markdonnay's blog

It is important to note that your company’s Web presence increases your chances of being found by a prospect. However, it is even more imperative to realize that not having any online presence will eliminate prospects because your website is most likely the primary introduction they will have to your business. More than half of consumers do not trust a company, product or service that does not have a website. The majority of consumers begin their search for companies, products or services by looking at websites. In the HR/benefits marketplace, a company’s online visibility has quickly gained considerable significance in the minds of prospects, and that online presence is valued throughout every step of the sales process. Read more »

If you run an e-Commerce store, dynamically generated website, affiliate website or large website – or if you target very competitive or national terms – the information below isn’t going to do very much for you. You’re likely in need of a professional and custom SEO analysis if you’re in need of SEO help.

This guide is intended for independent small business owners, like a local plumber or roofer or maybe a daycare establishment. A business that will likely never be able to justify the return on investment of hiring a competent and professional SEO. And quite frankly likely doesn’t need to. Read more »

I get a lot of emails and comments about "WordPress is better than Drupal". And many people contact me attempting to accomplish the functionality or Drupal with Wordpress. Here I will shed some light on the main differences between Drupal & Wordpress. Read more »

Project: Custom CRM Web-based Application

Client: Financial Services Company

Business Case

Client had a need to more effectively manage client relations across tens of thousands of customers and several customer service agents.  The CRM system was implemented as a way to process client request faster and more accurately than the previous system. Read more »

One of the best WYSIWYG editors available for Drupal has been the FCK editor.  The FCK Editor was replaced with a new and improved editor known as the "CK Editor" in February 2010. 

CKEditor inherits the quality and strong features people were used to find in FCKeditor, in a much more modern product, added by dozens of new benefits, like accessibility and ultimate performance. Read more »

What is a Dynamic Web Application?

In the first few years of internet marketing, businesses that were making their way on to the internet to be found relied primarily on HTML websites to create their web presence.  These early versions of the site varied dramatically in look and feel, as well as functionality.  But they were pretty much static interms of their capability.  Now we are in the midst of Web 2.0 and much has changed.

The advent of open source CMS platforms such as Drupal, which is best-of-breed in the CMS world has opened the door for companies of all sizes to leverage the power of database driven applications to run their website and ultimately their online marketing presence.

Typically the resources required to implement a CMS application successfully for a small enterprise was prohibitive until recently.  First you would have to find a programmer and hire them and probably have to find and hire a designer as well.  Once you had something that worked, you would have to pay through the nose to host it as well.

Drupal has changed all that.  By leveraging the power of a large, supportive community small businesses are able to take advantage of the creativity, expertise, and problem-solving environment to be able to access dynamic web tools to help them make their businesses grow and run more efficiently.  It is now possible for businesses of any size to harness the power of Dynamic Web Applications to make their business grow.

In the future, this blog will be dedicated to the discussion and understanding of various Drupal-related processes and tools and how they can benefit businesses everywhere.