Your website is your business’s shopfront online. You should feel proud to show it off and know it’s built on a platform you can count on. With the important stuff taken care of behind the scenes, you can focus on what you do best.
AI website builders can put a website together in minutes. But the pages your customers see are only the tip of the iceberg.
Rocketspark’s story began in 2009, and in that time we’ve learnt there’s a lot more to a website than what appears on the page. Behind every button, form, and image are layers of technology working together to keep websites secure, reliable and running smoothly.
Think of websites like an iceberg. Above the waterline is everything your customers see. The pretty pictures, clean layouts and a way for customers to contact you. But what sits below the waterline is the foundation keeping everything afloat.
AI website builders can make the visible part of a website look good fast. But it’s easy to miss what’s going on beneath the surface.
How is your website kept secure? What protects your forms from spam? Can you edit whenever you like without relying on AI? What if you run out of AI credits or AI companies hike their prices? Will your enquiries reliably reach you, with your client’s info kept private? Who can you talk to if something goes wrong? And are there extra costs or ongoing updates you need to know about?
In this blog, we’ll walk through what to ask when choosing your website provider, so you can feel confident that the important stuff is being taken care of. We’ll show you what goes on behind the scenes and how you’ll be supported when something goes wrong.
10 questions to consider when choosing your website builder
AI-first website builders are still fairly new, so we don’t know yet how they’ll change over time. We’ve been building websites since 2009 and have looked into what these AI tools really mean for your business. Here are ten questions to ask before choosing a website platform.
1. How are form enquiries handled and delivered?
A contact form is often where a new customer gets in touch. Their details need to stay safe, and their message needs to reach you.
At Rocketspark, form submissions are encrypted and stored securely, while our email delivery setup helps make sure important enquiries reliably reach your inbox.
It’s worth making sure your chosen website builder has a secure and reliable system for handling form enquiries.
2. How much control do you have when editing your website?
Business details change. You should be able to update a sentence, move some text or change a background colour when you need to.
On some AI-first website builders, the biggest frustration we’ve seen is being locked into editing through AI. A simple change to the position of text, wording or tweaking the background colour needed another AI prompt, when it would have been quicker to just move and edit the content.
In the Rocketspark editor, you can click on what you want to change and edit it directly with no prompt needed. You see your changes as you go and have the freedom to keep refining your website until it feels right.
3. Can you talk to a real person when you need help?
In a world where AI support is becoming more common, sometimes you just need to talk to a real person. Everyone learns and understands information differently, and having someone who can listen, ask questions and actually help problem-solve can make a big difference.
At Rocketspark, we take pride in our fast and friendly support, with humans at the heart of everything we do.
4. How does your website provider keep your website secure?
When your customers fill out an online form, share their contact details, or buy a product, they expect it to be kept private. Those details slipping into the wrong person's hands could be damaging to your reputation and expose you to legal risks. Having full trust in how your website provider protects that information is really important.
We’ve seen reports of websites created with AI website builders exposing private information, including a New Zealand pharmacy’s website that left patients’ messages publicly accessible. It’s a reminder that security needs care and attention, even after your website goes live.
At Rocketspark, we take security very seriously and implement ongoing security updates. You can learn more about Rocketspark security here.
5. What spam protection is built in?
It can be disheartening if you get a new customer lead, but it turns out to be spam. A strong website platform should have tools working behind the scenes to reduce spam enquiries. On top of the infrastructure at Rocketspark that does the heavy lifting for you, there is also the reCAPTCHA tool that you can enable for double spam protection.
It’s worth checking what spam protection your website provider has working behind the scenes.
6. Are the ongoing costs clear upfront?
On the surface, some AI website builders can look really free or affordable. However, what people usually don’t see until they are locked in are the additional costs that aren’t obvious upfront. You are then prompted to pay for more AI usage to continue with your website design, or wait longer for a refresh, which is inconvenient if you want to publish your website.
At Rocketspark, you can choose a monthly or annual website subscription. We’re upfront about the costs and what’s included, so you can budget with confidence.
7. How is your website hosted for speed and reliability?
If you run a local business, you’ll want customers to find you online and your website to load fast. Where and how your website is hosted can play a part in how quickly it loads for your customers, so it’s worth understanding how your provider handles website performance. Learn more about the importance of server location for your website.
At Rocketspark, we offer four different servers which are, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
8. What happens if the AI service you rely on goes offline?
If a website relies heavily on an AI service to build or edit it, it’s worth knowing what happens if that service becomes unavailable. Can you still edit your website? Will your live website keep running? And is your website content safely backed up if something goes wrong?
At Rocketspark, the important stuff like your website hosting and backups is taken care of as part of the platform. Your website content is automatically backed up, with accidentally deleted content able to be recovered. We also monitor websites every 60 seconds so any downtime can be picked up quickly.
9. Who takes care of ongoing website maintenance?
Publishing your website isn’t the end of the work behind the scenes. Browsers change, security requirements update, and the technology that websites rely on keeps moving too. It’s worth asking who is responsible for keeping everything up to date over time. And if it all turns pear-shaped and technical, who do you call?
With a website platform like Rocketspark, this work will happen in the background, so you can focus on your business rather than maintaining your website technology.
10. Can search engines understand your website properly?
A lot of what helps your website get found isn’t something you can see on the page. Things like page titles, descriptions, structured data, sitemaps and the way your website is built all help search engines understand your business and what each page is about.
At Rocketspark, a lot of those foundations are built into the platform. Your sitemap is automatically created and updated, you can manage your SEO metadata, and business schema helps Google and AI tools better understand what your business does. Learn about the content that AI search rewards.
A strong website platform, with AI when you want it
The hidden cost of these can lead to headaches you didn’t expect. So it's worth asking what your website platform is taking care of behind the scenes to give your website strong foundations for being found online.
At Rocketspark, you have the flexibility to build and manage your website in the way that works for you. The strong foundations underneath your website, like hosting, security, backups, forms, and ongoing updates, are already taken care of as part of the platform.
For those who do choose to use AI, there are options available too. Flint can help with things like creating page content, writing blog posts and improving wording. You can then jump back into the editor and keep refining everything yourself.
You can also bring ideas created in AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT into Rocketspark, whether that’s content, design inspiration or custom widgets and code.
The important part is that AI is an option, rather than something your website depends on. The strong website platform underneath it stays the same either way.
Website designers matter more than ever
When a website can be created in minutes, having a website that actually feels like your business becomes even more important.
This is where a website designer can make a huge difference.
A good designer gets to know your business, your customers and what makes you different. They can take that personality and bring it through your colours, imagery, layout, content and all the little details that make someone stop, look around and remember you.
AI can still play a useful part in that process. It might help get ideas flowing, create a starting point or speed up some of the jobs behind the scenes.
AI and human creativity can work hand in hand.
The important part is having the flexibility to take what AI gives you and keep refining it. Move things around, change the design, add your own personality and make it genuinely feel like your business, without being limited to what can be changed through a prompt.
With a website designer who understands your business and a strong platform underneath it, you’ve got a pretty powerful combination.
If you’d like a hand creating a website that feels uniquely yours, Rocketspark can match you with a website designer who can bring it to life. Learn more about Rocketspark website designers here.
What sits below the waterline matters
AI can make parts of creating a website quicker and easier. But when you’re choosing where your business will live online, there’s more to think about than what you can see on the page.
Reliable enquiries, security, hosting, spam protection, human support, flexible editing, ongoing updates and clear costs are all working below the surface. They might not be the exciting parts of building a website, but they’re the things you should be able to trust are being taken care of without having to worry about them every day.
So whether AI is part of how you build your website or not, make sure you feel confident in the platform underneath it. Your website should be something you’re proud to send customers to, with a solid foundation behind it that lets you get back to doing what you do best.
A beautiful website is important. A beautiful website built on a platform you trust is even better.
