Drupal SEO Guide: How to Optimise Your Drupal Site for SEO

Drupal is a popular CMS for Australian government websites and businesses and with good reason. With the increased need to handle sensitive data and meet strict security standards, Drupal protects data and maintains user trust. It helps safeguard your organisation and users against cyberattacks, data breaches, and unauthorised access.

Based on data from 2022, Drupal has a strong foothold when it comes to government websites and businesses in Australia. And with the introduction of Drupal Starshot, a no-code Drupal solution, the Drupal footprint will only expand in 2025.

Reference: Drupal and the Open Web in the Australian Government – 2022 edition. Pixelite.

In Australia, out of all sites with the .gov.au domain, 27.7% use Drupal, which is the highest of all known CMS.

Reference: Drupal and the Open Web in the Australian Government – 2022 edition. Pixelite.

In Australia, out of all federal sites, 46.2% use Drupal, which is the highest of all known CMS. 

While Drupal provides fantastic security and scalability for companies, does that come at a compromise for SEO? Not traditionally positioned as an “SEO CMS”, we often hear the question: “Do Drupal and SEO Work Together?”

The answer? Yes! This article offers actionable advice to help Australian businesses optimise their Drupal sites for SEO. From improving site speed and mobile performance to leveraging multilingual features and structured data, it provides tailored strategies to boost organic rankings and improve user experience. Learn from the experts at Pixelstorm, an Australian Drupal agency. 

What is SEO and Why is it Important?

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of improving your website’s visibility on search engines, through improving rankings and obtaining traffic to your website for not only your brand, but for the services you offer too. 

Simply put, SEO is important for businesses because it ensures your potential customers can find you online across different search engines which leads to more targeted, non-paid traffic to a website.  

Implementing the foundations of best practice SEO directly improves your website content and structure, which can support your paid ads efforts too. Effective SEO can be the difference between being found or being overlooked online.

“The foundation of SEO is not specific to a CMS. For example, a well thought out strategic Information Architecture will set the right foundation, a key in SEO. This, alongside a keyword strategy and SEO plan, will allow your development team to add required modules to meet your SEO objectives. Drupal provides great technical solutions that, alongside a good SEO strategy, can allow a brand to rank online.”

Paula Glynn

• LinkedIn

Pixelstorm

Drupal Capabilities and Features for SEO

Drupal is a powerful CMS with SEO-friendly features built into it.  When paired with SEO Modules, it’s a powerful combination.

What makes Drupal SEO Friendly?

• Clean, customisable URLs
• Mobile responsiveness that delivers excellent user experiences on all devices
• Built-in caching for performance
• Compliance with accessibility standards
• XML Sitemaps
• Multilingual Capabilities

While Drupal is SEO Friendly, you can use SEO modules to further enhance the site’s SEO standards.  Drupal provides essential modules for SEO that can be selected based on your needs.  However we would recommend this as a “base list” for implementation. 

Setting the Foundation: Drupal SEO Modules 

Here are some Drupal SEO modules and their purpose.

Module	Purpose	Benefits to SEO
Pathauto	Automatically generates URL/path aliases for content, users and taxonomy terms without requiring the user to manually specify the path alias	Saves time by automating URL generation Once set up, can provide fully customisable patterns Improves readability and SEO by eliminating query strings
Metatag	Adds metadata (meta descriptions, canonical URL and title tags) to pages	Helps improve the rankings and display of a site in search engine results Supports Open Graph and Twitter Cards for social tags and sharing
Redirect	Provides the ability to create manual redirects and maintain canonical URLs for all content	Prevents 404 errors and broken links Helps retain link equity with proper redirects Supports bulk importing redirects
Simple XML Sitemap	Generates an XML sitemap to help search engines index your site efficiently	Easy to configure and publish custom sitemaps Contributed entity types like e-commerce products can be indexed as well Diverse inclusion settings can be set for bundles and overridden on an entity basis Regularly updates sitemaps for new content
SEO Checklist	Uses a list of SEO best practices and checks your Drupal site for it	Can be used as a guide by beginners and experts Integrates with other modules for better organisation
Real-Time SEO for Drupal	Helps you analyse and optimise content for SEO	Provides instant feedback while editing content Helps optimise keywords, readability, and meta tags Easy for non-technical users
Token	Provides placeholders for dynamic data insertion, useful for automating titles, meta descriptions, and URL generation	Streamlines workflow with dynamic data Reduces repetitive tasks Fully integrates with other modules like Pathauto and Metatag
Hreflang	Automatically adds tags to pages to serve the correct language or regional URL in search results	Improves SEO for multilingual and multi-regional sites Prevents duplicate content issues Supports advanced configurations

Third-Party SEO Integrations 

Apart from Drupal modules, there are some third-party integrations that can support your SEO efforts:

Tool	Purpose	Benefits to SEO
Google Analytics	Tracks website traffic, user behaviour, and key metrics to analyse site performance and visitor engagement	Provides detailed reports on traffic sources, user behaviour, and conversions Integrates with other Google tools
Google Search Console	Helps monitor website performance in Google search and track indexing	Provides insights into keywords, and ranking performance metrics Helps detect issues like crawl errors
AHREFS	Comprehensive SEO tool for backlink analysis, keyword research, content optimisation, and competitive analysis	Excellent for backlink audits and competitor research Provides content gap analysis
SEMRUSH	Digital marketing suite for keyword research, SEO audits, PPC analysis, and social media management	Comprehensive tool with SEO, PPC, and content marketing insights Keyword tracking and competitor analysis Focuses on global markets
Screaming Frog	SEO crawler that scans websites for technical issues, broken links, duplicate content, and more	Excellent for auditing large websites Identifies issues like broken links, duplicate content, and metadata gaps Customisable crawl settings

Accessibility and User Experience in SEO 

Accessibility and user experience (UX) are critical components of SEO. Search engines prioritise websites that offer a seamless experience for all users, including those with disabilities. Websites with accessible and user-friendly features perform better in search results and help your brand reach a bigger audience. These features encourage visitors to interact more, reducing bounce rates and boosting conversions.

Drupal excels in accessibility right out of the box, making it easier for developers to create inclusive websites. Drupal adheres to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards. Drupal’s use of ARIA roles and semantic HTML enhances screen reader compatibility, while its responsive design ensures a consistent UX across all devices. By combining Drupal’s accessibility features with a strategic focus on UX, you can create a website that ranks higher and delivers a meaningful experience for all users. An advantage of Drupal SEO modules is that they are built with multilingual support in mind, giving people a smooth UX across global sites.

To further improve UX, make sure you:

• Focus on simplified navigation and clear calls-to-action (CTAs) to guide users effectively.
• Have a good site speed. Fast-loading pages are essential, as delays can frustrate users and increase bounce rates.
• Prioritise a mobile-first approach when designing content.

Optimising Your On-Page Experience for SEO

On-page SEO means optimising individual web pages and ensuring your website experience is consistent. Use the checklist below to ensure you’ve covered your bases with on-page SEO for Drupal:

• Review content structure.
  • Proper content structure helps both users and search engines understand your content.
  • Optimise headings and use the right heading tags (H1-H6).
• Review your content strategy.
  • Drupal has powerful content management capabilities. Use this to your advantage to create authoritative, original content that addresses users’ needs. 
  • Use Drupal’s taxonomies to organise and structure your content. 
  • Write SEO-friendly content with short and long-tail keywords.
  • Use Drupal modules like Real Time SEO for Drupal to optimise content.
• Optimise key on-page elements.
  • On-page elements include title tags, meta descriptions, URL structures and image alt text. 
  • Install the Metatag module to add metadata to pages.
  • Structure URLs for readability. Use Pathauto on Drupal websites to create URL structures. 
  • Add alt text for images. This will help add an essential accessibility element to your website. 
• Natural internal linking.
  • A healthy linking structure — followed consistently throughout the content, page layout and menu — guides search engines and users through your site and distributes page authority.
  • Create a logical site structure using Drupal’s menu system.
  • Add contextual links within your content.

Technical SEO for Drupal Websites

Technical SEO means optimising your website’s technical aspects to enhance SEO and UX performance. This includes fine-tuning your backend and frontend elements to improve how your website is crawled and indexed. 

Technical SEO for Drupal includes:

Improving site speed 

• Caching – Drupal’s native caching mechanisms should be implemented. Drupal has built-in mechanisms like Internal Page Cache, Dynamic Page Cache, Views Caching and Block Caching. You can also use the Advanced Internal Page Cache Module.
• Add a CDN integration for better content delivery across global locations. 

Use Fastly for a CDN solution – The Fastly effect on SEO performance relates back to reduced bounce rate. When users can see the pages load instantly, they are more inclined to keep looking through the pages to find what they want.

“From a developer perspective, Fastly doesn’t interfere with the development sites at all as we use separate environments for dev and production. Fastly is switched on in production only so it’s not an issue for developers. Fastly provides a CLI so developers can easily clear it when they need to.”

Daniel Florido

• LinkedIn

Pixelstorm

Page speed optimisation 

• Page speed directly impacts user experience and bounce rates. 
• Enable GZIP compression to compress and optimise assets. 
• Use responsive images on Drupal for mobile devices. 

Configuring robots.txt and crawl settings for search engines

• Use the Simple XML Sitemap module to implement a sitemap so that your website is easier to crawl. 
• Edit your robots.txt file or use the Robotstxt module.
• Use Drupal’s structured data for content and assets and use schema markup.

Multilingual SEO with Drupal

If your organisation operates in different countries, expanding your reach to international audiences requires that your website has multilingual capabilities. Drupal excels in this area. With core content translation modules like the Translation Management Tool, Drupal allows for the seamless translation of content. This configuration allows websites to effectively target multiple regions. 

Multilingual vs Multiregional SEO

Depending on your organisation, you may need either multilingual or multiregional SEO, or a combination of both. 

Multilingual SEO focuses on optimising your website to rank for search in different languages. On the other hand, multiregional SEO adapts your site to different geographic regions. It involves tailoring content to regional preferences, even if the language remains the same. 

Implementing these strategies allows businesses to:

• Improve user experience by providing content in users’ native languages and regional contexts.
• Improve search ranking as search engines favour sites that deliver localised content.
• Expand market reach by opening up your website to new regions and users.

Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid 

Here are some common SEO mistakes and pitfalls to watch for and how to address them:

Drupal SEO Checklist 

To ensure you’re meeting the standards for SEO best practices on Drupal, use this checklist:

Download the Drupal SEO Checklist here

How can Pixelstorm Help with Drupal SEO 

Pixelstorm is a Drupal agency, offering custom strategies for SEO success. With a dedicated and experienced team, we can review your Drupal site and identify areas for improvement in organic marketing.

Our Drupal SEO services include:

• SEO Setup in Development: We configure SEO-friendly settings during website development to set you up for success.
• SEO Audits: Comprehensive site audits to find opportunities to boost rankings and performance.
• Ongoing SEO Services: Regular updates, monitoring, and implementations that align organic marketing strategies with your organisational goals.

Conclusion 

Optimising your Drupal site for SEO requires a strategic approach. Along with a foundation of Drupal’s built-in features, you need a comprehensive SEO strategy that focuses on user experience and journey. Transform your online presence and reach with Pixelstorm’s Drupal development and SEO services. Get in touch or give us a call at (03) 9448 2348.