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Custom Website Builds that Capture Your Brand Essence

Welcome to Gecko Gully What We Do

Wordpress Website Design

Christine Abela has been building websites for clients since the early 1990s, using a variety of systems. She now almost exclusively uses WordPress, which is the most widely used Content Management System on the internet today.

Over the last 35 years, she has built thousands of websites, including simple information sites, blogs, and eCommerce (shopping cart) sites. Having been a programmer since the early 1980s, Christine can also develop additional software if required, such as plugins.

Content Creation and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Christine Abela is a strong believer in content marketing, also known as inbound marketing. This approach involves using the content on a website to position the business owner as an authority in their field, and attract visitors to the website from search engines such as Google. It is one form of Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, which aims to get a website to rank higher on Google.

Christine employs a combination of old-fashioned research, AI, and human writing to create a great deal of content for her clients’ websites. They approve all content before it appears on their site as a blog post.

Content Syndication

Once a blog post has been published, Christine uses software that she helped create to select sentences from the blog post, and schedules multiple posts to appear on social media over the next 12 months. The main social media sites she uses are Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Business Profile. Christine can also help to set up and optimise these platforms if they are not already being used.

Video Creation and SEO

Christine Abela can create and voice (if desired) a video of the blog post, and upload it to YouTube. As a trained voiceover artist, she has produced many videos for clients. Christine is highly skilled at getting videos to rank on Google. Additionally, these videos can be added to the social media platforms.

GeckoChat (coming August 2024)

GeckoChat (coming August 2024)

Gecko Gully has partnered with a USA company to provide a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that includes text messaging. This system offers a wide range of applications, one of the most popular being List Reactivation. With this feature, you load a list of leads you wish to follow up with into the system, and it sends out a text (SMS) message to each lead, inviting them to get in touch (the offer is crafted together). This initiates a conversation between the prospect and the system, driven by AI. You train the AI to respond to the most commonly asked questions. The system then leads the conversation towards booking a service or call, or it may prompt the prospect to ask you to call them. This ensures you are only dealing with hot, qualified leads.

There are a lot of other ways this can be used. Ideal businesses for this would be companies that do regular repeat services for people (medical, beauty, home services, etc). Or those that have a list of people who have enquired through a previous publicity campaign but who were not followed up with, or perhaps need to be followed up again.

This CRM service is versatile and can be ideal for businesses that require regular repeat services for clients (such as medical, beauty, home services, etc.), or those that have a list of people who enquired through a previous publicity campaign but were not followed up with, or perhaps need to be followed up again. The CRM service can be available as a stand-alone option without any of the other services, or in combination with them.

Business Consulting - Business Success Programme

This is Oxygen8’s flagship business consulting programme, designed to help small business owners grow their businesses.

Before working together, Christine Abela offers two meetings, each about an hour in length.  By Zoom anywhere in the world, or in person in South Canterbury, New Zealand.. In the first meeting, she discusses the challenges the business owner is facing, to determine whether there is scope for them to work together.

In the second meeting, Christine asks the business owner 66 questions about their business. They rate themselves from 1 to 5, depending on how they feel their business is doing compared with an ideal business. The answers are entered into a spreadsheet, along with the annual turnover, cost of goods sold, expenses, and wages. The spreadsheet calculates a “profit leakage” figure which shows, theoretically, how much more profit the business owner could make if they improved all the 1, 2, 3, and 4 answers up to 5. All 66 of these questions cover areas that Christine can assist with through the Business Success Programme.

Why Choose Gecko Gully With over 20 years of international experience and a deep technical background, Christine Abela and the team offer solutions that go beyond ordinary.

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Experienced and Innovative: Draw on our over 20 years of global expertise as you navigate the complexities of the digital world. Our approach combines tried-and-true methods with innovative solutions tailored to fit your business’s unique challenges and opportunities.

 

Tech Savvy and Creative Insight: Benefit from a leader who is not only a seasoned programmer but also a creative thinker. This allows for solutions that are both technically sound and imaginatively rich, ensuring your business stands out in the digital landscape.

 

Business Acumen: As a business consultant, Christine doesn’t just examine the technical aspects; she understands your business as a whole. This means developing strategies that improve your online presence and align perfectly with your business goals, fostering growth and customer connection.

 

Personalised Attention: At Gecko Gully, you’re not just another client. Christine’s commitment to personal service means your business receives focused attention and bespoke solutions that large agencies can’t match.

 

Cheryl, Glendon Place

A Gecko Gully website is like having the best of both worlds; it gives you 100% of the control and allows you to post and remove things instantly, yet at the same time you have a master behind the scenes who can fix your problems and makes sure your site continues to operate at peak performance. By far, the best choice I ever made. The service is superb and it gives me such peace of mind to know that when I scream “HELP” that Christine is there to make it right again.

Cheryl
Glendon Place

Carole

My Gecko Gully website is the best thing I have ever done for my business. Prompt, efficient, friendly, reliable service keep things humming and business flowing.

Carole
Maggie Robertson Design

Richard

Christine supported our company during a stressful time in and as an intergenerational family business provided clarity and support in what was an exceedingly emotional time within the business combined with the fluctuating and fluid business environment.

We would highly recommend Christine’s services to a business in a similar situation.

Richard
Business owner, Canterbury NZ

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Frequently Asked Questions Yes, we actually tell you what you want to know...

How much does it cost to build a website in NZ?

Do you want to know how much it costs to build a website in NZ?  Great question!  

Of course, it depends on who builds it, but I can give you a rough idea of what it would cost to get Gecko Gully to build you a website.  All pricing is in $NZ, and does not include GST (tax) which will be added if you are in New Zealand.  The pricing is for a self-hosted WordPress.org website.   Pricing is current as of May 2024.

The price depends on what you need

A really basic website with just a few simple pages and a blog will cost around $2000.

A more complex website with a WooCommerce shopping cart will cost around $5,000 to $10,000.

What is not included

These prices assume you are OK with using one of the template themes with a few modifications (I really like Themify’s Ultra theme). They do not include any design work, like a new logo or whatever. You would need to provide your logo and colour scheme (or use a standard font and colours from the theme), or I can introduce you to a good designer at an extra cost.

Also not included is hosting.  Hosting is where you pay a company for space on their server (a big computer that is always connected to the internet), to store your website so people can get to it.  I use and recommend Vetta in NZ for hosting.

Nor is a domain name included.  You would need to purchase your own domain name.

Also not included is content.  I will provide you with the basic structure for your website, but you will need to provide the words and images to go onto it.  

I won’t be creating any other marketing assets off the website.  So no social media pages, Google Business Profile, YouTube channel, backlinks from other sites to yours, press releases, etc.

What can be added

However, I can create content for you for an extra cost. The cost will depend on how much content you need. Some people just want home page content, while others want a full blog with many posts.

I can also add images for you, as long as you are OK with me using stock photos or AI-generated images. I am not in a position to come to your business in person and click a camera—you could do that.

Also, for extra cost, I can create the social media accounts you need.

Things you need to watch out for

Once you have your self-hosted WordPress site, you (or someone else) will need to update it often to ensure you are always using the latest version of WordPress and other software that has been added to it. If I build your website for you, I will show you how to do this. Or you can get an account with someone like WP Tech Support, and they can update everything for you and fix problems as they arise.

You will also need to renew (and pay for) your domain name and web hosting monthly or annually. If these expire, you might lose your website unless you have a backup.

Watch out for website building companies who offer to get your domain for you.  If they own the domain, they have control over where it is hosted.  It is very common these days for the website builder to also host the website, which means you will pay them monthly or annually.  If they also own the domain name, you won’t be able to move away from their hosting unless they let you.

Make sure you have something in your website that does regular backups.  A good plugin for this is Updraft Plus (free or paid), but there are several.  Set it up so that it does frequent backups and that these backups are not stored on your hosting (for example, I send mine to Dropbox).  This way, if your website is hacked, or the hosting crashes, or something else happens that is catastrophic, you will have a backup that you (or a friendly geek) can restore to.

Get your cPanel login credentials

Whether you get your hosting or do it through the website builder, ensure you get the login details for the technical back end.  This isn’t the WordPress login page; this is the login for the hosting.  One of the most common is called cPanel.  Before agreeing to a website package that includes hosting, ask if you will get login details for your cPanel.

Here’s why.  The cPanel also controls your email account.  Sometimes, a website builder will save money and put several clients’ hosting into one cPanel, including their email accounts.  If anyone you share a cPanel with is hacked, you will probably also be hacked.  And, if anyone you are sharing a cPanel with is blacklisted because they have done lots of spamming, your emails will probably also be blacklisted.

If your website builder is also your web host, make sure you are given cPanel login details (URL, username, and password). This will help ensure that you aren’t sharing with anyone else.

Let’s talk

Hopefully, this has helped you better understand how much it costs to build a website in New Zealand and what to watch out for. If you want to know more, please get in touch.