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Dropdown menus—help your website viewers find what they’re looking for

We are excited to announce the release of dropdown menus as a standard feature of Rocketspark on all plans. For over ten years we've been promoting the importance of clear, simple website visitor journeys—the kinds of experiences that don’t leave the visitor confused or overwhelmed. Used badly, dropdown menus can really go against the grain on that and lead to overwhelming rabbit warrens of a website structure and that’s why we’ve guided people towards alternatives. Over time, our vi...

A new look for a new decade

Designing the first Rocketspark logo from the bedroom of a Hamilton flat in 2008, I never could have imagined the adventure we would go on for the next decade.  What went from a bit of a DIY moonlighting project is now a business with thousands of clients in dozens of countries, employing nearly 20 staff. In December 2018, I sat down with our designer Natalie Trow and asked for her design vision for Rocketspark.  She listed a new website for Rocketspark, Full-width Stacks, Grid Gallery...

FiT Gym: Opening virtual doors to connect with our members in lockdown

There's no denying that gyms, fitness centres and dance studios have been amoungst the hardest hit in this pandemic.  Rather than give up, Kylie & Jamie, owners at FiT Gym continued to communicate and care for their members online with free classes on how to count calories and macros and even FiT Gym Pub Quiz nights! On March 23 2020 from their home garden, the owners made the announcement to their FiT family on their website, social media and with an email that they were closing their...

How to build a subscription business—case study with Alexander Organics

As a so-called townie living in the quaint little Waikato town of Cambridge, I was really looking forward to going out into the countryside to meet with Ellen, owner/operator at Alexander Organics. From a marketing perspective raw milk is just so buzzy and Ellen and Jesiah’s story is an interesting one. At a more personal level though, it’s because for months I’ve been hearing whisperings around Cambridge of this family run business just out of town who’re selling raw milk on-tap an...

Remote working as a team—what we've learnt

We’re in uncertain and strange times as the world community changes rapidly around us with people getting sick, borders closing, fights over loo paper and shelves emptying of basic essentials. It’s impossible to predict where things will go and from our HQ in small town New Zealand we’ve been a little removed from the pandemic concerns.  I must confess we did chuckle at the sight of people with watercooler bottle head shields and cats with facemasks (poor cat!) but we’re seeing the ...

Video Series: Website design tips

Want to learn how to create WOW moments for your website viewers as they navigate around your site? Originally presented to our Design Partners at an evening of pizza and beverages, we're exited to be releasing this 9-part series (supported by a transcript) to all our customers. You'll gain some knowledge on how to use Rocketspark's intuitive design tools to make your website sing! We'd love your feedback on any changes you've made to your Rocketspark website after watching the series. Get in t...

How important is line length for great web design?

When you look at the work of the best web designers in the world, there’s a simple design rule they never break — optimal line length. Line length can have a significant effect not only on the visual impact of a website but also how much of your content the visitor actually reads. Getting your visitors to read your text content has been an age old battle for web designers, as website visitors resort to scanning headings for something that catches their eye.  So if you can tweak your...

Rocketspark, a website builder with Afterpay Integration

Rocketspark is a website builder that integrates with Afterpay, which means you’re able to connect your Rocketspark ecommerce website store with Afterpay to offer your shoppers another buy now and pay later option, with four easy payments and no interest!...

What is voice search, and how do I get my business ready for it?

Digital assistant is a catch-all term for Siri on Apple, Alexa on Amazon or Google Assistant. We are smack bang in the middle of generation ‘voice.’ I know for myself, especially driving, voice search queries make my life a lot easier. At the moment, especially in New Zealand, the use of voice search for ordering products - “Alexa, can you please order some toilet paper” - is almost non-existent. In the more mature American market, it’s common place to order without using a brand name....

It’s all-go for the Abandoned Cart emails—5 handy tips to get you started.

Rocketspark’s integration with Mailchimp ecommerce unlocks powerful email marketing and automation to help you sell more and build your brand. Cart abandonment is a rising challenge for all retail marketers and in a collation of results across a variety of studies by Baymard showed that in recent times over 75% of online carts are abandoned. Mailchimp reports that an average of 69% of ecommerce carts are abandoned and have also seen that with an abandoned cart email series you can see an avera...

Rocketspark | a year in review 2019

Some years are a little more exciting than others and we can safely say than 2019 has been one such year here at Rocketspark.  From new feature launches, to brand ambassadorship and video messages from New Zealand’s own Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, there were a number of moments that made 2019 one to remember.  We’ve continued to embrace a way of working that’s absolutely customer/design partner-centric and we’ve adapted our planning and development roadmap to suit. This yea...

Rev up your online sales with Rocketspark + Mailchimp ecommerce

It’s true what they say, that you can establish and maintain customer loyalty and boost sales with email marketing. Email is still one of the most effective messaging channels around with 59% of respondents saying marketing emails influence their purchase decisions. This is where Rocketspark’s Mailchimp integration is super helpful to have in your marketing toolbox....

7 ways to revitalise your website for 2020

Think about a website refresh as being similar to restyling your home. You declutter, add some new items and remove some as you evaluate and update the overall design of the space. Once complete, your house now exudes a fresh new energy that might function better and will likely see you through the next few months or years....

How much to quote for your first web design project

By Jeremy Johnson | Founder & Designer | Rocketspark...

How I cracked my first Rocketspark ecommerce website—and some ideas on how you can too.

We caught up with Liz Webb, owner of LW Creative; a website design business based in Tauranga, New Zealand....

Assault Boardriding Centre: We’ve increased our sales & had lots of online enquiries—switching to Rocketspark was a no brainer.

If you’re local to, or you’ve ever visited Mt Maunganui, New Zealand, you’ve probably heard of Assault Boardriding Centre. They’ve been around since forever and have a passion like nothing else for all boardriding sports.For a long time the Assault team ran their successful business on the wave of a great reputation, dominating the market with their friendly instruction and down-to-earth expertise. They also had their physical shop in Mt Maunganui and were active on social media.Gle...

Grow your business & gain loyal customers with Subscriptions

Do you sell products that your customers buy from you on a regular basis? Adding Subscriptions and payments to your website is a great marketing strategy for your business and this feature is now available to add onto your Rocketspark website shop. Subscriptions make the process of ordering and paying for products or services convenient for the customer—they set-up once and the rest is taken care of. ...

Get a standing ovation for your website with the magic formula of Spectacle & Comfort — Film terms applied to website design.

In my first year of university, my lecturer was talking about the film term “spectacle”. He described it as the thing about a film that makes you forget about how comfortable your seat is. When a film lacks spectacle, that’s when you start noticing how uncomfortable your seat is. It’s the multi-sensory moments in a film that keep you hooked on the story. Moments that are created using a combination of what’s known as film conventions—things like storylines, editing, shot composition...

Take control of your mobile website viewers first impression—with Mobile Feature Area design controls

Lead your industry with a beautifully simple website that viewers love to visit on their mobile device. Right now, we’re leaping through the mobile era, with many Rocketspark customers now getting more visitors on mobile than desktop—In some cases the amount of mobile traffic has doubled in the space of a year. Google/Purchased stats indicate that 89% of people are likely to recommend a brand after a positive brand experience on mobile. As a result, Google has introduced Mobile-first indexi...

Introducing Grid Gallery—for a beautifully designed website that leads to better marketing

We understand the importance of beautiful, effective design and want you to have as much creative freedom as possible when it comes to editing all parts of your website. This is the reason why we’ve developed Grid Gallery - to give you a powerful multitool that offers a number of simple and effective website solutions. Images communicate to the brain instantly - much quicker than it takes the brain to interpret text. A beautiful image gallery can leave visitors with a strong feel for your br...

Interview with Kath Metz of Kath Metz — Health and Happiness Coaching for Women

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. ...

Interview with My Coffee Capsules

There are hundreds of thousands of Nespresso capsules sold every day and our market share is something like 1% of the total coffee pods sold within New Zealand so there is a lot of opportunity to sell more and grow. For my business though, there is a lot of price competition and our brand is still relatively unknown. So finding a cost effective advertising strategy is important. We are just two people, Suzy and I. We started the business about 4 years ago and it’s done well but trying to fi...

Interview with Nothing Naughty

It was when we started using Facebook advertising is what really changed it for us. We use an agency called Mosh and so monthly we create a campaign in conjunction with them. What happens is we tell Mosh the campaign we want to run and most of the time we supply them with images to give a general idea of what we’re after and they create it for us — then we approve it and they manage it for us. Facebook as well, we do a little bit of posting ourselves but most of it we do paid adverts. We...

How to choose a business name that is search-friendly

At Rocketspark we’ve seen thousands of business names come across our screens, as people around the world make their own website with Rocketspark. Many of these businesses are people who have never owned a business before and have taken that great leap of faith to build their business from the ground up. People usually put some good thought into choosing a domain-name-friendly business name — as they need to be able to buy a domain name relevant to their business name. Something a lot of p...

Rocketspark + Mailchimp = Email marketing made easy

Email marketing is a really powerful way of telling the story of your business to your customers. Businesses like Zeenya Clothing have seen their business grow by finding ways to connect with their customers in ways that they appreciate. So we wanted to make it that little bit easier by integrating with MailChimp email marketing software. ...