Business

Mel asks:

Why would I use Drupal instead of Microsoft Expression Web to create a website?

I actually had to look to find out what Expression Web is--I hadn't heard of it before. It looks like a successor to FrontPage, something similar to DreamWeaver for creating static web sites.

So to rephrase, why should I build a site on a content management system, instead of using a tool that lets me build a site directly?

Damon Cortesi ( @dacort ) over at Untitled Startup recently wrote up a summary of recurring payment services provided for startups. It's a decent analysis of current payment services that offer a hosted recurring billing solution, if you don't have a merchant account or want to handle your own e-commerce. If you're writing a software-as-a-service platform from the ground up, and would like to outsource the payment side of things, these are good options.

Another large scale project by Freelock Computing, the Organic Materials Research Institute tested our abilities to work with a variety of sources and the Drupal system. The project brought their old public facing website built on PHP to the Drupal CMS and is still synced nightly with their internal master database built on Access.

RadioFrame Networks came to Freelock in late 2008 for a web development project aimed at bringing their existing corporate static site content into the Joomla CMS. We worked with their existing design and web marketing strategy provided by The Garrigan Lyman Group which included implementing the design, setting up the content structure, and hosting the site as well as a development version of the site.

Unfortunately, the site never went live as RadioFrame Networks became a casualty of the global recession before the website launched.

I get this question all the time: What's the difference between Drupal and Ruby on Rails, or another framework?

Quite simply, Rails is something you build an application in. Drupal is an application. So chances are you're one major step closer to building a web site that does what you want it to do, if you start with Drupal.

A web site is an essential marketing tool of a business. These days, especially in the Seattle area, people will check out your web site before doing business with you. The work you do with a graphic designer like Peter Mckinnon can have a big impact when someone decides whether you're the right fit for what they're looking to buy.

Just having a web site, however, does nothing to get customers beating down your doors. People need to find your web site somehow, amidst the millions of other web sites out there. For small, local businesses, they don't find your web site online--they find it from your business card, a sign on your car, word-of-mouth, or all the rest of the traditional ways people market their business.