Essential Drupal Modules for New Sites

Everyone hates having to dig through Drupal's module pages every time they want to start a new Drupal site. This post gives you all the essentials in one place. This can also help users that are new to Drupal to get an idea of what to upload to get going.

To upload Drupal modules you need to do the following:

• Read about the module on Drupal if you're new to it and browse through the different versions of the releases to see witch one is right for you. Use modules with file names that include "dev" "alpha" or "beta" cautiously. They may not be stable.
• Download the module from Drupal
• Upload it to your modules folder
• Extract the files
• If you're new the module read the "read me" file in the module
• Go into your Admin -> Module section and enable the module by checking it

Essential Drupal Modules

The following modules are for Drupal 6. I used to list modules for Drupal 5, but at this point people should either be user Drupal 6 or working on upgrading.

• Views
• CCK - Content Construction Kit
• ImageCache
• Image API
• File Field
• Insert Views
• Link Field for CCK
• Token
• Poor Man's Cron
• Add To Any

Here some others that are good for social sites:

• Content Profile
• Me Module
• Facebook Connect

To find modules that work well for SEO see my post on Drupal's search marketing artillery.