After years of working with a variety of platforms to be able to provide a good range of options to clients, I have now decided to develop all websites exclusively using the Adobe Business Catalyst platform.

Why? I hear you ask.

I came to realise that most business owners don't really care which platform their website is built on, so long as they have a reliable, cost effective, and easy to manage website.  

In business, deciding what to stop doing is as important as what to keep doing. So we are now only using the Adobe Business Catalyst platform for all new websites.

It means we can focus entirely on being an online business mentor to our clients. This has been one of the most exciting parts about making this decision. It means the our role becomes one of partnership, support and mentoring, rather than simply managing technology. The only client sites which have experienced hackings, needed upgrades and had functions 'just stop working' have been those sites not on the Adobe Business Catalyst platform. Problems like this -

"WordPress plugin creating a security issue for millions of sites". And if a problem does occur, then Adobe fix it without the need to get involved with upgrading security patches, plugins and a whole lot of other work.

Our main focus now is to help business owners utilise the web to market their business and better meet the needs their own prospect and client base.

Is that all?

No, and I'm glad you asked. While the stability of the platform is a huge advantage, there are many others.

Integration with customer database

At the core of every business is its customer base. Adobe Business Catalyst provides a built in customer relationship management system which means anytime a customer fills in a form on your site, buys a product or interacts with you in some way, this is recorded - with a range of automated follow-up and marketing options available.

Always up-to-date

The problem with many alternative platforms is that they date.  No sooner has a site been built with WordPress or Joomla than a new version, security patch or plugin is requiring attention. Or the server they are sitting on has an upgrade and things stop working.

With Adobe Business Catalyst, the platform does not date - in fact the reverse happens. It is two steps ahead all the time. While you sleep, security is maintained, fixes are made, new features and functions developed and magically appear in your Dashboard.

Truly Extensible

The platform comes with pretty much everything a small business needs - even if you are not ready to use it all yet.

Most business owners when building their first website, just want to get it up and adopt a staged approach to extra web marketing possibilities. Once built, it is easier to see the marketing opportunities your web presence creates. When using Business Catalyst we can just tap into the functions which are already there - whether it is creating specialised pages to complement print advertising or promotions, creating online events or bookings, or starting to sell things online, or using the built-in email marketing system.

Really Easy to Manage

The Dashboard makes it really easy to manage things like content on your pages, image galleries, blog posts and even your own forms on an as-needs basis. Two training sessions are generally ample to manage the day-to-day running of your site.

So its perfect then?

Its close.

With access to the extensive knowledge base and a ticketed support system, website owners can resolve any issues as they come up. Additional support is available through onlineiq or any of the many other Adobe Business Catalyst partners.

This focus allows us to provide a much better overall experience to our clients - and their clients base, as we know the system inside out.

Something else we love about it...

You may not know, but when onlineiq started using Adobe Business Catalyst 3 years ago, it was just called Business Catalyst - an Australian Company which had developed a fabulous product. So fabulous that it was then acquired by Adobe. You will really notice its Australian origins when accessing some of the tutorials and resources. Its a nice touch.

What if we want to move our existing site to Adobe Business Catalyst?

Just give us a call.  We have moved a number of older sites over to Adobe Business Catalyst recently, and have had some very happy clients. Let us know if you want to talk to them.

Or post questions or comments right here....