My first Drupal site –Tips for Non-programmers

Introduction to Drupal some must read pages in the Drupal handbook:
1. Getting Started
2. The Drupal Cookbook
3. Must watch A 10 minute Drupal Demo for a small business website

Modules
1. Do not use too many modules
2. Before using a module, check issue queue. See if the module is well supported
3. Some SEO modules:
Pathauto- to rename node/234 as a more meaningful URL
Global Redirect- to redirect node/234 to its pathauto URL, avoid 2 URLs for the same content
Meta tags- to insert meta tags and key words into our site.
Do not use the google analytics module, just insert the javascript into the page.tpl

Themes
1. Choose a good theme, well supported, again
2. Small tweaks like creating a new region in the theme are simple-
just insert region in the phpengine and print the same in a div in your theme
Refer drupal handbook page on Regions in PHPTemplate
3. Remember that you can always insert content at the top and bottom of the content region using blocks, you do not have to create new regions to do the same.

Blocks
You could quickly insert a code in a block to change or fix CSS on a page. This just shows how the content we insert in a block can damage the entire layout of the site. It is always advisable to test the content of a bock in a page before adding them to the main content.

Views
Use header and footer to display links or other information that go along with the view. e.g, a View of recent posts could have a link at the footer to create a new post!

Support – some must dos:
1. Subscribe for mails from drupal support at http://drupal.org/mailing-lists and post support requests to support@drupal.org
2. Use the Forums @ www.drupal.org
3. Use IRC channel for online chat support
4. Use the issue queue of modules for module specific support

Miscellaneous sharings
1. Use Captcha on a live site, until you are confident with your Security for all comments and forms available to a visitor.
2. Never use admin, password as the admin user name and password on a live site.
3. While in production do not allow the google bot to crawl you site, update the robot.txt file in the root directory of your drupal installation to disallow bots.
4. Always test any change in a staging server before updating a live site.