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Interview with The Good PA: Why a Virtual PA business hired their own graphic designer

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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...

Rotorua Business Chamber Seminar Series

At Rocketspark we’re passionate about helping small businesses to be more successful in their business while helping to free up valuable time. Over our 10 years of existence as a website building platform we’ve built up a huge body of knowledge and experience on what makes a successful website. We’re pleased to be combining this experience and passion in a series of fortnightly seminars with the Rotorua Business Chamber sponsored by Deloitte and hosted by the funky Digital Basecamp Co-wo...

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. ...

Why your business needs student interns (and how to get them)

It’s the catch-22 faced by most startups: you need more workers to boost revenue, but you need more revenue to hire more workers! So, how do you deal with this conundrum? There are a number of creative ways to get that extra help without sinking your business. One of the best ways: start an internship programme. At Rocketspark, we’ve had a number of student interns, and it’s been brilliant—for us and them. Here’s what we’ve learned along the way: ...

Staff Profile: Lara Villavicencio

Meet Lara, she has just started with us here at Rocketspark as one of our friendly developers. But what you may not know about Lara is that she is also our resident space and planets font of knowledge, she loves to spend her free time watching all sorts of docos and tv series’ like ‘Stranger Things’. Lara recently completed her Computing and Mathematical Science studies at the University of Waikato, after immigrating to New Zealand eight years ago from the Phillippines. She wasn’t very ...

Meet our summer student interns from the University of Waikato

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Looking back at 2018

2018 was a big one for Rocketspark. We welcomed a number of new team members to the Rocketspark family, moved to a larger office and hosted our inaugural Design Conference and Partner Awards. Meanwhile, we released a range of new features both big and small. From an all-new Form Builder to Copy and Linked stacks - it’s fair to say, 2018 was jam-packed. Here’s a look at some of our favourites from 2018. ...

Staff Profile: Chantal Gellert

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New footer and social media controls: It’s the simple things in life

Like many others, you’ve probably never really thought much about your footer, nor the power it could have. But we’ve been listening to your feedback about some little features you’ve been wanting to see and we’ve answered. Here at Rocketspark, we want you to have as much creative freedom as possible when it comes to editing all parts of your website. ...

How to Run a Web Design Business (in Under 1,600 Words)

Let me guess: you got into web design because you’re creative, not because you love business...Am I right? Of course, I could be wrong about you; maybe you’re the Larry Ellison of web design. But, if so, you’re the exception. Most designers I know love making things look amazing, but sometimes lack confidence when it comes to running a business. If that’s you, then don’t worry: you can run a successful web design business. In this post, I’ll tell you how. It’s a big topic, so this...

6 ways to take your website’s design to the next level

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The Rocketspark Ecosystem — Part 1: Find more clients

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The Rocketspark Ecosystem — Part 2: Find a designer

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Key steps for a search friendly website launch

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Shaping your service offering

What do you do? It’s a question you’ve been asked a thousand times and, if you’ve got a fledgling design or web business, you might not always know how to answer. If the job pays, you’ll often be tempted to answer “Anything you want”! But we know from cold, hard experience (see below) that it helps to know precisely what services you offer—and do not offer. So how do you shape your service offering? Three words: focus, specify, and choose. ...

Embracing ecommerce - Zeenya Clothing

When Chloe and Sarah travelled together to Brazil they fell in love with the outgoing and colourful Brazilian culture. Not long after Zeenya clothing was born and they started on their journey into the world of ecommerce. ‘Embracing life through colour’ is Zeenya's slogan and it’s not hard to see why. Their bright and bold activewear screams positivity, fun and adventure, ideas echoed by their loyal customer base. We caught up with Chloe from Zeenya to chat about the steps they took to h...

Website clients: Finding your first and how to get more

So you’re a Rocketspark design partner, but you’re having trouble making the leap to web. You’ve stuck your toe in the water, but you’re not sure if you’re ready to dive in. We get it: making the leap to web can be daunting! I mean, how do you get website clients when you’ve never actually built a website?? In this blog post, we look at the WHY and HOW of getting website clients, so you can expand into website design with total confidence. ...

How to choose a website template

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How to hand over a website to your client

Saying “goodbye” is a big deal. Maybe you’re sad about it (like when your daughter moves out of home) or maybe you’re happy about it (like when your son moves out of home). Either way, there comes a point at which you have to let go. It’s the same with client websites. As a Rocketspark design partner, you’ve poured time and energy into turning their idea into a web-reality, but now it’s time to bid “farewell” to the project and hand it over to the client. But how? In this blog...

How to start a web design project

Often in life, starting is the hardest part. That’s certainly how some of our design partners feel about web design. They’re usually gurus in their primary field (e.g., graphic design, marketing etc.) but often feel daunted by the prospect of tackling an entire web design project: How on earth am I going to do this?? The answer is: with a process. Coming up with a web design process that you can repeat for each project is vital. In this blog post, we’ll get you started by covering a few ke...

Build websites faster and easier with preset content

How should I lay out a contact page? What sort of content should I include on the about page? These are all questions that pop up when you start building a website. Like many things, getting started is often the hardest part. That’s why we’ve made the web design process even easier by adding preset content to all pages of a Rocketspark template. ...