We caught up with Kath Metz — Women's Health and Happiness Coach ahead of Mother’s Day. Kath is an inspirational small business owner who built her own Rocketspark website with no previous web design experience.
Why did you start your business?
Working as a midwife for over 17 years in New Zealand, and more recently Australia I’ve noticed that the landscape for women giving birth has changed. Our modern day lifestyle with its conveniences and high speed "everything", the influx of chronic health conditions such as diabetes & obesity and mental health conditions such as stress and anxiety are impacting women's health and their ability to conceive, and have a positive pregnancy and birth.
My reason for starting this journey as a woman's health coach is to help shape a future for women (my clients) whose wish is to have a baby. As we’re now learning that a woman's health can impact the future health of her children. My goal is to support and educate women about the importance of their own health and happiness, to empower women to be their best selves and ultimately improve their ability to conceive, nourish their growing baby and flourish in their new role as a mother.
On a more personal level, experiencing first hand how an overload of work and stress resulted in burnout and anxiety, I turned to study nutrition and health coaching to reclaim my own health and happiness. My biggest learning was how to integrate strategies and tools to improve my own health. It’s not always easy, but it’s definitely worth it.
What motivated you to become a small business owner?
Owning and running your own business is an exciting and challenging prospect and is definitely overwhelming at times especially with the workload and personal development I’m undertaking around business and marketing, but I try to keep open and watchful for new opportunities to embrace …and I ask lots of questions! I also really want this, I’m very passionate about it.
When/at what stage did you realise that you needed a website?
As my business is very new, I decided to set up my website as a priority, as a way for prospective clients and referring clinicians to refer to be directed to, for more information around what I do, who I am and how we could best work together.
I knew nothing about setting up websites, design, coding, what things you should do to help you get found or how you even go about getting domain names, what my domain name should even be?
I am grateful to have discovered free training offered by the Rotorua Chamber of Commerce, presented by Grant from Rocketspark on everything website related, and to cut a long story short I took up Rocketspark’s free 30-day trial and was able to build my own website in less than 30 days!
The Rocketspark website builder is very intuitive and there are loads of help guides to support the process, but you can work a lot of it out yourself by “having a play”. You also don’t need to learn any tricky coding! And I have been and continue to learn about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and other tricks and tools of the trade and how a well designed and constructed website can increase your exposure on the internet. I intend to grow the website and increase its functionality and capabilities as my business grows and I believe I’ll be able to do this using the Rocketspark platform.
What were your main concerns about building a website yourself?
My main concerns about the DIY approach would be too hard, and that I didn’t have time for that and wanted to focus on what I was good at. I wanted the website to represent me well and look professional and appeal to my target market, make them feel welcome, comfortable, safe and confident that I could help them. I wanted to easily be able to share information, tips and support. I have found that linking a blog and adding posts to be so simple using Rocketspark.
How were these concerns overcome?
The Rocketspark templates are easy to use and if you’re unsure about how to do anything, the Rocketspark help guides are a great support. It’s still a lot of work and it does take time, but if you aren’t in the financial position to hire a Rocketspark graphic designer partner (which I unfortunately wasn’t at that time) then this is a good option.
Tell us about the process of building your own website using the Rocketspark platform?
I came to understand my core marketing message through the process of building my website. I was forced to take the time to understand my clients better even in terms of what colours would appeal to my demographic. I understand that it is not a static tool either and as my business grows and develops so can my website. The beauty of doing it yourself is that I have learnt how easy it is to make changes, big and small and I don’t need to go through anyone else to do this. Having this control and flexibility is awesome! It was also quite fun.
Your site design is feminine, clean in design and very professional looking. How did you decide on the overall look and feel of your site?
During the website building process, I did some research on my client demographic. In one of the training sessions offered by the Rotorua Chamber of Commerce, presented by Rocketspark, we were encouraged to use high-quality images. I didn’t intend on having a large image of myself on the landing page but Grant presented some research that showed how including a person (smiling) on your site increased website interaction by the person searching and I have followed this advice. It is still a work in progress with those particular images however.
Tell us a little about Kath. Are you a born DIY-er or just a go-getter?
I love learning new things and sharing my knowledge especially in the area of health. This is probably why I enjoyed building my own website, it gave me a sense of accomplishment. My passion is to support and help others to have great health and happiness and the baby they desire.
Do you have any advice to give to other want-to-be business owners wanting to build their own website using Rocketspark?
If you can dream it, you can do it, or at least try, or else you’ll never know. And don’t be afraid to ask questions! The process of building my own Rocketspark website and having the site live (even though only for one week so far) is a step forward to making my dream a reality and presenting myself as a professional women’s health coach.
