Business Advice

3 Reasons Why Having A Professional Website Designer Is Worth Paying For.

Websites can be a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week unpaid salesman for your business.

“Google it” has become a phrase for go to the internet and find out. We all know the power of search and you probably use it personally multiple times a day but why should we pay for a website when there are many free options?

3 Reasons why having a professional website designer is worth paying for.

Yes you should pay. Free is great, however there is a time and a place for free, like most things and web design is not one of them, here is why

Visibility
Domain Name
Experience

Visibility

Build it and they will come!

Hollywood has a lot to answer for . . .

Build a beautiful website and they will come, unfortunately NO!

You can have the most fabulous website and a great message but no one can see it then you have wasted your time and money even if it was free. Getting your website up on the internet is only part of the story.

Yes the free sites offer lovely drag and drop designs however they are generally low on content and what about keywords, do you have too little or too many? You get what you pay for and the free website companies often lack the tools you need to get your website found.

A professional website designer will be able to give you a great design and advise you on creating a fabulous experience for your customers where they can actually find you in this huge digital maze of the internet.

Domain Name

Most free website providers don’t give you the opportunity to use your own domain, why, because they are building traffic to their own site.

Why is having your own domain important?

Brand awareness
Impression
Mobility
Traffic

Most businesses work hard on their brand and getting people to recognise it and we are sure you are no different. Having your domain name register to match your business name is a natural continuation of your brand.

What kind of impression do you think your customers will get if you haven’t even spent the few dollars to buy your own domain name? Have you ever got an email from a big brand that didn’t use their own domain name?

Mobility, when you use your own domain name for your website you can move it. If you decide to change designers, hosting companies or platforms you will still have your domain name and all the traffic and Google resources you have built onto your domain. Even if you have to or decide to completely rebuild your website you will not be starting from scratch and won’t lose years of “Google Juice” – proof that Google should send traffic to your website.

Experience

Paying for a web designer means you are buying their experience, the design knowledge and their know how or what works and doesn’t on the internet today. Like all professions there are good designers and bad; expensive designers and cheap, do your homework and get a detailed quote of what is included. Some designers will only build the website and add to their website hosting, others will build you a complete website with search engine optimisation (How to get found on Google) tools and ongoing strategies you get your website found and onto page 1. When getting a quote be very clear on what your requirements are.

“Great web design without functionality is like a sports car with no engine.”
― Paul Cookson

Need help with your website?

Whether you have an existing website that is not working as you wish or in need of a totally new one give CATCO Enterprises a call on 9797 0889, we offer free quotes and lots of simple techniques you can use to improve your website’s visibility.

5 things to make you more productive in your business

To do list
Turn your emails off (notification)
Drink more water
Stop checking Facebook
Do a time log

By doing these 5 things you might be amazed at how much time you can gain in your day, let’s go through each one:

To do list

Write a To Do List and stick to it.

Depending on whether you are a morning person or a night owl; you can either do it at the end of each day/shift or first thing when you start work. When you do your To Do List is not important.

What is important is that you do it. Write down everything that you need to do for the day in priority order and then work through your list.

It sounds simple but if you do what needs to be done first – FIRST, highest priority, you will be less stressed as you are not leaving everything to the last minute and rushing.

To take you to do list one step further you can plan out your week/month and maybe even year. Do you have things that have to happen regularly start there.

By having a “to do list” and sticking to it you will be more productive because you won’t spend the first 10 minutes thinking about what do you have to do or just picking the fun jobs and then being rushed to finish the “have to do” jobs at the end of the day.

Turn off your email notifications

How much time do you spend checking your emails a day? There is no such thing as an email emergency. If someone needs to get hold of you urgently, they are unlikely to email you.

On average, people spend up to 20 time a day checking their emails. Then they feel obligated action whatever they see; distracting them from the task they should be doing. Or worse still see it, do nothing and then forget the email completely and never action anything.

When an email comes in you have to check it? Turn off your email notifications.

To come back and deal with the email is not only wasting your time but keeping you from other tasks. Are you forgetting or not acting on emails you have looked at earlier?

Schedule a couple of time a day to check your emails, action them at that time. Add bigger tasks do your to do list and then go back to the tasks you need to do for your day. Turn your email notifications off and stop being distracted by the constant ping when an email comes in.

Drink more water

A hydrated brain will work far better for you. Humans are made up of 60 % water and we lose on average 3- 4 litres throughout the day. This water needs to be replaced for you to function at your best. Most Australian don’t drink enough water.

Stop checking Facebook

One of the biggest time drains is Facebook.

“I will just have a quick look to see what is happening.”

Sound familiar? Then ½ – 1 hour has gone and you can’t even remember that you wanted to check in the first place. Check Facebook outside of work hours and set a timer if need be. Like emails, turn off your notification and set aside a time to look at Facebook.

Do a time log.

Download a time log, here is one you can use. Be honest and type in everything you have done for that hour.

20 minutes call to X

Refilled my water bottle

Checked emails

Started a task for ABC client

Even if you only do it for a few days you might be surprised at where your time leakages are.

5 things to make you more productive in your business

If you track it, you can measure it! You might be amazed at how much time you can add to your day!

CATCO Enterprises can give you lots of tips on business, social media, graphic design, website and commercial printing: give Cathy and the team a call on 08 9797 0889.

Why Pay For a Website When I Can Have a Facebook Page?

This a question that many people ask and basically it boils down to 3 things:

Control
Ownership
There are more internet users than Facebook users.

You don’t own Facebook and you don’t have control over how your content is displayed and to a large extent to who, this means you could lose everything in a blink of an eye.

We all know how often Facebook makes changes. What if Facebook took away your page or locked you out of Facebook completely what would happen to all your likes and fans? All that hard work and probably money too!

Don’t limit your audience to only Facebook, because there are a lot of people who are not on Facebook

Why have a website?

Having your own website is a must because you own it and have control over the message you give your customers and potential clients.

“Must Have #1 – Website

You need a website. When I say “website” I mean a real website and not just a collection of landing pages where you put all of your offers.” Must Haves” to Build a Successful Online Business by Kim Garst

Your website is your 24/7 salesman allows people to find you, see what you have to offer and often decide in 3 seconds whether they want to find out more about your goods and services.

Why have a website:

Searchability
Branding
Control

What is the first thing you do when you are looking for something new, a new product, service or supplier?

You Google it!

Search

Search is the number 1 reason why a website will always give you a better return for your dollar than Facebook. Getting your message to your potential customer can be difficult and your website can help you to be seen by many more people.

Have you ever seen a great article in your Facebook feed and then gone back to find it?

You knew what it was about but not who posted it?

Facebook is notoriously difficult to search if you don’t know exactly the brand name you are looking for.

Branding

Customers like consistency, they like to see the same branding across all areas of your marketing, from your website to your social media presence, to your products and services. Your website is the perfect place to have strong branding that your customers can recognise. Your website is the place that can contain all your marketing elements – an easy place to go to your different social platforms, watch a “How To Video”, get more information by joining your mailing list all in one place without being sent off all over the internet.

Control

You have control over what you put on your website and where it is shown on your website and you are not at the mercy of a Facebook algorithm. You can choose the exact look and colours to how your website will look. If you have a blog and an email list, you can provide value to your customers to get them to come back to you time after time.

Should you have a Facebook Page?

Yes.

A website and Facebook (Fan / Business) Page are 2 different things and can be used to complement each other. A website will help build your brand and provide a stable platform for you to educate, inform and offer your services to your customers.

A Facebook page can also add value to your customers and drive traffic to your website. Use a Facebook page as part of your marketing strategy, not as your whole marketing strategy.

By not having a website you are limiting your audience and your ability to serve your clients, as many people are not on Facebook and do not like it.

Have the best of both worlds, a Website and a Facebook Page.

If Facebook went away tomorrow, then you would lose everything, if you have put all your digital eggs in the Facebook basket. With a properly backed up website you can move it anywhere and no matter what happens with your current hosting, you would be protected.

Build a list of your customers and prospects and you can have the best of both worlds with your Facebook page driving traffic to your website where you can add an offer your products as well as add value, so they will keep coming back.

Why Pay For a Website When I Can Have a Facebook Page?

Control, searchability and security.

Want to know more, contact Cathy and the team at CATCO Enterprises.

3 Reason Why Facebook is NOT Working for you!

Love or hate Facebook, it is undeniably one of the biggest game changer for a lot of business in the last 5 years.

Did you know there are 1.18 billion active daily users on Facebook? And 84.9% of our daily active users are outside the US and Canada ¹

Most business would love a piece of that pie!
Wouldn’t you?

Facebook doesn’t work!

It’s only for big business!
It only works if you spend a lot of money!

You hear these type of comments all the time from small business owners and you have probably said them yourself . . . . right?

So why isn’t Facebook working for you?

Let’s look at 3 reasons why Facebook isn’t working for you:

Posting at the wrong time
Wrong content
Not consistent

When do you post?

The time you post can make a huge difference. When are your fans, customers, potential customers online? Do you know?

The best time to post is when your customers are online and looking for products and services (Simple hey!)

You might be surprised to know that it is often early in the morning about 6am or in the evenings after 8pm. Each audience and industry are different, so you need to check your Facebook business page insights tab to find out when your fans are looking at your page.

What do you post?

No doubt you have heard that funny cat videos or photos get the most engagement on Facebook, followed by a dog and then children. If you are running a cattery, pet store or writing children’s stories that are probably relevant for you to post.

For the rest of us, that is not going to work very well. Yes, your customers will get a laugh but they won’t remember where it came from or anything about your business.

Post content that is relevant to your business and adds value to your customers.

How often you post?

You have 10 minutes free time, so you think you will do a few Facebook posts. Sound familiar?

So you post 5 things all at once, great content, adding value for your customers. The only problem is you haven’t been on facebook for weeks and you won’t be posting again for weeks to come.

Guess what!

Your customers are unlikely to see your posts because Facebook doesn’t think they want to see your posts as you rarely post.

It is far better to post 1 post every day for 5 days than 5 posts on one day.

Is Facebook even worth bothering with?

As the organic (free) reach of Facebook continues to drop, what you post and when you post is becoming more and more important. So you might be asking, is Facebook still worth bothering with? In a word, Yes!

There are many strategies to use Facebook to your advantage and really buck the trends. Stay tuned for more information in upcoming articles.

Can’t wait! Need help with your facebook marketing campaign then give CATCO Enterprises a call on 9797 0889.

¹September 2016 Facebook Newsroom