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Wintec students help local businesses online

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

Relationships build businesses

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

Design Partner helps kick start a new chapter

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

How to get your blogs to rank higher in Google

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

Rocketspark Design Partners Gift-it-forward

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

How to get good clients

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

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

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

Rocketspark joins the Digital Boost Alliance Aotearoa

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

Rocketspark is officially a .nz domain registrar

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

A need to give back

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

Meet the team driven by customer success

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

A health journey sparks a community

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

How to optimise your website for mobile in 4 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....

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 design, a great...

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 importing business. Sh...

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....

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 of it. Amanda said she ...

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. The partn...

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, websites. She said...

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. Tyron is origina...

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 that’s why we b...

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 initially...

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 twic...

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 started w...

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,...