Back to Blog

How to optimise your website for mobile in 4 steps

At Rocketspark we’ve seen first hand that for many industries more than half of their web traffic is on mobile and for some clients as high as 80%. Having a quality, well-functioning mobile website is also key as Google bases website indexing and ranking in search results on the mobile version of your website first....

Launch inspires and builds up Rocketspark community

After two days of collaboration and learning at Launch 2021, Rocketspark's community of designers are more connected than ever. Launch: Design Conference and Awards Dinner is an annual event filled with inspirational topics, speakers, workshops and celebration with the Rocketspark partner network. Rocketspark’s epic network of design partners create websites for people all around the globe. Kicking off the pre-event, Designwell’s Alexander Wastney spoke about his journey with design, a great...

Rocketspark win supreme

Every year the local Waipa Business Community in New Zealand comes together to celebrate with finalists in the Waipa Networks Business Awards. This year Rocketspark not only had many clients in the running for awards, but were also finalists in two categories; Contribution to Tourism and Excellence in Large Business. During the event we were crowned winners in the Excellence in Large Business category and we also took out the sort after Supreme Award....

Community, the pillar behind Quick Brown Fox

Amanda Livingston’s background is in professional services marketing, having started out working for global law and accounting firms and a major bank. She’s moved from Scotland, to the Caribbean, to New Zealand. She’s a mother to three boys and the winner of Rocketspark’s Community Good Award this year.  She’s done so much for her community that when our in-house storyteller, Kyra Piccione, caught up with her, she didn’t have enough time to talk about all of it. Amanda said she ...

Meet the 16-year-old computer programmer

A local high school student has gone from unpaid intern to money making computer programming wiz at Rocketspark in just two months. Ryan Cherry, 16, started at Rocketspark to gain some work experience in computer programming and coding after showing exceptional promise at school. Cambridge High School, where Ryan is a year-12 student, was forming a relationship with Rocketspark and they saw that he was over achieving in his digital studies. Carol Webb, Deputy Principal, said the school initially...

Developers are people, too

When you’re sitting behind your computer screen looking at a beautiful website you might marvel at technology and how amazing it is.  Well, it may surprise you that behind that technology is a bunch of good humans who work hard to keep it looking dazzling. Here at Rocketspark, we have a team of web developers, aka devs, who keep our clients' websites functional and beautiful. They are a work hard/play hard team who love to code, as well as stop for a quick office Counter Strike break twic...

SEO made so easy, you can do it yourself

Jono Viviani, Estimator at Summit Windows and Doors, an Auckland based company that built its own website, said the new Rocketspark feature, Flint, had been great as they didn’t really have any experience in SEO.  Jono studied Marketing and Business Management at the University of Waikato before he started his job at Summit Windows and Doors. While he was at university, he came across Rocketspark in one of his digital marketing classes and loved how easy it was to use. “When I started w...

Elm Marketing claims Gold

Melanie Cant (Mel), founder of Elm Marketing Solutions, is one of our esteemed Design Partners based in the UK and has recently earned her new status as a Rocketspark Gold Partner. Mel designed her 50th Rocketspark website earlier this month, claiming Gold, something she is really proud of. “I keep pinching myself, it’s been four years since I started on the Rocketspark road, so it didn’t happen overnight, but reaching 50 is quite an achievement isn’t it?” she said. Mel used to work at...

Preset Stacks: Add beautifully designed layouts as quick as a click

What you can design with Rocketspark has exploded over the last couple of years to a whole new level of creative freedom. With the launch of Grid Gallery, column backgrounds, full-width stacks and a range of new mobile-website tools, do-it-yourselfers and leading web designers alike have been creating incredible looking websites on Rocketspark. But custom-designing a site takes time—font sizes and letter spacing, adding blocks and mobile spacing all need to be adjusted for every stack....

Mahi a Atua: Inspiring success in achieving systemic change

In celebration of Waitangi Day, we wanted to showcase one of our epic Māori business clients: Mahi a Atua. Read their story below. In the mid-1990s Diana Kopua developed Mahi a Atua, an indigenous approach that responds to ongoing issues regarding institutional racism and inequity for Māori within New Zealand health and society.  Te Kurahuna Ltd is the facilitator of the kaupapa Mahi a Atua. Because they are so collaborative they answered our interview questions as a team. The t...

Customer Accounts helps florist bloom

One of Rocketspark’s many helpful features, Customer Accounts, has fertilised the growth of a thriving flower business. Flowers by Joanne opened in Orewa 45 years ago, Barbara Everiss bought the business back in 2000, and after 18 years, she sold it to its current owner Li Gong.  Li speaks highly of her predecessor, who even left her a personalised number plate saying “bouquet”....

Free Google Shopping listings now available in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and more

Google Shopping has previously only been available as a paid advertising service that promotes products from your online store in Google search results. The great news is that Google is now offering free Google Shopping listings—and with a Rocketspark ecommerce website, you can be up and running with your free listings in no time....

Rocketspark 2020 Wrap-Up

As a business we’ve been fortunate this year to be in a position to pack-up our desks and all work from home as we went into lockdown. Like everyone else in a similar situation, we had to very quickly adapt and figure out how to work remotely—well, and together. Many of our customers operate relying on delivering face to face service such as retail, hospitality, tourism and trades and it’s been encouraging to see how resilient and innovative these businesses have been in the face ...

Digital Pop-up helps Olympic cyclists launch new business

Olympic cyclists Sam Dakin and Callum Saunders were on site at our Digital Pop-up Shop in November 2020 in Hamilton, tapping into some digital expertise ahead of launching their new business. ...

The Digital Pop-up Shop launched in Hamilton’s CBD to rave reviews!

We did it! The first Digital Pop-up Shop launched in Hamilton’s CBD at the end of November 2020. The week-long event equipped 151 local businesses with powerful digital skills and knowledge for better, easier business in 2021. We’re beyond proud to report the outcomes The Digital Pop-up Shop achieved for our local business community, especially after a year that has asked so much of them....

Tourism pivot idea proven a success—Nature & Nosh

The Rocketspark team have been working extra hard to help clients through the impacts of Covid and the founders wanted to treat the team as a special thank you.  A day spent outdoors with a mix of exercise, mindfulness and ‘local’ food was just the ticket....

Rank higher in Google with the latest AI SEO tools from Rocketspark

After more than two years of development and harnessing some pretty advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology, today’s the day we announce the biggest development in Rocketspark history....

The Digital Pop-up Shop comes to Garden Place, Hamilton CBD

Rocketspark along with Hamilton Central Business Association, Hamilton City Council and Modern Office are hosting Hamilton's first Digital Pop-up Shop for just 1 week this November 2020. The Digital Pop-up Shop is a one-stop-shop, a week of hands-on business workshops and informative seminars aimed at helping small-medium business owners and managers get up to speed with digital enablement....

How to wow clients with the website you've designed

So you’ve won over the client and they’ve decided to put their hopes and dreams in your hands to design their website. For many small businesses, a website is a significant one-off cost outside of their regular operating expenses, even at the bottom end of pricing ranges for design and build packages. When someone is spending big with a service provider, there can be a fair amount of client stress involved. The client has done their best to choose who they perceive to be their best value pro...

Auto-resize your ecommerce product images storewide

You can now auto-resize all of your product images storewide to be a consistent shape and size with a single click. With uniform product images, you’ll have a professional-looking and beautifully designed online store....

The digital tools Rocketspark uses (2020 updated version)

As Rocketspark continues to grow, our team needs tools that can help streamline their workflow to support this growth. At Rocketspark we have always used software to solve problems and streamline the way we work and this post is an overview of what we use and how we use it to work efficiently to a high-standard in order to give our customers the best....

How to choose a website designer for your business

Choosing a web designer can be tricky and with many stories of negative experiences, so how can you improve your chances of a good result?...

Tracking Made Easy with Tag Manager + Rocketspark

With Rocketspark's easy-to-use website builder, it's quick to set up a direct link to Analytics and Tag Manager. How? Simply paste your Analytics and/or Tag Manager tracking ID (UA or GTM code) into the Rocketspark website you wish to track (you don't need to hard code).Once Analytics and/or Tag Manager is linked with the Rocketspark website you wish to track, you can go ahead and set up the tracking in Tag Manager....

Grid Gallery 2.0 for more design freedom

Around this time last year, we launched our brand-new Grid Gallery feature—a powerful design and marketing multitool that offers a wide range of beautiful design options, for showcasing everything from ecommerce categories to architectural projects and everything in between. Since then, as we’ve continued to look at global trends from some of the best-loved, best-designed websites, the idea to take Grid Gallery to the next level has been brewing....

How to get your online store ready for Black Friday?

Ecommerce continues to boom globally as shopping behaviours adapt. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are fast approaching, and now’s the time to prepare your ecommerce store for success. Also known as Cyber Weekend from Friday 27 November to Monday 30 November 2020—one of the biggest shopping events of the year....