Top 6 Drupal SEO Modules to Optimize your Website

Soumya Jha | Updated 28 Aug 2023 | 5 min read

You might have a highly functional and well-designed Drupal website, but without the right SEO practices, you may struggle to get noticed on Google or other search engines. By incorporating the top 6 Drupal SEO modules, you can optimize your Drupal site's SEO ranking, improve visibility, and attract more traffic. Key SEO practices, such as relevant keywords, alt tags, and clean URLs, can also help boost your Drupal SEO SERP rankings."

As per some recent searches, here are a few stats:-

68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. (BrightEdge)
0.78% of Google searchers click on results from the 2nd page. (Backlinko)
53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search. (BrightEdge)
92.96% of global traffic comes from Google search, Google Images, and Google Maps. (Sparktoro)

The good news is that if you’re using Drupal as your CMS, you’re already one step ahead in building an optimized site. That said, while Drupal Core provides many built-in SEO-friendly features, you may want to take your SEO efforts to the next level with the help of Drupal SEO modules.

SEO modules themselves won’t put your content into the #1 position on Google. However, you can undoubtedly use these tools to give your content that extra push it needs to be seen by your target audience.

Here are the top 6 Drupal SEO modules you need to boost your website rankings.

Here you go!

Top 6 Drupal SEO Modules to boost website ranking

1. CloudFlare

As it becomes increasingly popular, you may have already heard about this one, providing unprecedented spam and IP address protection, cache clearing, and overall web performance acceleration opportunities. Cloudflare will help you boost the loading speed by 30% while saving about 60% of bandwidth. https://www.drupal.org/project/cloudflar

2. Search 404

A must-have Drupal module for your Drupal website, the Search 404 module helps improve the Drupal site's SEO ranking. It makes sure old defunct URLs or typo errors do not detract visitors from getting to the content on the site relevant to their search. Instead of showing a standard "404 Page not found", this module performs a search on the keywords in the URL.

The Search 404 module helps search engines like Google find related content if the indexed page has been removed. The module also allows the site admin to customize the message shown to the user after a 404 search. https://www.drupal.org/project/search404

3. Pathauto

It is one of the most downloaded SEO modules of Drupal. The Pathauto module saves you time from manually creating the path/URL aliases. It automatically generates URL/path aliases for the contents (nodes, taxonomy, terms, users) based on configurable patterns. Let’s say we configure our blog entry as blog-entry/[node:title]. And we publish this blog post with the title “Top Drupal SEO Modules,” Pathauto will immediately manufacture an SEO-friendly URL as “blog/top-drupal-SEO-modules” instead of “node/121”. https://www.drupal.org/project/pathauto

4. Redirect

Among the best Drupal SEO modules, you also may want to consider Redirect. It is an essential module for preventing ‘dead links’ inside your website and creating short links in advertising materials. Redirect allows you to set rules such as sending users who visit ‘yoursite.com/promo1’ to ‘yoursite.com/seo-course/learn-seo-with-us.’

If you remove a page from your site or rename it, you can redirect to ensure that you don’t lose the traffic trying to find the old page. While this is great for marketing, it’s also great for keeping a high rating with search engines. Having multiple ‘bouncing’ redirects won’t help you, but having dead links to your site will count against you.

Redirects are more than just a net for catching missed opportunities. It also tracks how often people are hitting those redirects. It can help you track how popular a promotional link is or how many people are trying to access a page you have moved or renamed. https://www.drupal.org/project/redirect

5. XML Sitemap

A sitemap is a blueprint of your whole website. It is vital to have a sitemap, as it is easier for Google bots to crawl through all your pages and rank them. In a nutshell, it is crucial for good SEO.

XML Sitemap module is used for valuable insights into your Drupal website pages. It creates files on your server with links to all the pages of your Drupal website. Creating a sitemap helps search engines to crawl your website intelligently. It not only keeps the search engine results updated but also gives the necessary insight into your website’s pages.

With Simple XML Sitemap, creating a sitemap is effortless. The module automatically creates it for you. https://www.drupal.org/docs/contributed-modules/simple-xml-sitemap

6. Meta Tag

This module allows you to provide structured metadata automatically. This metadata is also known as meta tags. It gives you the power to provide additional metadata to your website. With this module, you will be able to edit the metadata fields.

These meta tags are essential for good SEO for your Drupal site, as they appear on the search results page. Users often get attracted to your website by reading the meta tag alone, which is crucial.

One of the ways to improve the rankings and display of a site in search engine results is to use metatags. Take control of your metatags (page title, description, and keywords) with the Metatag module. Users can set default meta tags for the entire site or just individual pages. So go ahead and try this out on your Drupal site. https://www.drupal.org/project/metatag

Conclusion

SEO Optimization is a game that requires planning, understanding, and a measure of patience. What you implement today will not bring about results tomorrow. It usually takes a few weeks for search engines to digest the changes you apply. However, if you are diligent in optimizing your website, keeping yourself up to date with new trends and SEO techniques, and exercising the needed patience, you will see results.

It is excellent news that Drupal has several modules that can give you a helping hand in making your Drupal website SEO-healthy. We expect it from one of the best CMS on the market. Therefore, apply all the suggestions we have given you, and you will see a positive change in your ranking on search engines.

If you need to customize your Drupal website, or if you want to take your Drupal SEO strategy to the next level, contact us. Our Drupal experts will assist you in making your website grow.