When you think of creating a website, you usually think of long hours and extensive coding and definitely not something that a regular Joe would be able to achieve. But what if you were able to create your very own website minus fuss? Well, Business Catalyst enables you to do just that. Business Catalyst has a flexible platform that allows you to apply your ideas to your online business.

With BC, you have the option of using your own tools or choosing from the ready to use ones for customizing and controlling the codes in your pages for opening and closing html tags. If you are a web designer and enjoy coding, you can use any front end technology or anything similar to it like flash or java script to css. If not, use one of the built in templates that is the best fit your online business.  Business Catalyst has a simplified templating process which can be used to easily set up the pages of your website. Templates simply wrap pages with a sort of super page allowing you to separate and change recurring design elements to individual page content.

The modules and the codes produced by the BC system are also completely xhtml friendly and can be used in any web standard and the as desired.  You have full access to the html codes and have complete design freedom allowing you to fit your designs in the modules. You can also make updates on the modules while keeping your design intact. You can create as many modules as you want for your online business. You can use templates and layouts by using a standard ftp slogan or use the powerful extension for adobe dreamweaver to edit pages and add modules to your website.

Due to its flexibility in designing and built in web host, BC is perfect for building and running an online store. Business permits basic module management allowing you to customize the look and feel of your online shop, blog or website. You can use html tags to edit pages and apply css for styling each page. Upon saving the changes you have made on your website, the pages will be updated almost instantly. You can edit your product view or blog layout. You can also move tags however you want according to your desired style.

Most tags need parameter to modify their behaviour and output and there are tags that are not in the default layout.  You can add other tags and layout design to further customize your page layout. Many of default classes, html and css layouts can be found in BC’s modulestylesheets.css. Simply look at the css class you want to change and all changes will automatically be updated.

BC also allows you to customize the '404' error pages and other system generated responses from the system messages section. These can be found in BC's dreamweaver extension and administration interface. Even if you are not a dreamweaver user, you can still have access to control everything you need to build, customize and tweak according to your business needs. This is a very effective way for every online business owner to create a result driven website and Business Catalyst can give you all that.

To effectively reap the benefits your business can offer it is very important that you make wise decisions for the progress of your online business. Business Catalyst has a powerful integrated reporting tool especially made to keep track of every aspects of your online business. This feature automatically collects data from your customer that allows you to fully understand the success rate your online business. As it is built-in and ready to use, there is no need for you to waste time in set up.

What wouldn’t we give to have complete control of what’s going on with our online business? With BC’s reporting functions you can have it. BC’s reporting allows for a bird’s eye view of literally every single activity taking place on your website.

There are four key metrics that the report uses to help you track your business

   i.            Actual number of visits

  ii.            Total amount of online sales

   iii.            Number of sent inquiry forms, and

  iv.            The subscription report

These four metrics allow you to track what is happening on your website, from every page to your online store, email marketing to lead management, in real time.

With BC’s powerful integrated reporting system you have the ability to capture and keep a record of all customer transactions and activities. So every time you have new customer register for your live feed, you will know it instantly. You’ll see exactly how many inquiries have been received on your dashboard.  You can also choose what fields you would like to appear in the report. Filter the list to view the report of those who have recently submitted an inquiry form along with all other forms submitted in the past. Reports can be exported or downloaded to excel, pdf or csv formats, if you want to review the detailed analysis offline.

You also have the ability to access more advanced reporting data. Simply click on the Report tab and the reporting dashboard will be presented for your review. From the dashboard you’ll be able to further drill down into your four key metrics and see data from the actual traffic on your site to shopping cart abandon rates, customer details to annual revenue reports. You can also create cases for new customer reports to help you easily track new customers.

This type of integrated reporting platform is usually only available to high end enterprises and businesses owners, but with Business Catalyst you have the same opportunity, as any other big enterprise has, right at your fingertips. This is a kind of platform that is perfect for any online business and you can have it all with Business Catalyst.