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Giving, a beautiful thing for local Rocketspark Design Partner

When things get quiet around the Varntige office in Te Awamutu, the virtual assistant team doesn’t just sit around, they find someone to help. In April this year Rocketspark gifted each of its Design Partners, Varntige included, a lifetime Rocketspark website subscription to give away for free to a deserving not-for-profit organisation. Learn more about the Rocketspark Gift-it-forward initiative here. Varntige found a very well deserving candidate and went the extra mile making all of their de...

Where to find inspiration

Sometimes it can be hard to get inspired, writer's block or design fatigue can come at unexpected times. In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketspark Head of Partnerships, we cover where you can find inspiration, and then, where you can find it, if you can’t find it in the first suggested places....

From grief stems life

A cemetery beautification project that grew out of one woman’s grief has spread seeds around the world.   Our in-house storyteller Kyra Piccione recently sat down with Rocketspark Design Partner, Tonia Hill, founder of Greenhouse Creative, to talk about a website project close to her heart; Flowers from Felix. Flowers from Felix is a giant community flower garden situated in Purewa Cemetery, the garden started with Miriama Tomms. “Miriama is a videographer and friend and we had bee...

How to rank in Google for multiple town locations

In a Formula One Grand Prix, there are 20 different drivers all competing for a podium top three finish. There is only one spot on the podium for first, one spot for second, and one spot for third. Just like with a Grand Prix, the top spot in Google search results gets a lot more attention than second and third and the podium finishers get much more attention than those further down the rankings....

Design partner creates business saving website

In the Mix, a bakery that started out selling at a local Auckland market, had one of the most fortuitous experiences with their website launching just days before the New Zealand lockdown of 2020.  Rocketspark Design Partner Tonia Reid, founder of Greenhouse Creative was a finalist in five different categories at Launch 2021, she ended up taking out Partner of the Year. One of the categories she was up for was Best Client Impact for the work she’d done with In the Mix. As a baking busines...

The benefits of creating a website strategy

Is your website design strategy a little light? Or do you need some fresh strategic insights?  You already know the value websites can provide and how, but maybe you’re having trouble knowing where to start with planning a really high impact website beyond just laying out content and pictures so it looks nice. With the help of one of our top design partners, and our own Rocketspark experts, let’s dive past the skin deep beautiful websites into the high impact substance that makes for an...

Rocketspark helps launch UK retailer

The UK’s first lockdown saw the creation of a bunch of online businesses. One of these was Moo-Coco, a fashion, accessories and homeware online retailer.  Founded in Hertfordshire, Moo-Coco aims to help customers make a true style statement. Co-founder, Chloe Taylor, said after putting a lot of thought into opening and starting a business her family took the leap and went for it at a time when they were home with each other more than normal. Chloe’s dad played a huge role in the beginni...

Branding key for Riverside Escapes

Trading the city for the far north was the best move Maggie Dalziel and Brooke Noonan could have made. The second best, for their business, was reaching out to Rocketspark Design Partner Natalie White, who gave them a new brand identity. Natalie (Nat), Creative Director at Magic fingers Graphics, worked with the couple on their business website for Riverside Escapes and was nominated for three different awards in relation to that work at the Rocketspark 2021 Launch Partner Awards. She won two of...

We’re in the market of marketing

A big part of Rocketspark is our story and how we tell it. That story is part of everything we do. We use it to give our customers the best experience possible when they’re on our website, social media platforms or using our products. One of the main drivers behind crafting that experience, and keeping it relevant, is the marketing team.  This team is made up of artistic designers, communication specialists, storytellers, analytical masterminds, partnership creators and product developers...

Australian web designer helps her community

Jill Vella, founder of Terramirra Press, says her love for the environment and connection push her to help her local community. Jill has helped two community groups of the last year by designing them websites for free and says she has another two currently underway. She was also a finalist in Rocketspark Community Good Award category at its annual awards earlier this year. The first volunteer based organisation that Jill helped was Nerrena/Tarwin Landcare, where she has been the secretary for qu...

The importance of connections

As much as it is about what you know, who you know can play a major part in a freelancer's business. In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketspark Head of Partnerships, we cover what kind of connections you might need and why. How you make those connections and how you keep them....

The 10 most common web design mistakes to avoid

If you’re new to web design or are struggling to get your websites looking exceptional, while functioning well, there are some fundamental basic tweaks you can make for a better result. Read on to discover 10 common web design mistakes, and ways you can avoid them.  A great website is not only about having all the bells and whistles, it's knowing how to strategically and aesthetically place your content. A website needs to have really clear call-to-action prompts, that guide the visitor a...

Wintec students help local businesses online

A partnership between Wintec students and Rocketspark has seen 10 e-commerce sites built on the five-star platform, all for local Waikato business. Head of Partnerships, Jason Tiller, said Rocketspark was stoked that the partnership with Wintec had continued to grow since it began in 2020. “We are so happy Wintec is continuing to use Rocketspark as their learning platform, enabling students to get equipped with website design while helping the wider business community by having easy access to ...

Relationships build businesses

When Rocketspark asked branding agency Milk & Honey Media to do some filming for an upcoming event, Managing and Creative Director, Jonathan Nickerson, came back saying he'd love to, in return Rocketspark offered to help him out with his website.  Jonathan is originally from Dallas, Texas. His background in finance and international business provides him with a strong foundation for understanding the client's objective to see a return on their investment. He is passionate about seeing ...

Design Partner helps kick start a new chapter

When Barry Rosenberg was nearing the end of his working life as a Chartered Accountant specialising in family business and farm succession planning, he began to think about what came next. Meanwhile his son James, a former representative rugby player and now Lifestyle Village Manager, was thinking about how some of the people he’d seen come into the Village for retirees that he manages were needing help. The business, 65 Not Out - Reinventing Retirement, was started over a cup of coffee and a ...

How to get your blogs to rank higher in Google

Rocketspark Design Partner Sarah Pooley says trying to convince people that there’s value in blogging can be challenging. She’s tested blogs on her own website for a while now, proving their value for herself. Sarah is the founder of The Digital Doctor, a UK based digital agency. Her background is in digital marketing and was an account director for an agency for around 13 years before going out on her own in 2016....

Rocketspark Design Partners Gift-it-forward

Rocketspark announced at Launch 2021 that it would be giving every design partner a free not-for-profit website to give to an organisation of their choice, the initiative is called Gift-it-forward. We caught up with a few of our partners recently to see how they chose to give away their free website. Nikita Williams, General Manager and Senior Designer at Tauranga based Metro Marketing said they planned to find someone local. “One of our clients is The Kollective, they are a coworking space ba...

How to get good clients

Good clients aren’t always easy to come by. In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketspark Head of Partnerships, we cover what good clients look like, how you can reach those clients and how to keep hold of them....

Varntige: 6 years, 50 websites, time to claim Gold

Te Awamutu based virtual assistant firm, Varntige, has been a Rocketspark design partner for almost four years now and they have officially become one of our Gold Partners. Chantelle Good, owner and founder of Varntige, said the team had a goal of reaching Gold Partner level before Rocketspark’s 2021 Launch Design Conference. “At 9.30pm the night before Launch I got an email saying you’re a gold partner and I was like woo! We’ve had this goal since last year and we just made it,” she s...

Rocketspark joins the Digital Boost Alliance Aotearoa

Rocketspark is pleased to be supporting the Digital Boost Alliance Aotearoa. Being a software platform for small businesses we're already actively supporting the growth of digital capability through working with Digital Boost by sharing our knowledge through free webinars. The purpose of the Digital Boost Alliance aligns so well with many of our own initiatives, such as pop-up shops, digital playbooks, ebooks and training classes. We also enjoy creating pathways for students through our partners...

Rocketspark is officially a .nz domain registrar

New Zealand made award winning website builder Rocketspark is now also an official registrar for .nz domains, a pipe dream that the founders have had since starting out. To warrant becoming a .nz domain reseller, Rocketspark needed a high number of domains to justify the development resource required to develop the systems that needed to be in place. Rocketspark was originally a reseller of .nz web domains. To make this easy to understand, you can liken it to a clothing retailer who buys their c...

A need to give back

A passion for children, the community, and the need to give back has secured Kaz Design. Brand. Web. a spot as a finalist in the Rocketspark Community Good Awards. Kaz also won the Fastest Growing Client award at Rocketspark's Launch Awards. Rocketspark Design Partner, Kaz, have done some incredible things for the community of Cambridge, especially for the younger members of the area. This comes as no surprise since founder, Karen May, was awarded a Queen’s Service Medal in 2017 in recognition...

Meet the team driven by customer success

When you need a helping hand with your website, who ya gonna call? The Rocketspark Customer Success team, of course! Our amazing Customer Success (CS) team is made up of Chantal Gellert, Stephanie Hay, Summer Gunn and Olivia Bennett. Our CS team have got our customers' back for any issues as the first port of call, they are constantly learning so they can share the best advice and they're our best teachers for customers learning new product features. Chantal is the team’s fearless leader, she�...

A health journey sparks a community

After she began her own health journey and seeing how good the benefits were, Liora Pine wanted to bring as many people along for the ride with her.  Growing up in the 80s in America when mac’n’cheese out of a box was a thing and junk food reigned supreme, Liora almost didn’t stand a chance. She also had her family's health history stacked against her. On her mum’s side of the family, most died young, with bad health conditions including lung and heart disease.  Liora is a Rock...

How to optimise your website for mobile in 5 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....