customer data via a hair quiz to provide personalized product recommendations.
Any user data might be useful for content personalization, but let’s review some examples of the most commonly used types of data:
Based on all these types of data, you can split your overall audience into smaller segments or groups that have some characteristics in common, and then show personalized content versions to each of the groups. You can take a step further and create user personas — archetypical users that represent the needs and characteristics of a subgroup of your target audience.
To create a message that resonates with visitors on an individual level, it’s possible to personalize a wide array of website elements. You can show dynamically generated variations of permanent website content sections, as well as tailored pop-ups, navigation, and more. All website elements can have different versions of text and visuals, and even the order of the content items is important for personalization. Let’s review some examples of website elements that are often personalized.
A hero section, or a large banner placed prominently at the top of your website, can serve multiple purposes such as greeting your customers, describing a specific service or promotion, informing them of news, etc. It may include a heading, a subheading, a few brief sentences of text, a large eye-catching image, and an enticing call-to-action button leading to specific subpages.
By dynamically displaying personalized hero sections to different visitors, you can cater to their different interests. Imagine, for example, a visitor who is accessing a fashion store from one of its target countries where the current season is summer. They can be shown a hero section with a promotion of trendy sunglasses shipped worldwide. Or, as shown in the image below, the hero section can target people of a specific profession from a specific geographical location.
A personalized hero section that targets drivers in Berlin.
Increase the user’s engagement by matching the recommended blog posts, videos, products, or services to their preferences. The recommendations can be based on a wide range of data such as the content the user has previously viewed, the industry they work in, and so on.
Engaging content might keep the visitor on the website for a longer time so that they continue to read or view something more. In the image below, recommended services are displayed based on the results of the hair quiz by Aveda that we mentioned earlier in this blog post.
Recommended services based on the user’s answer to the hair quiz.
Pop-ups on your website can be more engaging and convincing to specific users when personalized. For example, you could display a pop-up offering a discount for new visitors only if they subscribe to your newsletter. Or, if there is an upcoming event in the current visitor’s location, it would be great to inform them about it. Another example is to nudge a user with a discount coupon towards a product or service in a specific category that they have been exploring.
A personalized pop-up offering a discount in a specific category.
By reordering the items in the navigation menus, you give priority to the categories that your visitors are most interested in. This should help them quickly find what they are looking for instead of getting distracted by too many options.
For example, if a prospective student has been browsing engineering programs during their last visit to a university website, the navigation menu can show them engineering programs at the top during their subsequent visits.
When looking for social proof, what users will appreciate the most is information provided by other customers who have already used the same product, service, or technology, or with whom they share some common characteristics (such as industry, occupation, location, age, country, and so on).
You can shape your social proof section accordingly. For example, if one of your company’s target subgroups includes finance specialists, it makes sense to display the feedback from customers with this job title first.
Personalized social proof displaying the feedback from finance specialists first.
By unlocking the potential of content personalization, you have a chance to create compelling digital experiences and skyrocket your conversion rate. You can always contact the ImageX team which includes specialists in digital strategy and planning, as well as web development.
We will be happy to help you understand your audience, create a content personalization strategy, and successfully implement it on your website.
/sites/default/files/styles/original/public/2023-02/girl-with-red-hat-gL3-jTs_Q7g-unsplash%20%281%29.jpg.webp?itok=2V9Zm20_ Feature as an event Off Service Category Strategy Content Strategy Storytelling Digital Marketing SEO IsGated 0 IsDownloadable 0The main focus for this month's Melbourne Drupal Meetup was a presentation by Suchi Garg and Phillipa Martin . Phillipa started the presentation by looking at the context behind a recent Rules as Code (RaC) proof of concept. She then moved onto the process of codifying Australia’s COVID vaccination rules. Suchi then took a deep dive into how the Drupal OpenFisca module works with a Drupal webform. She also talked about how the webform sends API calls to OpenFisca, and how based on the responses, the user is redirected to different pages and results are generated and displayed.