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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 said. Mel used to work at...

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’s a...

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....

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 about wh...

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....

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 altogether...

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 start work...

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 storm; not...

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 t...

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”....

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 more det...

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 wr...

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....

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....

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 face ...

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. ...

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....

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....

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....

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....

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 article we h...

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 best value pro...

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....

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....

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?...