11 essential modules for building a personal blog with Drupal

Zyxware Technologies | Updated 28 Jun 2016 | 4 min read

A majority of the websites on the web are personal blogs and they are a very popular use for a CMS. Drupal provides most of the functionality required by a personal blog out of the box. However Drupal is not just a blogging tool, it is a full fledged Content and Workflow Management System which means that you can prepare for success once you blog takes off in a big way. Having the 10 essential modules for building a personal blog with Drupal will ensure that it takes less effort to have a successful Drupal blog. If you want to build your personal blog using Drupal, do get in touch with us. We also provide Wordpress to Drupal Migration services so that you can provide migrate your existing Wordpress blog to Drupal.

Content creation and management modules

These following modules help make content generation and management a bit easier in your Drupal blog.

CKEditor

Drupal CKEditor provides the functionality of a full fledged desktop Word processor to the text area of a Drupal website enabling faster creation of content. It is also possible to improve the functionality of CKEditor via plugins. CKEditor also integrates well with external File Browsers like IMCE. If you have to frequently update your blog with your content, then CKEditor is an indispensable tool for you.
Download Drupal CK Editor Module

IMCE

IMCE works along with the CKEditor module to provide support for adding images to your content. It is a must have Drupal module which provides an image/file uploader and provides support for personal directories and quota. It provides FTP like site navigation and supports basic file operations with the ability to insert images into a text area and integrates well with the CKEditor.
Download Drupal IMCE Module

SEO modules

Even if your blog is personal it cannot ignore good SEO if you intend your site to have visitors. Besides a personal blog is a good place to get acquainted with SEO if you intend to do even bigger things in future.

Pathauto

Pathauto is an indispensable module from an SEO perspective. It automatically generates URL aliases for different types of content without manual intervention. Pathauto does this using a pattern system that utilizes the token module. Pathauto also gives the admin options to change the pattern system so as to customize the url.
Download Drupal Pathauto Module

Global Redirect

Global Redirect is another SEO focused module. It ensures that you have no duplicate content on your website. Suppose you have many different urls pointing to the same page, you have a scenario where Search Engines consider your website to have duplicate content. Global Redirect ensures that all the different url versions are redirected to the correct url before being retrieved.
Download Drupal Global Redirect Module

XML Sitemap

Yet Another essential Drupal module from an SEO perspective, this module creates a standard XML sitemap which helps Search Engine crawlers to crawl your Drupal blog more efficiently for better indexing and rankings in popular Search Engines.
Download Drupal XML Sitemap Module

Search404

Search404 kicks into action whenever there is a chance of a user getting a 404 error page in the website. Instead of being shown a standard 404 error page, Search404 checks the keywords present in the url and generates a search listing page based on these keywords. This is good for SEO karma as the module makes sure that users always something meaningful in your site and users get a chance to find something related to what they were looking for automatically.
Download Drupal Search404 Module

Social media sharing modules

Using Social media websites is part and parcel of all blogs and help in driving most of the traffic to some of the most popular blogs out there in the web. The following 4 modules are some of the most popular Drupal modules in the light of social sharing.

Facebook Like Button

Facebook is the mother of all social media websites. So if you need to have any kind of social media traffic to your blog this is one essential Drupal module you cannot ignore. This module enables you to add a FB like button to selected content types, to be shared by visitors on Facebook and also enables you to configure the settings of the button.
Download Drupal Facebook Like Button Module

Google Plus One +1

Google's new social media portal is the new kid on the block and should not be ignored. Just like the Facebook button this module provides a configurable button to share content on your Drupal blog with Google plus.
Download Drupal Google Plus One +1 Module

Tweetbutton

The Tweet button module provides a configurable tweetbutton to be displayed on selected content types in your Drupal blog.
Download Drupal Tweet Button Module

Sharebar

You can have all the popular social media buttons on a floating submission bar on your blog with the Sharebar module. This bar can is highly configurable with options for disabling and enabling social media buttons of your choice, selecting the position of your bar, options for ordering the buttons and option for choosing which all content types the bar should appear.
Download Drupal Sharebar Module