Adobe Business Catalyst (CMS)

[HoverportMedia]

I've been doing some research on Content Management Systems and for the most part, I was using Wordpress. From the vague experience and responses to professional web development, seo and implementation of CMS, Wordpress doesn't seem to be top choice.

I've actually been investigating Adobe Business Catalyst, which seems to be a top contender for CMS. I actually would like to hear what people's thoughts were on Business Catalyst, before we go dumping money into it. I was also investigating Drupal and Joomla, which seem to be good bets as well.

Your thoughts?

[LastMitch]

I've actually been investigating Adobe Business Catalyst, which seems to be a top contender for CMS.

@HoverportMedia

Can you shares your thoughts on Adobe Business Catalyst? Since you post this question. I am curious.

[HoverportMedia]

To be honest, I've never used Business Catalyst. However, I'm a bit keen to it because it is created by (in my opinion) the leader of the media industry today - Adobe, so in that light there's something to be said. From what I've seen so far with Catalyst, is that it has quite a bit of functionality, but it does come at a price. Let's compare it to other Content Management Systems, for example Wordpress. With Business Catalyst, your able to easily update your webpage and grow your store and essentially your business with a few easy clicks. With Wordpress, it will take time to modify your website to the way you want to. Even though this is debatable and from my point of view, it seems that Business Catalyst will save you money in the long run. A good quote from a review from SproutCreatives says:

A Wordpress website is a proven depreciating asset where as a Business Catalyst website will increase in value as time passes.

Now I'd like to hear your thoughts on this :)

[PixelatedKarma]

We have not done alot with Adobe Business Catalyst as a Company and we don't generally recommend it to our Clients not because it isn't a good product but because it lacks versatility. Now it isn't all that bad because for someone who just wants to easily launch their Company website and call it a day; its more then sufficient and the $17/mo entry fee is pretty cheap compared to what some more high end CMS can run for even the initial price tag.

However if you are looking for long term scalability then something like drupal is generally the direction we prefer to suggest or even creating our own CMS from scratch depending on the needs of the business and what they are all about. But every business is different; so your question may actually require a bit more homework then what I've just told you.

If I were you I would first go back and take a serious look at your business plan, the direction your Company is headed, and also the direction your Company wants to go. If its a simple CMS then 100% adobe catalyst and even your previous route of wordpress should be more then sufficent for you. However if you are going to require major functionality additions in 1-5 years; you might be best to stick with wordpress or to switch over to drupal because to find developers that will be able to create those addons for you will be alot less costly on more popular CMS platforms. Even if you decide to do the development in house; it will still be alot cheaper to find someone knowledgeable in wordpress or drupal to do those addons.

Now another prespective that I myself think about is what is going to be the cost to migrate to a new CMS? Beyond simple data re-entry, time to setup the CMS, template re-design, etc. (right there you could be talking into the thousands of dollars depending on how big the website is and who is doing the work for you); but also consider the hundreds of manhours that may be needed to rebuild/redirect old links so you don't lose SEO value. Losing that value and losing those links could result in alot of lost customers/sales (not to mention damage in the SERPs) - the long term impact could turn the intial launch cost of $17/mo + other costs (re-designing of templates, data re-entry, etc) into something that could cost your company thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on your current dependency on online revenue. And doing it wrong could take months upon months to recouperate from.

Now I could be wrong and maybe ABC is a great option for your Company but before taking a single step I would complete a very thorough project plan with a risk mitigation appendix to ensure that you guys don't hit any stumbling blocks or worst get 90% of the way to launching and realize that Business Catalyst isn't going to work without a significant investment into a developer to make it do what you want it to.