Blog Articles

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...

Rocketspark ‘likes’ Social Media: Maximise your online marketing when your website & social media platforms work well together

We’ve all heard of a social media influencer making a living from their social media pages. Delve a little deeper and you’re likely to find that a lot of influencers have websites too. Having a great website is a good way to establish credibility for your brand as you currently have more control over design, colour, content, layout, format, and call-to-action links with a website than you do on social media. It's also a good way to build your presence in search results with SEO ...

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-f...

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 ...

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

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 tryin...

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 a...

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...

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...

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...

Meet our summer student interns from the University of Waikato

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

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. ...

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

The Rocketspark Ecosystem — Part 1: Find more clients

The Rocketspark Ecosystem — Part 2: Find a designer

Key steps for a search friendly website launch

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...

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

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 ov...

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 co...

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.

Add-ons: A great way to get more out of your online store

Maybe you’re one of those people who likes to trick out your car so it can go super-fast. Or perhaps when you buy an airfare, you always make sure you pay for extra legroom. Or maybe when you book a resort holiday, you like to get the deluxe package. Sometimes we don’t want to settle for the bare minimum; we want to add on to what we buy. In the website biz, we call these add-ons: third-party software that you can “add on” to your Rocketspark online store to get even ...

Waipa Business Awards - Celebrating Client Success

It’s unusual for a globally focussed technology business to have it’s HQ in a small town. Despite having clients in over 20 countries, we find that getting it right at home in our local community is important for taking Rocketspark to the world. Last Friday night we attended the Waipa Business Excellence Awards dinner at Mystery Creek as finalists in the Best Customer Service Cambridge category. We were also able to celebrate the success of 11 Rocketspark clients and design par...

2018 Rocketspark Partner Awards Winners

Rocketspark has an awesome network of design partners and we recently celebrated their success at our 2018 NZ/AU awards dinner. Our design partners design websites for their clients using the Rocketspark platform. With 8 awards up for grabs, each category was hotly contested making judging a difficult job. Congratulations to all our 2018 winners.

Announcing the finalists of Partner Website of the Year

Rocketspark design partners are a talented bunch and that was more than evident by the standard of entries for our NZ/AU Partner Website of the Year award. Our design partners are designers that use the Rocketspark platform to design and build websites for their clients. We asked them to submit their best Rocketspark website with the winner to be announced at our 2018 Partner Awards dinner. Narrowing it down to 5 finalists was no easy feat and a true testament to the abilities of our network...

Copy & link stacks: a magic carpet for your content

Want to unleash your creativity and save time spent designing a website? Heck yes, you do. So let me introduce you to a brand new Rocketspark feature that’ll maximise visual oomph, yet magically minimise time spent: copy and link stacks.

Get typing: New features to showcase your blog

When we thought about enhancing the Rocketspark Blog, it was a bit of a no-brainer. Blogging is one of the best ways to amplify your marketing, showcase your expertise and get found in Google. But how do you hook readers in and get them falling in love with your content? We’ve just released two new features that are designed for just that.

5 effective web forms built with Rocketspark

Instagram shopping with Rocketspark

Phishing scams: don’t take the bait

Help, my website flunked a speed test!: What to do about page loading times...

New form builder: The tool you need to get the customer information you want

Customers are a mysterious bunch, especially online. Google Analytics can tell you when a would-be customer visits your site and a few other statistical tidbits about them—but wouldn’t you love to know more? Like what their enquiry is about?...Or what they really thought about your customer service?...Or if you can add them to your newsletter database? The more intel you can get from your site visitors, the better you can serve them. A good webform builder, therefore, is a remar...

Cambridge Seminar Series

We're teaming up with the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce NZ to run a Seminar Series. The 6 workshop series over 12 weeks will give businesses all the tools needed to be successful in the digital space. Check out the different sessions below.

Rocketspark, an alternative to Business Catalyst: How we can help you survive the closing down of Adobe Business Catalyst and Adobe Muse

Sell more, stress less: How we’ve streamlined your online shop

More intelligent stack-specific control

We've introduced significant improvements to the way stack-specific design controls get applied when you're designing. Check out the video for a full run down.

Announcing the winner of a free website at Accounting Business Expo

We had a great time at Accounting Business Expo in Sydney. We love seeing the look on someones face when the penny drops just how much easier their website would be to manage if they moved to Rocketspark.

Brewing success: MyCoffeeCapsules online retail thrives without the risk

It was that first “PING!” that did it. It was a notification announcing his first online sale, and Steve Lewis of MyCoffeeCapsules has been hooked on online retail ever since. He knew his new venture was going to need a website platform that could help turn his idea into a reality, which is why he chose Rocketspark. Now he sells thousands of Caffesso capsules (Nespresso-compatible coffee pods) a week without even having to leave the house.

5 reasons Rocketspark is going to Accounting Business Expo in Sydney

Rocketspark is a beautifully simple website builder and ecommerce software for non-techie business owners. Accounting Business Expo is Australia’s largest annual business event and is a great place to learn about the latest business technology and strategies that can help you optimise your business and prepare it for the future.

Zippay now connects with Rocketspark Ecommerce in Australia for buy now pay later

New-school buy now, pay later systems are really shaking up the world of ecommerce and this month we launched our integration with Australian payment system Zippay to do just that. In August 2017 we launched an integration with New Zealand buy now pay later platform Laybuy and for Rocketspark stores that have started offering Laybuy payments, they’ve seen really good uplifts in average order value. It is early days for our integration with Zippay but we’re hoping to see similar r...

Add page redirects inside your Dashboard

Page redirects are a clever way to redirect a web page visitor from one URL (web address) to another—the visitor goes to one URL and then get automatically sent to another URL so they don’t actually view the page of the original URL. There’s quite a few different scenarios why you might want to use this feature but now you can set them up yourself inside your Dashboard.

Vend POS - import products from a specific tag

Rocketspark Ecommerce first integrated with Vend Point-of-Sale software to help retailers sell in-store and online back in 2014 and now we’ve launched an upgrade to the way you can import products from Vend to Rocketspark.

More ecommerce control inside your Dashboard

This month we’ve launched a swathe of new ecommerce controls, right in the Dashboard of your store. As Rocketspark evolves into a more powerful Ecommerce Software suite, more control and flexibility is put in the hands of store owners to increase sales and store management efficiency. The thing we’ve learnt is that every store is different and there’s no one-size-fits-all—sometimes things need to be different between stores. Over the years we have offered Ecommerce cu...

An all new colour picker

New features: Customer Accounts done the right way—better for buyers, better for you

How to create a new version of my website?

With Rocketspark there are always little changes and adjustments You may come to the point where you have had your Rocketspark for a little while, and you want to give it a redesign but don’t want your live website to be in a “half redesigned” state. The best way to do this is to create a new 30 day trial with Rocketspark to try things out and then implement this new design onto your existing website when you have the new design worked out. The other option is to use one of...

Staff Profile: Fei Guo

Five years ago when I finished college life in China, I dreamed of travelling around the world, finding a nice place to live and dedicating myself to a career that I truly love. Luckily, my dream gradually took shape after I came to New Zealand. I’m now settling in a chic small town, working in a close-knit team that is full of brainstorming for fast iterative products and with a typical kiwi culture identified by peals of laughter every day. I am Fei, a native Beijing girl born and gr...

Making Google Shopping easy with Rocketspark

Google Shopping is available as a paid advertising service from Google that promotes products from your online store in Google search results. For the online shopper, Google Shopping is a section on Google where you can browse for items that are for sale.

New features for coupons, promo discounts and picking up in-store

We are continuously developing the Rocketspark platform and a key focus at present is the development of new features to help our ecommerce clients generate more business — and to streamline the operational side of things so that their business can scale well. Two recent examples of this focus were the launches of Laybuy and GoSweetSpot integrations and now we’ve just launched a new set of features to help with running specials with discounted pricing and collecting an order fro...

Streamlined shipping to save time & money with GoSweetSpot and Rocketspark

At Rocketspark we get genuine enjoyment from seeing businesses launch and grow. A common theme amongst clients as they grow is how to scale well and minimise their operational admin time and run more efficiently. We see this efficiency theme particularly amongst our ecommerce clients.

Connect your Rocketspark ecommerce website with Laybuy to offer buy now and pay later

We’re continuously developing the Rocketspark platform to help clients be more successful online and we’re excited to tell you about a new feature we’ve just launched for our New Zealand based ecommerce customers. Update November 2018: Laybuy is now available to merchants in Australia and the United Kingdom as well as New Zealand.

Website Builder for Graphic Designers

A new suite of design tools for the most important part of your page

The top section of any web page is key real estate and is critical to creating a great first impression on your website. Most modern home pages consist of a logo, navigation menu, main heading and large photo—without having to scroll down to see them (not that scrolling is bad, it’s just good to get the important stuff near the top). Arranging this combination of elements in a beautiful way without scrolling, can require some fine tuning to get it juuuust right. That’s why...

How to switch from being a print only graphic designer to also selling websites? - Part 2

How to switch from being a print only graphic designer to also selling websites?

With the way design is heading, as a print designer you’ve probably been asked about designing websites for your clients. This can often be met with trepidation from print designers — you know about good design but getting into the realm of code, different screen sizes, domain names and IT issues is just not what you signed up for. There are a lot of good reasons to start building websites — and you can avoid the code and techy stuff. There’s even ways to dip your...

Fully responsive websites at every screen size — now on Rocketspark

The history of mobile-friendly websites and responsive web design

To fully understand why Rocketspark now offers full Responsive Web Design, it’s helpful to understand the history of mobile-friendly websites and what’s brought us to this point.

What is domain privacy and why would I need it?

When a domain name is purchased, the details you entered are added to the domain as an administrative contact. This information is then searchable by the public via a domain look up.

New feature for accountants and bookkeepers — the Xero Stack

We’ve used Xero’s accounting software for some time in our business and it’s really easy to use but sometimes it’s useful to get a little extra help. Xero have created a lot of training content to help you get started with using their software. Many accountants and bookkeepers recognise the value of providing this training content on their own website so that clients are drawn back to the firm’s website for help. By providing the training content on your own...

Virgin Startup Podcast Competition

“A little bird tweeted me”: how a website will boost your business’s word-of-mouth buzz

No, you can’t identify individual visitors to your website (but here’s 4 things you can do instead)

Enabling SSL: How not to scare away security-conscious customers

New Feature: Stack Background Images

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's true, then you’ll love our new stack background image design feature. You can now add impressive full width pictures to specific sections of your pages, giving your designs a whole new level of customisation and sophistication.

How to start a graphic design business? - Part 3: How do I get more business?

Now that you have everything ready to go to run your business, you need some great businesses and clients to work with. But how do you find them. First things first, get a website set up. People are checking businesses out online before they do anything else and you need to make sure if people try to find you, they can. Sort out your social media at the same time. A Facebook page, Instagram feed and a Linkedin account adds credibility and makes you easy to find on any platform. Depending on ...

How to start a graphic design business? - Part 2: What software tools should I use for my design business?

Once you have established what services to offer, you need to look at the specific tools to use to help run the business. Choosing tools that can grow with you, are best in class and that work together can really help with your efficiency. Having started out as a small design business to now being a fast growing business with a quickly growing team, we have some experience in the best tools to use for various parts of the business. We’re happy to share our thoughts!

How to start a graphic design business? - Part 1

Starting your own graphic design business can be a daunting task. Where to begin?? What services do you want to offer? What tools do I use? How do I find new business and what do I charge? Setting the foundations of your new graphic design business up correctly will make sure you have the ability to grow quickly and efficiently. Rocketspark’s early foundations were a graphic design business and website builder grew up out of our experience of creating websites for our design clients. ...

On-page SEO: The secret ingredient to boosting your Google rankings

New Features: Domain Management, Copy Pages, Menu Design and more

Rocket-Santa has delivered a stocking full of new features this December, just in time for Christmas. So why not rip open the wrapping paper a little bit early and make the most of these features before the holiday season.

New features for Rocketspark Design Partners

Christmas is a great time of giving and receiving gifts and eating tasty treats. While not as tasty as a box of scorched almonds, we’re pleased to announce a bundle of new features as we close out 2016 and head towards 2017. We’ve received great feedback from design partners on feature requests throughout the year and the latest set of features will really help designers create sites faster and with more design control than ever.

Tools that Rocketspark uses for website design and build packages

This post has been updated, please see the latest version here >As our design partners add more clients to their Rocketspark Design Studio, they need 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.

Australian Graphic Designers needed

Using someone else’s words, pictures and videos on your website

How a good Aussie yarn can improve your website

Australians love (and spin) a good yarn. Epic tales have been told across this vast land for millennia, from the Dreamtime stories of the Aboriginal people of Australia to the bush ballads of Banjo Patterson to the movies of Peter Weir.

You can write your website copy: mastering the structure, style and process of web writing

It’s a funny thing, writing. Thanks to compulsory education and the invention of a movable-type printing press, most of us can do it. If you’re reading this, chances are you can string together enough words to form a semi-coherent email or scribble a few well wishes on a birthday card. So why is writing website content so darn hard?

New Features: Edit the design of specific stacks

Now you can edit the design of a specific stack and all of the content inside it to create a different looks down your page. There are endless ways this can be used to help improve the design of a website and it helps break up content, instead of your whole page having the same background colour and content styling. Check out the specific features below and get thinking of how you can use this on your own Rocketspark website.

Waipa Business Awards: Rocketspark clients in the business of winning

Nothing inspires us at Rocketspark like our clients. Why? Because they’re a bunch of winners—officially! Following on from the success of our client Rob May Builders in taking out the supreme award last year, a huge number of our clients were recognised at this year’s Waipa Networks Business Awards. The Awards, put on by the Cambridge, Te Awamutu and Raglan Chambers of Commerce, honour the best businesses in the Waipa and Raglan regions in our home base in New Zealand. Long...

Making cool buttons with the Rocketspark picture block

If you’ve read many of our other posts you’ll know that have a good call to action button is a key part of any website journey. The Rocketspark picture block is beautifully simple to use but it also has a great range of design settings, so you can create great looking picture buttons with overlaid text and nice hover effects that add a little sophistication to your website.. In this blog post we’re going to showcase some of the real Rocketspark customers that are using uni...

Picture this: how quality images make for a better website

Remember when connecting to the internet sounded like R2D2 getting a colonoscopy (beeeep-teeeeek-shhhhhhhh-zhzhzhzhz)? That was the bad ol’ days of dial-up, when loading images on a webpage took foreeeeeeeeever. Thankfully, with super-speedy internet connections nowadays, we can get images quickly (and get our unboxing videos at lightning speed—phew!). That’s why users want images with their web experience. Scratch that; users expect images. But not just any sort of images ...

Size matters: Make your homepage long, not short

We are the ADD generation. If we want political news, we’ll take it in 9-second soundbites. When a celebrity dies, we expect our eulogies in 140-character tweets. And reading a book?? Well, TL;DR. Which makes it all the more surprising that, when it comes to page length, longer is better. I know you just got distracted by that Facebook ping that just came in, so let me say it again: when it comes to page length, longer is better.

Tourism website design best practice with Rocketspark and Waikato River Trails

The Waikato River Trails are a 103km cycle trail along the edge of New Zealand’s longest river. The trails officially opened in 2011 and since then thousands of people have run, biked, walked and raced the trail’s remote (but never too far from a cafe) riverside terrain. Despite having spectacular scenery and being a short drive from major centres and tourism attractions like Hobbiton, The Blue Spring and Rotorua, the Waikato River Trails are still a somewhat undiscovered touri...

New Features: More font, size and colour options—and a whole new engine under the hood

Accountant & bookkeeper websites best practice guide

You're accounting professionals—but does your website show that? Does it clearly communicate what you offer and convert visitors into leads?

Bookkeeper websites | best practice guide

So, you’re a qualified bookkeeper, a proven performer in the industry. Does your website convey that? Does it clearly communicate the professional standard you offer? And, most importantly, does it convert your website visitors into leads and new clients? Here’s a few things to think about to make your website work hard for you. The world of websites can be a challenge but if you do the basics well you can set yourself apart from the crowd with a great website. In this guide we ...

Why are Testimonials Important on a bookkeeper website?​​

Why your “About Us” page is so important

Why growing your online business reputation is critical for sales & overall growth

This post has been written by Ryan Haidinger from Trustspot. Trustspot is a Rocketspark add-on for ecommerce website owners where you can set up an exit survey for your customers after they make a purchase from your ecommerce website. When it comes to growing your business, sometimes the easiest ways to increase sales are often overlooked by more cumbersome solutions – which end up costing you a lot of time and money, which can better be spent elsewhere. Simply by googling “ways ...

How to make your bookkeeping website rank highly in search engines

Have you ever wondered how to get your website ranking number one in the search results when somebody searches for bookkeepers on Google? There’s no failsafe way to get that coveted top spot, but there are lots of methods for trying to get your website to rank highly in search results. Souping up your website so that it ranks well is called search engine optimisation (SEO). It’s a massive topic and can quickly become overwhelming. But, since most small businesses don’t do a...

Rocketspark Graphic Designer SEO Support

You might’ve heard of search engine optimisation (“SEO” for short)—but what is it? SEO is about getting more people to your website by being able to find you easily in search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. The aim of the game is to optimise your site so that it ranks well—ideally high up on page one—for relevant search results, so that ultimately people click through to your website. We have created some helpful guides and blogs that will help you to ...

How to make a great contact us page on your website

Visitors will arrive at your site. Hopefully they visit some other pages on your site. Then if they like what they’ve seen, they will either want to buy from you (if you’re an online shop) or if you’re a service business, they will want to get in contact with you. Contact us pages for online shops are still important, as it gives potential buyers an avenue to ask you questions in case there’s something they want to know before buying.

Rocketspark Graphic Designers e-commerce Support

Setting up an online shop with Rocketspark is a straightforward and inexpensive way of boosting a business. Using our website builder you can create a online shop that allows users to search for products, select categories, filters and brands and look at related products. We have a host of different payment gateways that you can use that are really easy to setup and manage. We’ve written a e-commerce book to help you get to grips with online retail and setting up an online store with...

SEO health check – Is your website getting found in Google?

If your website has been up and running for a couple of months or more, an SEO health check is a good idea (search engine optimisation – the process of optimising your website for search engines like Google). Take a step back and see how your website is performing in Google and how much traffic you're getting to your website. If you're only getting a handful of visits each day or less, you might have a SEO problem! If you're new to SEO, check out our SEO Basics series first. To measure...

Xerocon London 2016 Wrap up blog

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, when you tell most people you’ve been to an accounting conference they look at you like you’ve just arrived back from planet boring. The reality is that Xerocon is genuinely fun to be be at. We've prepared a blog post to share a little of what we learnt and highlight the popular topics we helped Xero parters with.

Who uses Rocketspark? Video interviews from Xerocon London 2016

At Xerocon London 2016 it was great to connect with a number of accountants, bookkeepers and partners who are using Rocketspark for their own site or have clients using Rocketspark. We asked them to share their thoughts on Xerocon and Rocketspark. .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 1...

26 new font families added to Rocketspark

Beautiful fonts are key to good design and that's why we've curated and added a list of 26 new font families to the Rocketspark website builder – thanks to Adobe Typekit, who supply all of our fonts. Most of the font families we've chosen to add also have a range of different weights, giving you the spectrum of font weights from really light to really bold. View the full list of new font families below.

How to add season's greetings to your Rocketspark website

New Rocketspark social media features

Social media features have been some of Rocketspark’s most requested features in 2015. In particular, the ability to connect your website with Instagram and to customise the style of your social icons to beautifully match the look and feel of the rest of your website design. Using social media is now vitally important to the success of many of our client’s businesses – so we got to work on a bunch of new features.

Staff Profile: Hilly Goodwin

Call us on the phone and there's a good chance you'll be greeted by an American accent. No, we haven’t outsourced our customer support; you’ve just “met” our customer service all-star (and token American), Hilly Goodwin. These days, she considers herself half-Kiwi, having lived in New Zealand on and off most of her adult life. But, ironically, it was while stateside that she landed her job at Rocketspark. After four years living in Los Angeles, she, her Kiwi husband a...

Email Marketing for E-Commerce

This post is a chapter from our e-book Getting Started With E-Commerce – The Beginner's Guide to Starting an Online Shop.Download your own free copy to learn how to start an online shop

Social media for ecommerce – how to build a following

This post is a chapter from our e-book Getting Started With E-Commerce – The Beginner's Guide to Starting an Online Shop.Download your own free copy to learn how to start an online shop

4 things to think about before you start an online shop

This post is a chapter from our e-book Getting Started With E-Commerce – The Beginner's Guide to Starting an Online Shop.Download your own free copy to learn how to start an online shop

New Staff Profile: Sam Trimmer - UK Account Manager

We love our new account manager (for the UK), Sam Trimmer. It’s a steep learning curve joining an upstart startup where things develop at breakneck speed. But Sam, well, he just keeps calm and carries on.

Long-tail SEO - Part 2: How to find and write to your keywords

Jeff Bezos built Amazon into a retail behemoth on the power of the long tail. And by applying long-tail principles to your SEO, you too could turn your own little website into something big; maybe not Amazon-big—but still big! (What is long-tail SEO? Check out Part 1 of this blog series to find out.) So, how do you actually do long-tail SEO? Think of it in two steps:

Long-tail SEO - Part 1: What Amazon can teach you about search rankings

Amazon.com just turned 20 years old. That’s right—the Little E-tailer That Could is now officially an adult. After going live on July 16, 1995, Amazon rapidly grew into the king colossus of online retail, and the secret fuelling its two-decade reign could boost your website’s search rankings. The genius of Amazon, or at least part of it, is that it turns conventional business wisdom on its head. Instead of trying to sell massive amounts of a small number of products, it rel...

Rocketspark at Xero Summer Camp Webinar

Xero have invited us to present at their Xero Summer Camp. I’ll be demonstrating how easy it is for small business owners to make their own website and harness the benefits of Xero and other Xero add ons on a Rocketspark website. We’ll build a website during the webinar and while building the website I’ll explain 5 essentials of an effective website home page. To bring the webinar to life we'll do this webinar with a real life business example. Enter your det...

The little town that could...

Most of us would have read "The Little Engine That Could" as children. The small locomotive saying “I think I can, I think I can…” and eventually making it over the mountain. Even at a young age, the idea of the underdog succeeding resonates with us. With five of the Rocketspark team living in the small New Zealand town of Cambridge (population 18,750), we have a strong bond with this little town that could. Cambridge has a track record of punching above its weight. ...

Staff Profile: Harvey Kane

Every team needs a veteran. That’s why developer extraordinaire Harvey Kane is a major asset to the Rocketspark crew. His vast experience and serious skill mean that, when looking at a big job, Harvey knows how to get ‘er done. Harvey’s first contact with Rocketspark came when he answered a message we posted on a developers’ forum. It was an SOS call for help with a project using Concrete5—a content management system that he happens to be pretty handy at. We out...

5 Point Website Health Check

Put colours, fonts and design aesthetic to the side initially. Website first impressions are important but start by focussing on things that can be easily measured and aren’t subjective. That’s the fastest way to check if something’s not right with your website. Here’s our 5 point website health check as a starting point.

Staff Profile Greg Wallace

Rocketspark Integrates with eWay and Stripe payment gateways

At Rocketspark we have been hard at work putting together our latest feature set. This time it's more payment gateway options for our online shops. Our latest additions includes eWay and Stripe. It's also possible now to have more than one payment gateway connected to your online shop. So you can have Payment Express and Paypal enabled as well and let your customers decide which payment gateway they would like to use. We show these options in a tidy popup at the final step of the checkout pr...

Introducing the all new Rocketspark picture editor

The new picture editor is now live for all Rocketspark customers and trial users. Now you can edit all of your pictures directly on your website, without the need for graphic design software – then see how it looks in real-time on your page. The video above gives a 2 minute overview of the new picture editor but for a full list of what's included, keep reading.

Accountants: Should you talk to clients about their website?

Should accountants talk to their clients about their website? We get it, you’re not marketers, you’re not designers, you’re not web experts – so why should you talk to clients about their website? Poorly performing websites can be like a handbrake for the financial performance of a business and if you really want your client to succeed financially, an effective website is an important piece of the puzzle.

How many people are visiting my website from their smart phone?

The proportion of people visiting websites on their smart phone is increasing quickly and looks to continue upwards. For some Rocketspark customers this is more than 30% of their total website traffic. Do you know what proportion of your website traffic are visiting on a smart phone? If your website is connected up with Google Analytics, it's easy to find. First, log in to Google Analytics. Once logged in, open the Audience tab and click Mobile. Then you can see website traffic broken do...

Want to relive Xerocon Auckland or wish you were there?

Rocketspark @ Xerocon 2015: What’s a website builder doing at an accounting conference?

How to build your own website using a DIY website builder in 7 steps

So, you want to build your own website but you don’t know how? DIY website builders exist to allow folks like you—the non-technical, non-professional hoi polloi—to go solo in creating a decent website. But if you’ve never done it before, the prospect and the process can still seem complicated and overwhelming.

First impressions matter: why your website should appeal to Capt. Kirk, not Spock

How long does it take for someone to decide they like—or don’t like—your website? 50 milliseconds. That’s 0.05 seconds. 1/20th of a second. Faster than the blink of an eye. That’s what researchers at Carleton University (Canada) found when asking volunteers to rate websites after being given split-second glimpses. In other words, experiments have shown researchers what painful experience has already taught every goofy metal-mouthed, four-eyed teenager with a cru...

Bringing a little Rocketspark to Xerocon London

We’re really looking forward to joining Xero again at their flagship event, Xerocon. I bet if you told too many people you were looking forward to a conference about accounting software you may get a few strange looks but Xerocon is a genuinely fun, interesting and worthwhile event.

Which design package is best for me? Startup or Professional?

At Rocketspark, we love it when people design and build their own websites using our super easy website builder but we do get people who want us to design and build them something a little more custom or who are too busy to do it themselves. In these cases, we have design packages that will cater to most businesses in need of a new website. The question is, “which is the right package for my business”? In a nutshell, the main difference between the packages is the level of design...

SEO Guide

We’ve written a fair amount on the subject of SEO and all things related. So, we thought we’d put these all together in one easy to find place.

Web video: why it matters, when it works and how to do it

Chances are, you’ve watched an online video today. According to Digital Sherpa, the average internet user watches 32.2 videos per month—more than one a day. In fact, one-third of all internet activity is video viewing. The internet is becoming—nay, has become—a videographic medium. Is your website keeping pace? Creating videos for your business’s website might sound like a lot of work and, admittedly, video production takes more time/money than simply writing so...

The new Rocketspark website builder is here

We’ve got some exciting news: we’ve just launched a brand-new version of our website builder and we think it’s pretty cool. Now you—yes, you—can create a DIY website that is drop-dead gorgeous. In response to extensive customer feedback, this update: introduces sleek, designer templates (phwoar!), allows you to tweak and customise a lot (hubba-hubba!), and showcases stunning images (ah-oooo-gah!). We’ve always been about beautifully simple websites...

Website builder update: 5 big ways we’ve improved it (in-depth)

The importance of a logo for your business. Why do you need one?

What is a logo? A logo is a combination of text and visual imagery that serves two purposes. It tells people the name of the company and it creates a visual symbol that represents your business. Some logos have powerful symbolic association connected to people’s memory. For example, the McDonalds golden arches are so familiar that they no longer need the text “McDonalds” for you to recognise that that symbol represents McDonalds.

Blogging for business: 8 principles for writing a blog that gets more web traffic

One of the hottest—and in our experience, most effective—marketing strategies for your business website is writing a blog. That’s why we highlight to our customers the importance of having a blog. And yet, for many people, writing a blog is a daunting prospect. I mean, where do you start?? Here. You start here. That’s because, in this blog post, we’ll teach you how to write a blog—one that generates more traffic for your website.

Link Building for Dummies - Part 3: Create Your Own Backlinks

Asking others for links—the subject of our second post in this series—may well work, but it puts you at the mercy of webmasters who, frankly, may not give two hoots about your link building efforts. But there are ways where you can take matters into your own hands and do the backlinking yourself. The way to do this is to get out there on the web, creating content for other websites and then linking back, carefully and strategically, to your site.

Link Building for Dummies - Part 2: Natural Link Building

Sure, link building may important but that doesn’t mean it’s only for professionals. With a little time investment, you can start link building yourself. In our first post we looked at the “what” of link building; in this post we’re concentrating on the “how”.

Link Building for Dummies - Part 1: What is it?

So you’ve got a website—great—but how do people get there? Digital marketers Conductor recently found that, if your website is like most, close to 64% of your website visitors get there via “organic” search engine results (as opposed to paid search results). So while some people will get there by clicking on a link and others will get there by typing your web address directly into their web browser, the majority come via Google and similar sites. No surprise the...

How do I get a .nz domain name? Can I get a .nz domain name?

.nz domain names have just become an option in New Zealand. Unlike .co.nz, .net.nz etc it is a shorter extension like rocketspark.nz rather than rocketspark.co.nz.

Mr Ralph - Online shop ecommerce testimonial

I needed an affordable and intuitive website solution and I found the perfect partner in Rocketspark. Rocketspark gave me amazing support and service from the very beginning, they understand the New Zealand market and can add tremendous value to your go to market strategy. The functionality of the DIY site was the easiest and most simple software to learn and I love how easy it is to update. My customers give me great feedback about how easy it is to navigate my site and about how attract...

Rocketspark is 5 years old

Five years is a great milestone for a business. There’s still plenty to do so we’re not getting too sentimental but we thought you may find some of our key learnings to date interesting and possibly even helpful in your own ventures.

Going to the Spring Gift Fair (we’re fairly excited)

We’re packing our bags and hitting the road—off to the NZ Spring Gift and Homeware Fair in Auckland. And if you’re a gifts retailer, we reckon you should come too.

New features: Online Shop Revamped

At Rocketspark, we love easy. Until now the online shop available to our customers has been really easy to use, but also really basic. We think it’s time we gave the shop a visual upgrade, so we’ve given the old store a major overhaul. Our design team has been hard at it, logging significant hours of research, analysing the strengths and weaknesses of literally hundreds of the web’s leading e-commerce sites. We’ve distilled all the best stuff and put it into the overh...

Use a Business-Domain Email Address (Not a Generic One)

Is your email address driving away customers? It may seem innocuous and trivial but if your email address looks unprofessional, you could be losing customers. And you won’t even know it, because they won’t have contacted you in the first place.

Rocketspark’s hosting: how we keep your data safe

Updated Jul 2023

Built-in SEO: How Canonical URL Helps You Rank Higher Without You Even Trying

Getting noticed in Google is tricky business. Turbo-boosting your website so that it ranks highly in search engines is called search engine optimisation (SEO), and a lot of us can find SEO pretty daunting. Ranking well in search engines takes time and effort but we aim to provide many built-in SEO features to make sure you have a great foundation for your SEO efforts. Even if you never lift a finger, at least you know that some stuff is taken care of automatically. Take, for instance, a littl...

Why Your Buttons Should Have Just One Line of Text

Read this. See? It worked. A short, snappy instruction and you followed it. You’re now reading this blog post. There are some imperatives we really want our website visitors to follow through on. For those things, we use buttons. A button isn’t just a link; it’s a flashy, shapely, alluring link that mellifluously whispers “click me”. Like this:

New Feature: Event Tracking in Google Analytics

Are you on board with Google Analytics yet? No? Believe us: it’s totally worth checking out. It’s a great web analytics tool. Rocketspark customers can use it to get detailed data on how visitors are using the site. To find out what you’re missing, take a gander at our introduction to Google Analytics. Yes? Good news! We’ve added event tracking to the already-impressive range of Analytics’ capabilities available to Rocketspark clients. If you’re serious abo...

WordPress vs. Rocketspark CMS

It’s the battle of the platforms. Two contenders will duke it out to see who reigns supreme as the best content management system (CMS). In the red corner: WordPress. In the blue corner: Rocketspark. Let’s get ready to rumble!

Favicon: What It Is and How to Create One

Favicon. The word sounds faintly like emoticon or bestie, something from a world inhabited by giggly teenagers texting their BFFs (“u r my most favicon lol!!!! xx”). But it’s not. A favicon is actually a handy little feature for your website. And we do mean little.

New Feature: Lightspeed Point-of-Sale Integration

Fish & chips. Jeans & t-shirt. Kate & Wills. Some things are better together. And we think Rocketspark & Lightspeed is set to become another great combo. Our brand new integration with Lightspeed point-of-sale software allows you to combine your online and in-store sales into one streamlined system.

What is Google Analytics?

Ever wished you could watch over a customer’s shoulder while they use your website? Well, you can (without being creepy about it). It’s called Google Analytics, an extremely powerful tool that collects and organises statistics about visitors’ usage of your website. It’s a bit like the book/film Moneyball. It’s about how one of Major League Baseball’s dud teams became one of the best. How? Statistics. Traditionally, baseball teams relied on a lot of guesswo...

SEO Basics (Part 3): How to do SEO to get higher search rankings?

You’ve learnt what Rocketspark can do you for your search engine optimisation (SEO) in part 2—now it’s over to you! In this final post in our three-post blog series about SEO, we’ll be showing you how to do SEO yourself. Here’s a few tricks of the trade, so that your site ranks well in Google.

SEO Basics (Part 2): How Rocketspark helps you rank higher

So now that you know what search engine optimisation (SEO) is (see SEO Basics Part 1: What is SEO - can I do my own SEO), it’s time to look at the finer details of how SEO actually functions. In the second in this three-post series, we’re looking at how Rocketspark can help you with your website’s SEO. SEO can be a lot of work. But if your web platform has the right technical foundations, you have a big head start because a lot of the initial hard work has already been done...

SEO Basics (Part 1): What is SEO? Can I do my own SEO?

You might’ve heard of search engine optimisation (“SEO” for short)—but what is it? SEO is about getting more people to your website by being able to find you easily in search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. The aim of the game is to optimise your site so that it ranks well—ideally high up on page one—for relevant search results, so that ultimately people click through to your website. This is part one of a three-part series of blog posts introducing t...

Rocketspark + Vend: big business tools for small businesses

Our new integration with Vend is an exciting development—something that can help even small businesses keep up with the latest cutting-edge methods used in big business. Prior to starting Rocketspark with my co-founders, I undertook a variety of marketing roles over a 13-year period. My roles were typically in large corporates and during these years in marketing I’ve seen an interesting evolution in the role websites play in big business.

What web browsers are supported?

So you like vintage. Your vintage tee, vintage bike, vintage Polaroid—all very cool. But your vintage browser might just be giving you a bit too much trouble. Most web browsers will work great with your Rocketspark website, but occasionally old browsers will run into problems. (If you already know what a browser and browser compatibility is, you might like to skip down to the section, “What browsers does Rocketspark support?”)

Don’t buy your own domain name—get your web company to do it for you

You’re lying in bed one night when it hits you: the perfect name for your new business.* The next morning you’re up bright and early, registering your brilliant idea as a domain name...You don’t want someone else to snap it up, right? Easy, tiger. Like Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch, Romeo off-ing himself without checking Juliet’s pulse, or Mussolini trying to look tough by invading Greece (cos, hey, why not?), this is one impulsive decision that you might ...

How to get set up on Google Places for Business

Want more customers for zero dollars and just five minutes’ work? (Thought so.) Google Places for Business is an easy way to make sure your business shows up any time someone searches locally for your product or service, putting your location, phone number, and store hours right at their fingertips. Take a looksie at our new support post on how to sign up to Google Places - it’s free and fast.

Get ‘Em Hooked: Why and How to Promote Your Blog on Social Media

Xero user? Online shop? Free website? Join our pilot!

In December 2013 we launched the integration of our online shop integration with Xero. With a few clicks it is now possible to connect a Rocketspark online shop with Xero so that invoices for online sales are automatically created in Xero. Customer records and new products are also automatically created in Xero. Rocketspark has been approved by Xero as an e-commerce add on partner in New Zealand we’re now looking to pilot our Xero add-on functionality in other markets and become an ...

How to lay out an about us page

There’s no doubt that website about us pages are important but what are the tricks of the trade to make sure you’ve got an about us page that gets results?

Why are my photos different sizes? Cropping and resizing photos.

Adding photos to your Rocketspark website is usually a piece of cake. But if you’re finding that the photos on your site are a mish-mash of different sizes and shapes, it probably means you need to crop or resize your pictures. Our new support post shows you just how easy it is to get your photos looking uniform.

How long does it take to appear in Google?

Your new web content won’t show up in any Google search results until it has first been discovered (or indexed) by Google—a process that can take anywhere from just a few hours or several weeks. If you are using a newly registered domain name then you will need to Add your domain name to the Google index.

How to use headings correctly on a website

Using headings correctly is a big deal. Headings on your website are important signposts to Google and different heading types have different weightings of importance. If you get it wrong, it might mean your website ranks lower in Google (and other search engines) than it should. If you think the “big heading” option on your Rocketspark website is just a bigger font size, think again! Check out our new support post how to know which headings you should use on your website.

New Staff Profile: Jordan Foster

Here at Rocketspark we’ve had designs on getting a new designer. (Pun intended.) Which is why we’re chuffed to welcome a brand new designer to the team: Jordan Foster. Jordan comes to us fresh out of doing a graphic design degree at Wintec. His tutor knew we were scouting for somebody with serious design sense and so put him in touch with us. Turns out, we liked him and he liked us. “I just get along with them real well,” says Jordan. “They’re really nice ...

New Staff Profile: Matt Elen

Matt Elen is new to the Rocketspark team. Well, sort of. What began last year as a short-term internship has now evolved into a permanent position. So how did he get sucked into staying? “It’s a cool product,” says Matt. “And it’s a good group of working people with exciting plans for the future—that’s why I stayed.” And we’re mighty glad he did. Despite still just being a whippersnapper, Matt brings a wealth of experience to the role, ha...

“Download File”: When to Avoid It and When to Embrace It

In the Likely Event of an Emergency: 3 Steps to Creating a Data Recovery Plan

We’ve all heard the safety spiel, uttered in preternaturally cheery tones, that begins, “In the unlikely event of an emergency…” Yeah, well, it’s not like that with data loss. Data loss is likely. There’s only one way to have a fire, but there are countless ways to lose your data. Your computer gets stolen in an office break-in. Your laptop smashes to smithereens after you kick the cord. You drop your smartphone in the john. The data just decides to get i...

Rocketspark at Xerocon 2014

As a recent add-on partner to Xero, one of New Zealand's largest accounting software companies with over 250,000 users worldwide, Rocketspark was invited to attend their annual Xerocon in Auckland, February 19-21. This was an opportunity for us to showcase our product to the 900+ accountants in attendance and to meet and share with the other 25 add-on partners.

Welcome to the Party: Social Media for Business (Part 1)

Have you ever given a great sales pitch at a party? Gotten a new customer at a barbecue? Perhaps made a sale pool-side? You probably weren’t there to sell anything—you went to socialise—but at parties people let down their guards and open up. Social media is a party that your business can’t afford to miss. Not convinced? Forbes, citing research by event-promotion company Eventility, reports that a staggering 78% of small businesses get at least a quarter of their new c...

Welcome to the Party: Social Media for Business (Part 2)

Sometimes the best way to do business is to get social. And that’s never been more true than with social media, which is like one big party you don’t want to miss. Previously in this two-part blog series, we looked out how valuable social media can be to your business and gave an overview of the major social media sites for business. In this follow-up post, we look more closely at how to go from social nobody to veritable social butterfly.

Homepage layout ideas and content suggestions

In a previous post we talked about best practice homepages but there are many different homepage layouts you could choose from and still be colouring between the lines of best practise. Every business is different, so the layout of your home page should best represent your business while still nailing best practice. Get all your homepage content ready A good place to start when planning the layout of your homepage is to think about the key information and content you want presented on the h...

Rocketspark’s Free Website Workshop

New feature - Rocketspark online shops now connect with Xero

We started using Xero as our accounting system in early 2012 and prior to that we used an Excel spreadsheet. As a former accountant (just 1 year duration!) I'd learnt a fair bit about Excel spreadsheets and as a cash strapped startup we didn't see the value in splashing out on expensive software that would be tied to one computer. With our Excel accounting method I could create a monthly set of accounts that my co-founders could all access via a spreadsheet saved in dropbox.

Featured Website - Grasshopper Rock

Grasshopper Rock is one of the world’s southernmost vineyards, established in 2003 and dedicated exclusively to pinot noir. Now, we’re no wine experts here at Rocketspark but, when you cast your eye over all those awards and reviews you can’t help but realise that Grasshopper Rock must produce a fantastic drop. Grasshopper Rock wanted a website that reflected their brand image, they could use to sell online and was mobile optimised for the new wave of online viewing.

New feature - All You Want for Christmas is… a Mobile Shop

When to use uppercase vs lowercase text and centre aligned text?

Uppercase and centre aligned text are two text formatting styles that are often misused in web design so this post covers the basics of when or if they should be used.

Websites for Accountants: a look at Accounted4

We’ve already taken a look at what makes a top-notch website for an accounting practice. Now let’s get specific by putting the website for our client, Accounted4, under the microscope. Here at Rocketspark, we were recently tasked with giving Accounted4’s site a makeover. In this post, we’re going to go through the various key features we highlighted in our websites for accountants page and show you how we incorporated those features into Accounted4’s new site.

How best to display a Google map on your website

Rocketspark makes it really easy to add a map to your website. Just add a map block and enter the address you want the pin to be centered on. No need to worry about Google Maps embed codes.

What is a call to action & why does my website need it?

Website call to action = Asking visitors to do something. This might be as simple as “call us on 0800 762 538”. Unless they’ve come to your website specifically to get your phone number, most visitors aren’t going to be ready to call you just yet. The fruit isn’t ripened. You need to warm them up to the idea - and do it quickly.

Why should I update my website?

Imagine if any time you googled “all blacks england score” the first thing that come up was from way back in 2002 (England, 31 - New Zealand, 28). Or when you searched “most popular christmas gift” the results returned were from the dial-up days of 1998 (remember Furby?). We all know the old Star Wars movies are better than the new ones, and everyone agrees that the Egyptian pyramids are more impressive than the mall downtown...but sometimes newer is better. And that&...

How to do cross browser testing

You might not realise it, but right now you’re looking at a browser. A browser is the program on your computer that allows you to view the internet—yep, that thing you’re staring at this very moment as you read this sentence. There are lots of different browsers available, like Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer (if you look at the top left-hand corner of your screen, you should see the name of the browser you’re using). Not only are there different ...

Why an “About Us” page is so important

Why are testimonials important?

Riddle me this: what does the Watergate scandal have to do with your business? Trust. The Watergate scandal undermined the American public’s trust in their government. Now people are skeptical not just about politics but just about everything—including businesses. Gone are the days that people readily trusted a business’s claims about itself (and gone are the days that a scandal could be reported without having “-gate” slapped onto the end of it). These days, yo...

How to register a domain name with Rocketspark

To make the process of getting online super simple we allow you to register your domain as part of the go live process, or pre-register while on trial. The world of domains and connecting them to the IP addresses of servers and configuring MX records for email accounts is confusing for most so we take care of it all.

Who owns a domain? Domain ownership disputes

We’ve been having an increasing number of clients coming to us who are being held hostage by their previous web developer with the domain ownership being the key negotiating tool. In most instances the web agency doesn’t have a leg to stand on as there are policies in place by the governing bodies that administer the various domain types and these policies have been designed to protect the rightful owner of a domain. The governing bodies also provide dispute resolution services...

Choosing your website page names.

What makes a good homepage design? 5 steps to an effective homepage

A good home page makes visitors want to know more and do something about it. The formula is simple. Catch people’s attention with quality images. Tell people what you do with a large, punchy heading. Tell someone why they should choose you. Tell them what you want them to do next. A great home page will do all of these things in less than 10 seconds.

Google places for business

80% of success is showing up – Woody Allen He’s right, don’t you think? So much of our success—and failure—hinges on simply showing up. And the same goes for your business. When a potential customer searches for your product or service, your business needs to show up. How? Google Places for Business. It’s a powerful tool that ensures that your business shows up on a nearby customer’s radar. It’s all about location. Whenever somebody se...

The importance of a good web design brief

With anything in life, focus is a really important attribute to have in making things work effectively and reach their potential. The same is true when it comes to designing and developing websites. Having the ability to focus on the key parts of your site, the things that make you and your organisation unique and the goals you have for your site will allow you to be more deliberate in all aspects of design and development. Every business is different so that's why it's important to get a we...

Choosing a domain name

What’s in a name? Quite a lot, when it comes to making your mark on the internet. There are a whole slew of factors you need to weigh up when picking a domain name for your business’s website.

What is a bounce rate and how can I improve mine

Have you ever been hungry in a new city and decided to find a restaurant to dine at? If so, you will be familiar with the experience of walking down the main street and examining the street-front displays that each that each restaurant is trying to entice you with. As you glance at this first impression, your mind is processing all the information to decide whether you should take the next step and choose this restaurant. Does the service look slow? Is the menu font hard to read? Is it a con...

Using multiple domain names

Are you tearing your hair out trying to decide on the perfect domain name for your website? If so, you might be tempted to register two or maybe even several domain names. Good idea or bad idea?

New Rocketspark features & refinements - Aug' 2013

How to minimise email spam from email addresses on your website

Although "Spam" and "Phish" sound like two characters from a Dr Seuss children's book or a bad meal in a can, these two words represent financial losses to legitimate organisations of over $2 billion per year. Spammers and phishers trawl the Internet looking for people to scam - and we at Rocketspark want to do our best to keep your website safe from them. Here's how we do it.

Why you need a mobile optimised website

Websites are usually designed to be viewed on a computer. In other words, they’re made for a big screen, keyboard and a mouse. They work great on a desktop or laptop, but when accessed on a mobile those same websites can become unwieldy: text too small to read, links hard to click, and pages too hard to navigate. The result? Frustrated customers. That’s a big deal because recent research shows that smartphones now outnumber regular mobiles, with half of all Kiwi adults own...

Why you should bother with blogs

We want to clear the air about the topic: blogs. Often, this word conjures up images of a friend's travel blog (filled with stories and pictures of their journey through Europe) or a thrown-together site presenting the author's political views, favourite recipes and pictures of their pet cat. These are not the blogs we are talking about.

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 so...

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.

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.

The Rocketspark team will see you at the Xero NZ Roadshow 2019.

The Xero Roadshow is an annual whistle-stop tour of New Zealand focusing on what Xero has to offer for accountants and bookkeepers. It focuses on the upcoming Xero strategy, product road map and an intensive help session.Come and see us (even if you are not using Xero) at the drop-in zone of the events we are attending (check out the list of towns and dates below). It will be a great opportunity to meet and chat about how you're getting on.We would love to see our existing clients and partner...

BizStory Content -- the ultimate wingman

We totally get a picture is worth a thousand words. But what if you need a thousand and four hundred words to tell your client’s storyYou’re gonna need some words.Words that fit nicely with your work, that complement your website design. Words that speak your client’s language. And words that are written now rather than later.“I feel the need, the need for speed!” - Top Gun‘Cause let’s face it -- nothing is worse than waiting for a client or someone e...

How much to quote for your first web design project

By Jeremy Johnson | Founder & Designer | Rocketspark

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.

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.

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....

Rocketspark @ TechFest 2020 | HLZ

On 3 March 2020, TechFest kicks off for another year bringing together technology leaders, business and the wider community from around the Waikato to see, touch and experience innovative technology products and solutions. TechFest is an event brought to the region by Te Waka: Waikato's regional economic development agency, and CultivateIT.

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 a...

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 with...

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!

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 yo...

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 i...

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’...

COVID-19: Tourism and Accommodation playbook

The New Zealand Government has released an alert levels system to help explain what is required if alert levels change related to COVID-19. They have said that alert levels could change quickly and may chop and change not only at a national level but at a regional level, going up or down. This playbook has been edited to explain what each of the plays in the playbook mean at different alert levels.

Why you should maintain a web presence even if you’re pausing trade during a lockdown.

In uncertain times it can be necessary to identify and cut costs to try and stay viable. Generally there are some key activities that fall under this, but your website costs shouldn’t be one of them. Our advice may seem akin to a one eyed all blacks fan refereeing the home team but hear me out as there are some important implications to consider rather than just turning out the lights for a while. I’m going to lay out some key reasons as to why you should continue to keep a web...

COVID-19: Pharmacy playbook

How to make your pharmacy website work hard for you during COVID-19With a global pandemic underway our pharmacies have a key role to play so we’ve prepared a playbook to help pharmacies make the most of their web presence to serve their customers and their community. By talking to pharmacy owners over the last couple days we’ve gathered some practical tips which can help to keep your team and customers safe when they do come to your pharmacy.

How to add a COVID-19 stack on your Rocketspark website

It’s a challenging time to be in business and the Rocketspark team wants to help you make the most of your website to serve your clients. A simple way you can help your customers is to provide them with information about any changes to your services due to COVID-19. You’ll be showing your customers that you are aware of any changes as they come into play, that you want to keep them informed, and you care about them. So, if you have a Rocketspark website, we're just going to show y...

How to access government COVID-19 financial assistance

We are all starting to get our heads around how coronavirus will affect us personally, along with our businesses, our communities, country and world and I don’t think there will be very many people at all who will be unaffected. It has been a relief then that a number of governments around the world have rapidly pulled together a range of support packages, and while these packages will cushion, rather than eliminate the financial impact of coronavirus, we have heard several stories of ...

COVID-19: Retailers playbook

This playbook is for small owner-operator businesses who want to fight for survival in the face of adversity. (Already have an online store, see What to do with your online store during the COVID-19 lockdown. Or, head to this blog post if you need to set up an online store in a hurry.)

COVID-19: Ecommerce playbook

This ecommerce express playbook aims to help get your business online, and fast.If you already have an ecommerce store, check out what to do with your online store during lockdown.

What to do with your online store during the COVID-19 lockdown

We’ve prepared this guide to help you update your website to best manage the tricky scenarios that currently exist: not being able to ship ecommerce orders during the lockdown where you are able to ship online orders during the lockdown.

COVID-19: Hospitality and Food Service Playbook

Make the most of your online presence and plan for the future.Our thoughts are very much with our friends in hospitality and food service who have been so affected by the impact of COVID-19. We want to help you where we can and we’ve created this playbook with some ideas to consider for your website.

What to do with your website during the COVID-19 lockdown

In this blog we outline some simple actions you can take to ensure your website works hard for you to 1) update your clients and 2) lay a foundation for the future.

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 ...

How to pivot your existing business during COVID-19—case study with Fiasco

As the effects COVID-19 started to be felt around the world, the event industry was hammered with blanket cancellations. The flow-on effect has and is being felt by 1000’s of contractors and companies New Zealand wide. Fiasco Cases needed to make a decision, either pivot and innovate or face closures.

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 do...

How to operate your business during Level 3 in New Zealand

Retail and hospitality businesses can now open for delivery and contactless pre-ordered pick up – customers cannot enter stores. If you’re a business owner, this is of course great news but understandably news that can be a little overwhelming to digest. With this in mind, we’ve put together a quick-start guide to help get you up and running online to meet the needs and wants of your customers during Level 3.

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 and a ...

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. Ov...

Why the best web designers take care of SEO as they design

As one of the co-founders of Rocketspark, I have seen many websites designed over the last 10 years. Some of those websites have been designed for a client where SEO (search engine optimisation) hasn’t been considered during the design phase of the project—the website might look stunning but when you search for a business like theirs in Google, their competitors show up and they don’t. SEO isn’t critical for every website but if potential customers are doing searches f...

The secrets of a successful shipping strategy—ecommerce shipping rates explained 🥴📦

Ecommerce shipping rates are one of the most confusing aspects of ecommerce for new merchants. Different courier providers structure their pricing in different ways. Bags, boxes, stickers, weight, size, free shipping, flat rate shipping, high dollar items, low-value items, extra-large or heavy items? So how should I set up my shipping? This post showcases the most popular ecommerce shipping techniques used by some of the largest ecommerce retailers—and why they can still work for small...

What size and type of pictures should I upload to websites?

Besides SEO, one of the most common topics designers ask the Rocketspark team about is picture files. Picture quality can really make or break a website, so I’ll explain how to avoid some of the most common mistakes when it comes to uploading picture files to display on websites. Before eventually moving into a design career following university, I spent 6 months in what felt like the wrong degree. The Bachelor of Computing and Mathematical Science is a 4-year computer science and maths...

Say goodbye to /page/—remove it from your page URLs

In the early days of Rocketspark, there were a range of decisions to make about the tech architecture of the platform. Over the last ten years, some of the technology behind Rocketspark has adapted to new opportunities and ways of doing things.

Single use per customer coupon: Boost sales and reward your loyal customers

Have you ever wanted to run a promotion for your online store on social media or with a mass email blast using the same discount coupon code, where recipients can only use it once? Now you can!Coupons are a great way to motivate or reward select customers by offering special discounts and we’re thrilled to be able to add another type of coupon to the mix.

COVID-19 video interviews

Our customers share their stories on how they've adapted their businesses during COVID-19 and the steps they're taking now to ensure they can continue operating after the pandemic.

Collaboration article: The Best Locally Made Tools for Kiwi Freelancers

This blog post content has been supplied by VXT. Vxt is a smart voicemail driven assistant that converts your voicemails to text and provides you with tools to save you time and money.

Use Scheduled Ordering to offer set-time delivery & pick-up

Recently we launched a game-changing feature called Scheduled Ordering that enables you to take online orders for pick-up and/or delivery from your Rocketspark ecommerce website. Unlike other similar services, Rocketspark doesn't take a transaction or commission fee from you for orders placed through your website—offering a sense of relief for many businesses working hard to get through the recent effects of COVID-19.

Excite & delight your website visitors with autoplay video backgrounds

Being passionate about design, we’re excited to let you know that Rocketspark’s website builder now supports Video Stack Backgrounds. With this new design feature, along with the option to add colour and image backgrounds, you now have the option to display a video as a backdrop on your Rocketspark website.

Ecommerce secret sauce—the 9 simple essentials of ecommerce success

Rocketspark co-founder and former ecommerce store owner Grant Johnson shares insights from clients and his own experience on the simple essentials required for ecommerce success.

Empower your success with Rocketspark’s latest ecommerce features

As ecommerce continues to boom throughout the world, feature requirements grow. At Rocketspark, our primary focus is to find ways to empower you to have a fresh and current looking website with all the bells and whistles that make operating an online store easier.

Move your Lightspeed ecommerce website to Rocketspark

Rocketspark is an ecommerce website builder that’s integrated with Lightspeed. As Lightspeed will end their online storefront service as of 31 Aug 2020, we’re offering Lightspeed customers the hassle-free opportunity to move their online stores to Rocketspark.Rocketspark is everything you need to create an online store and sell online. Eye-catching online store designs, easy-to-use ecommerce software, intuitive ordering systems, powerful integrations that enable you to streamline ...

A Kiwi Original—a BuyNZMade Podcast

Kiwis are DIY’ers and that often applies to websites too. Rocketspark makes websites fun again and our CEO Grant Johnson shares how the restrictions of Covid-19 has resulted in a resurgence in businesses wanting to reflect what 2020 Kiwi consumers expect, the customer stories that speak to the impact Rocketspark has been having and why Rocketspark gets a kick out of helping business owners have a better life. TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST CLICK HERE.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 bes...

The ultimate web designer and content writer collaboration playbook

Ok team. It’s pep talk time—huddle in! When great content writers and great designers are collaborating well, beautiful web design magic happens. The reality is that often this relationship isn’t as good as it could be. This blog is speaking to both designers and writers as equals in a team—like batman and robin other batman—because neither of you is the sidekick. At Rocketspark we have experience managing the design side of the web design process, but for this a...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

The next wave of beautiful mobile design

As mobile website visitor traffic has continued to soar, we’ve worked on progressing the mobile design experience for our customers, as well as the mobile viewing experience for their customers.

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.

Introducing Kyra Piccione

We have a new creative cat here at Rocketspark. Kyra Piccione has joined us to kick off 2021, bringing with her the passion to tell our stories. Kyra has spent most of her young adult life telling stories, through journalism, PR and as a communications guru in her past roles. After being nominated as a finalist in the NZ Media Awards for Junior Journalist of the Year in 2017, she went on a backpacking adventure to over 20 different countries. Since then, she has been honing her craft of writ...

Rocketspark launches towards change in 2021

This spin around the sun is set to bring about many new and exciting changes for Rocketspark’s customers, new and old. Rocketspark in-house storyteller, Kyra Piccione, took time to catch up with some of the founders and team to learn what customers can expect this year. It turns out automation, a new modular approach to design, multiple logins for one site, possible vector animation and a website import programme are all on the cards, along with lots of other improvements, read on for m...

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”.

Covid helps new jewellery business shine

Anna Seelye, Hamilton-based creative designer and owner of Frances Adrian Jewellery Design, founded her business, thanks to Covid-19. The jewellery expert realised, in the wake of the Covid-19, there was a need to offer a jewellery design experience beyond the traditional “bricks-and-mortar” store model. “This business is something I’ve had in the back of my mind for a long time and my experience in the industry in both New Zealand and London has taught me a lot abou...

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 team said Te ...

Circular Eggs get around on subscription

When you think of a subscription, maybe you think Netflix, news websites, or magazines, but have you ever thought, “eggs”? Well, Rocketspark customer, Circular Eggs, sure did and since creating a website and using our handy subscription feature, their eggs have been getting around. Hayden Power and Tina Armstrong were both born on conventional dairy farms. After a stint exploring overseas they returned to Hayden’s family farm in Whakatāne and were given the opportunity to ...

Launch: Two days of inspiration for the Rocketspark design community

Rocketspark has an epic network of design partners who do an incredible job creating websites for people all around the globe every year. We believe their work shouldn’t go unnoticed, so we are holding our third partner conference and awards evening, Launch. The design conference spans over two days of inspiration. Those who are lucky enough to grab a limited ticket will gain a fresh understanding of website development, storytelling and design, as well as the chance to network up a sto...

Staff profile: Inside Bill's Mind

From chess champion to pro online gamer, Rocketspark Web Developer, Bill Li, is a man of many hats, and pies. Bill works on Rocketspark’s full stack web development, and the team thought it was about time our customers got to know him better as a person. “When it comes to programming and coding we divide it into two parts, the frontend and the backend. The frontend is all the code you can see, your website and its functionality. The backend code is all the data that holds it alto...

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.

Rocketspark’s wonder women

We are a tech company and half of our staff are women! That’s right, you read correctly. So, for this year’s International Women’s Day we wanted to introduce you to all of the amazing women who work at Rocketspark. Read on to check out a little bit about what our epic wahine do and learn something new about each of the hardworking boss ladies.

A passion for code

Staff profile: Lara Villavicencio Lara Villavicencio loves dumplings, the TV sitcom Friends, and she has a passion for coding. The 25-year-old, has been a web developer at Rocketspark since June, 2018. “I do both frontend and backend coding, but mostly I work on the frontend, which I enjoy the most because I like art. “You are kind of designing while developing. I also help out with bugs, bugs are those annoying things that can go wrong in the system and I help fix them. It&rsqu...

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 sa...

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 tw...

A new beginning, from a different ending

Some things start small, and before they become well known, it can take a community to spread the word. This is what happened with Rocketspark customer and newly self-published author, Elaine Williams’ new enterprise, in fact it started with something as small as a mouse. Elaine is originally from Scotland, a place that has inspired many works of literature and her own love for storytelling. “I studied literature at university. I’ve always loved books and written stories,...

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 sta...

Flint makes SEO easy for designers

One of our Design Partners got a client’s website ranking on Google’s page two within two days of going live, something she said was only made possible with the help of Rocketspark feature, Flint. Flint, enables designers to create content for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) while giving you feedback on your page score - helping you to know if you’ve nailed the core SEO requirements. At Rocketspark we've seen both clients and designers struggle with the basics of SEO and th...

Business turns to colour

Jo Rankin’s passion for art goes back to childhood, she has vivid memories of constantly colouring and drawing. In her teenage years at high school she studied art, but, she said, in that time you had to find a job as soon as you’d left school. Jo landed a job in an office, leaving her with little time and inspiration to follow her passion for art. It wasn’t long after that, she was married to her husband, Rod. In Jo’s mid to late 30s she and her husband started an imp...

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 initia...

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 reco...

Side hustle takes off during Covid

Australian based Rocketspark Design Partner, Jess Golding, started a side hustle business that took off thanks to Covid and a bubbly attitude. Jess started Bubble Marketing back in 2018, but really kicked it off in 2020, due to Covid. The bubbly entrepreneur designed her own website with Rocketspark using her Bitmoji because, she said, “I wanted bubble to be a fun brand and nothing too serious”. Back in 2019, Jess was working with a few clients that wanted new, or updated, website...

Inspired by adventure and design

We have a new adventurer here at Rocketspark. Tyron Noble has joined us, bringing with him his sharp eye for detail and passion for how brands can create inspiration. Tyron, 31, is taking on the role of Graphic Designer here at Rocketspark. “I have a varied role helping with what the marketing team requires and helping with product design as well. “I’m pretty excited about my new role, I love working for one brand and seeing how much you can make it grow,” he said. Ty...

Rocketspark’s Launch Awards draws crowd

Locally based website builder, Rocketspark, drew a crowd of over 100 people from all around New Zealand last night for its annual awards dinner. Rocketspark has an epic network of design partners who create websites for people all around the globe. To give back, Rocketspark’s CEO Grant Johnson, after speaking on the company's 2021 vision which aimed to make the world a better place, announced they would be giving each Design Partner a free not-for-profit website - for life - voucher. Th...

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 o...

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.

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 ...

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...

Giving back is personal

Kath Boyd, founder of OMG Solutions, website and digital marketing specialist enjoys giving back to the community, especially young people who need a hand, all because of her own journey. “I came across The Acorn Project two years ago when Rocketspark put a voucher in our Christmas cards. The voucher was for us to choose a not-for-profit organisation and give them a free website for life, cost on Rocketspark.” Kath put it out to all her clients and the people she knew in the commu...

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 desi...

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.

The website building, time giving, non-designer

Kathy Speirs has been a Rocketspark Design Partner since 2018. Although, she wouldn’t call herself a designer. Kathy joined as a partner because she was building so many websites for community groups that she needed access to the programmes our partners who design professionally have. She has now developed four websites for not-for-profit organisations in her small village, Kuaotunu, a community she’s only been part of for six years. “Not only do I do the design, to the be...

Human Digital Supports Mathematics Education Non-Profit

Ben van Rooy, founder and director of Human Digital, enjoys giving back to the community. Human Digital is an experience design agency that helps organisations grow by attracting, converting, and retaining customers. In late 2020 Human Digital, a Rocketspark design partner, took on Mathematics for a Lifetime Charitable Trust as a pro-bono client. “We’ve worked with Rocketspark for a few years now and we find the simple user interface and great customer support perfect for clients...

Learning, to give

A passion for learning, and the mutual benefit it brings, is the drive behind Les Huett’s community work. Empower Business & Accounting Solutions NZ Ltd (EBAS) team member Les Huett has developed various community sites in the past on a number of different platforms. These have included an amateur orchestra with a private area where orchestra members access their scores and a site for blind and partially sighted people that had an innovative navigation system that used voice prompts...

Coffee and community

It started with the need for a coffee and a place to work. It turned into a partnership that benefits the whole community. One of our newest design partners, The Renew Room, is made up of three amazing women, Claire Rawnsley, Beka Sutherland and Jayde McLean. Beka and Claire co-own the business, Beka is a graphic designer and Claire is a marketing wizz. They started the venture at the beginning of August, 2020. We recently caught up with Claire to see how the team was getting on since joinin...

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 leade...

Varntige, normalising doing good

For one day out of every year a local Waikato business closes its normal doors in order to open themselves up to community work. When Chantelle Good started Varntige six years ago, it was with the simplest of missions: to help business owners be happier and less stressed while running their growing businesses. Chantelle said she didn’t get into business just because she wanted to make money. “Having a business and a team, for me, is about providing a good service and being able t...

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 jus...

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 thei...

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...

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 s...

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 be...

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...

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 his...

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 partn...

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.

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.

Metro Marketing inspired to give from within

Metro Marketing has always held corporate social responsibility close to its heart with their Director Michelle Crook constantly inspiring her team to have an impact in their communities, and beyond. Nikita Williams, General Manager and Senior Designer at Metro Marketing said marketing and design were rarely a high priority for not-for-profit organisations and events, so they tried to help out where they could with charity rates and pro bono services for clients including: Breast Cancer Sup...

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 acc...

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 develope...

Fancy a wine? Jump online!

Grasshopper Rock is one of the southernmost made Pinot Noirs in the world. The vineyard was planted back in 2003, but the idea came two years before. Rocketspark customer, Grasshopper Rock, has been with us for seven years, our inhouse storyteller, Kyra Piccione, recently caught up with the online savvy wine makers to learn about their business journey and their journey with Rocketspark over the years. In 2001 five families from around New Zealand, who knew each other from farming backgrounds...

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.

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.

Mental health and Creativity

Not everyone is going to like what you create, but that shouldn’t stop you. In this edition of Reel Talk, we have a special guest, local creative Sara-Jane Austen, founder of Designerbloom Graphic Design. Sara-Jane talks about how you can take care of your mental health when you have to deal with negative feedback about your creative work. And, she looks at how you can manage creative blocks.

How to optimise your SEO

You might be the best at what you do, but if no one can find you online, who is going to care? In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketsparks Head of Partnerships, we cover what Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is, why you should care about it, and how you can use it to help your business.

How to manage your clients' expectations

Making sure your clients are happy can boost your business. In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketspark Head of Partnerships, we cover how to make sure your clients are on the same page as you right from the start, what you can do if they start to drift off course and how to let them go if you’ve met a wave too big to get over.

Top money tips for freelancers

Money, as awkward as it can be to talk about, is part of business and an important part, at that! In this edition of Reel Talk with Jason Tiller, Rocketspark Head of Partnerships, we cover how you can be smart when it comes to charging people, how you can keep hold of your retainer clients and whether you are charging enough for your business.

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...

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 b...

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 ...

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 busin...

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 t...

Giving has a ripple effect

When a local community group was in need of a new website up in Northland, local Rocketspark Design Partner Natalie White, Creative Director of Magic Fingers Graphics, knew they would be worthy recipients of Rocketspark’s gift-it-forward initiative. In April this year Rocketspark gifted each of its Design Partners, Magic Fingers Graphics included, a lifetime Rocketspark website subscription to give away for free to a deserving not-for-profit organisation. Learn more about the Rocketspar...

Mailchimp wiz explains the importance of email marketing

Debbie Mills Robertson, email marketing, newsletter, online course planning and website creation specialist has owned three businesses and worked in a lot of different industries over the years. She has used her combined skills to become Task Diva, her current business and passion. Read on to learn how she has shaped her current business and why she believes email marketing is key for online marketing. Debbie ran her first business with her husband, a small construction company, but they end...

The 5 technical elements you need to know to design websites for clients.

Graphic designers, Marketers, VAs, just like you, are designing portfolio worthy websites that get results for their clients, without writing a single line of code, or being ‘tech-y’ people. The reality is, most businesses don’t have complex website needs that require the skills of a web developer (coding wizard). Restaurants, mechanics, boutiques, bakeries, schools, tourism attractions and so on, actually only need basic tech — the value for them is in well written c...

Want world class creatives at your fingertips? Of course you do!

Rocketspark’s CEO and co-founder Grant Johnson says that when the opportunity arose to purchase The Freelance Village, he was drawn to how well both businesses aligned. And ultimately, he saw the potential to enhance what each organisation was currently offering as a service. “We have many customers who not only need a beautifully functioning website, but also content and imagery to go with it, and perhaps ongoing marketing support. “So with The Freelance Village’s cu...

How to use line height and letter spacing effectively in web design

Line height and letter spacing are equally as important as typeface when it comes to making written content look good. In fact, if text is hard to read and not broken down into manageable chunks it can distract from the content all together, decreasing engagement and confidence in website visitors.

Two new integrations to streamline your shipping—Starshipit & eShip

As an online store owner, the process of printing address labels, packing slips, courier barcodes, booking pickups, and sending orders can take up a lot of time. Rocketspark has now joined forces with Starshipit, to provide Rocketspark merchants with a direct integration where order details are sent automatically to Starshipit in a time-saving way to streamline the whole shipping process. If you’re a NZ Post customer, you can also connect eShip with your Rocketspark online store throu...

Taking control of your Header—Introducing: Full-width Header, Header Overlay, Header Button, and Blank Template

Gone are the days when you needed to start building a website from a pre-designed template. Now with the new Blank Template option, you can start afresh on a blank canvas where the header isn’t tied to a pre-designed template. You can have beautiful full-width headers that utilise the full width of the browser and choose different header layouts, getting your creative juices flowing. Design freedom is further granted with the introduction of the Header Overlay with the first Stack below...

Customer Success Vision with Carlos

Today we caught up with Carlos, our Head of Customer Success and he talks us through his role, and what his vision is for Rocketspark’s Customer Success team for the new year.

Rocketspark Academy—online courses for business and web design best practices.

Loving and excelling in creativity and design is something you’ve either got or something you don’t. And you’ve got it—wahoo! But as many designers well know (and have experienced), making a living from that talent and passion requires a very, very different skill-set. Not only do you have to start the business, get clients, patch together some processes, but eventually you have to create and sustain a profit margin..all while maintaining work-life balance.

Assign images to product options—online shopping decision-making made easy

Do you have an ecommerce store that sells products in different sizes, colours or patterns (to name a few)? Do you want your customers to see the image that correlates to each product option you have on offer? Well, we are pleased to say, now you can. Introducing Rocketspark’s new ecommerce feature—assign images to product options.

Announcing—The Announcement Bar

Have you ever wanted to add a banner above your header to draw attention to key messages to your website visitors? Well, now you can. We are excited to announce the launch of the Announcement Bar. The Announcement Bar will allow you to engage your website visitors by communicating key information shown on every page of your site. This means you can be seen by your audience, drive action with a clear call to action and link, is versatile across an array of industries and is optimised for mobil...

Introducing Saved Brand Colours to design beautiful websites faster

We have created a feature which will allow you to improve your workflow and design beautiful websites faster. We are excited to introduce — Saved Brand Colours. This feature lets you save all your client's brand colours as swatches. You can then automatically update and reuse them in other places on the website. This way, you can manage all your brand colours in one place. Plus, you can control which colours your clients can use after you finish the project.

Edit text in context and design faster, with Rocketspark’s new text editor

At Rocketspark we are focussed on helping you design beautiful websites fast. As a step towards that vision, we’ve introduced a new text editor which will revolutionise the way you edit text on Rocketspark. This feature is a move away from the pop-up text block and a move towards editing your text in-context and in real time. This will make your design process faster, by seeing your beautiful typography adjust in real-time and see your website design come to life. With that, we are plea...

Announcing new design controls for beautiful websites fast

At Rocketspark we are focussed on helping you design beautiful websites fast. As a step towards that vision, we are thrilled to announce a batch of new design and layout features.

Rocketspark X Picky: Market Dips & Image Marketplaces

As we move towards the final push of the year, client budgets are getting tighter yet demand for exceptional and effective creative is higher than ever. The team at Aotearoa’s stock image marketplace, Picky, chatted to us on how adding crafted, local and authentic stock images to your design mix, will not only work within your budget, but help you build beautiful and high performing websites for your Clients.

Should I have a one page website?

There’s lots of reasons to love a one page website. They’re simple, straightforward and require minimal maintenance. But we do recommend using them cautiously, as there are also quite a few areas they can let a business down, in quite a big way (particularly when it comes to SEO). So if you’ve been wondering whether a one page website is suitable for your business, let us quickly take you through the downsides of one page websites and the exceptions. Then you can make an in...

Invite your team to collaborate on your website—and choose what they can do

Have you ever wanted to invite your team to collaborate on your Rocketspark website but didn’t want to share your own personal top secret password? Now you can! You can also set what permissions your teammates have, so you can rest assured knowing Jared from accounts won’t be changing your fonts to lime Comic Sans ever again!

Upcoming web design trends 2023

We caught up with Tyron (Designer) and Jeremy (Head of Product) at Rocketspark to see what they think the upcoming website design trends are for this year. We discussed eight upcoming web design trends for you to keep an eye out for heading into the year.

Introducing Accordions: A simple solution for comprehensive website content

Get ready to take your website’s user experience up a notch with our latest web design feature—Accordions! These sleek and modern design elements provide a simple solution for comprehensive website content. By simply clicking, visitors can expand or collapse sections of your website's content, making it a breeze to find the information they need. Whether you’re a small business owner, e-commerce enthusiast or blogger, Accordions are a game-changer for improving your website&...

10 creative ways to use Accordions on your website to improve user experience

Accordions are a versatile and useful tool in modern web design, with a variety of applications across different industries. From showcasing frequently asked questions and services to presenting policies and project phases, Accordions can help improve user experience and engagement. With Accordions, content is organised into collapsible sections, which not only makes it more accessible for visitors but also keeps your website clutter-free and visually appealing. In this article, we'll explore...

Women / wāhine in creative industries and what it means to celebrate International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day is a day for celebration - of our achievements and the impact we make on the world around us - it is also a day to contemplate and take action on the change we want to see. And to mark this year’s IWD, we spoke to three accomplished wāhine to hear their stories of careers, collaboration and community, as well as how they have overcome challenges faced on their journey.

How we prioritise building new features at Rocketspark — a little behind the scenes

Have you ever requested a new feature from a software company and wondered if your idea fell into a black hole? We get it, the process can feel a bit like throwing a coin into a wishing well and hoping for the best.

How can a website help me if I get all of my business by word of mouth?

As a service or trade business that does a great job, you might be struggling to keep up with demand from word of mouth referrals. It can be tempting to take the foot off the gas on marketing when you’re flat out on the tools — but before you make any hasty decisions, it's important to understand the value that your website is delivering to your business.

How we judge Rocketspark’s partner website of the month

Have you ever imagined what it feels like to design a website that wins Rocketspark’s site of the month? Or to be recognised as a finalist? When we send out our designer newsletter each month, the most clicked on link is the site of the month—as designers check to see if their website design has been selected as one of the best from the month. We do this to celebrate beautiful website design within our designer community, setting the bar to aim for and showcasing quality design te...

Lawson’s Journey as a blind website developer

The team at Rocketspark recently had the pleasure of having Lawson, and his guide dog Aidan, come into our HQ in Cambridge.We sat down with Lawson and he brilliantly explained and demonstrated his experience as a user of the internet and his journey as an aspiring developer learning to code.

Embracing Upskilling: A journey of growth as a freelance Graphic Designer

We recently had the pleasure of chatting with an incredibly talented graphic designer, Eimear Boyle from Emer Creative. Originally from Ireland, Eimear has always had a knack for art throughout her childhood. But get this—she actually studied equine science and completed a business degree! Talk about unexpected paths, right? Well, fate had something else in store for her. Three years ago, she found herself in Invercargill, New Zealand and landed a role in a corporate veterinary industry...

NEW: Sliders for dayyyyys

Sliders are here! We’ve been busy at Rocketspark cooking up a whole new library of ready-to-use slider designs—our most requested feature by far. But wait, what is a slider? Isn’t that a tiny hamburger? 🍔🍔🍔

NEW: Slider Maker — ultra-flexible slider building for designers

At Rocketspark, we spend a lot of time talking to graphic designers about how they want to design websites—and it was clear that designers want Sliders, our most requested feature by far!Sliders display various types of information such as products, services, testimonials or photos in an interactive way — but designers don’t want to keep using third-party tools and want to do this natively in Rocketspark.A website slider puts eye-catching moving images or messages on-page to...

From checkout to charity: Rocketspark's GoGenerosity widget makes generosity easy

Honest Skincare, a Rocketspark eCommerce customer, is an Auckland-based skincare company that focuses on New Zealand grown products to reduce their carbon footprint. Most known for their Kawakawa range, the team sources leaves from native bush, never collecting from the same spot within a year to allow regeneration.

Snapping success: How to pick the perfect photographer for Your brand

If you’ve been tuning into our recent chat about putting together a smashing website, you’ll know one thing is crystal clear: the right photos can turn your good website into a great one. So let's talk about a task that can be a bit of a head-scratcher: choosing the right photographer. 📷

Picture perfect: A retailer's guide to must-have product photos

Got your online shop live and feeling the buzz? That's brilliant! 🎉 But wait, have you given much thought to your product photography? Nailing those shots can turn browsers into buyers—your sales will thank you. 📸 🌟

Rocketspark and Google Workspace: A symphony of business brilliance

Hey Rocketspark family! 👋 We've got some exciting news that might just make your business life even easier. Rocketspark has teamed up with Google Workspace! It's not just any old collaboration; it's a fantastic chance for business owners to make their day-to-day work a whole lot more productive and professional. How do we know? Our entire team uses Google Workspace every single day. It’s not just handy, it’s a game-changer. So, why should you be excited about this partnership? ...

What is an SVG image and when should I use an SVG?

Introducing SVG support in our new picture block – why it's a game changer 🌟Hey there, Rocketspark family! 👋 Ever wondered how some websites manage to look so crisp, regardless of the device you're viewing them on? Well, let us introduce you to the magic world of SVGs (Scalable Vector Graphics).

Planting ideas together at Rocketspark—just like a community garden

Hey there, Rocketspark family! You might remember our chat about how we decide what new features to build. When you ask for a feature it might feel like it goes into a big black hole never to be seen again, especially if we don’t build the feature you asked for. Well, let's take a stroll down a different path today.

New: Say hello to our all new picture block!

We're buzzing with excitement and can't wait to tell you what's up. Our beloved Picture Block has had a major upgrade, and it's all thanks to the awesome ideas and feedback you've shared with us.

Exciting update: Upload your own fonts to Rocketspark

Say a big hello to Custom Fonts on Rocketspark, so you can upload your own fonts. Elevate your creative freedom with a wider range of font choices. It's all about letting your brand's true colours shine through your font choices. And it's all set for you to explore.

Flint got a big upgrade

Back in 2021, we launched Flint, our smart SEO helper. And now, Flint has levelled up with some seriously cool new tricks that are so much more than just SEO! It's like Flint has gone to uni and graduated with a major in comms.