Although Drupal might look hard to learn, it is not. You can easily learn the basics even if you're not a designer or developer.
First time install
If you are installing Drupal 7 you'll notice that it's a one click install. No need to create a database. All is set-up for you with the install of Drupal.
If you want to install Drupal 6, however, you'll have to create own database.
Every Drupal site has an administrative area which is customizable and you can create a multi-select professional contact form.
Web templates change the look and feel of your new site. Templates in Drupal are called-Themes. You can use ready theme and eventually customize it by changing its CSS and HTML, or you can code separate Photoshop design into a template. The latter requires you to slice all images prior to coding. And there are some milestones you need to know when creating a Drupal template.
In order to create a searchable Drupal site you need to set your URL to Clean URL, which is very easy to enable by going to Administer / Site configuration and enable the clean URL option.
How to set-up a blog in Drupal?
Setting up a blog in Drupal is pretty easy. First of all, you should enable the blog module from Administer / Modules. Check to enable the following modules:
- Menu
- Node
- Path, Path Auto, Token
- Page
- Statistics
- Story
- Taxonomy
Make sure that clean URLs feature is enabled by going to "Administer | Site configuration | Clean URLs".
Configure Site Information
Go to "Administer Site configuration Site information"and write the proper name and slogan for your blog.
Edit the default E-mail address. This is important because this is the address from which all system messages would be sent.
Now it is time to navigate to Administer themes. Choose your desired theme and select the configure tab.
You can start blogging by writing a page or a story. For static pages like "About us" you'd better use the Page Type. Story, on the other hand, is perfect for simple article. It has a title, a teaser and a body, They may be used as a personal blog or for news articles.
Once you are done, you can go to your home page. Your custom content should have already replaced the default Drupal front page.
Since Drupal is powerful and very flexible CMS, you can expand your blog at any time. You can add custom profile pages, forum, allow users to publish custom stuff, share links and information, add video module and embed video and many more. It's pretty amazing how many things you can do and upgrade your blog to a multi-functional website.