A licensed adviser, in a category built on distrust.

1 of 6

The licence number near the top, with the register one tap away.

On the home page it sits beside her name, in the first screen on a laptop and on a phone. It is in the footer of every page. Each time, the link beside it goes to the public register, not to a page on her own site.

Sending a visitor away at the moment of first contact is not what a conversion checklist would advise. But the one thing she has that a competitor cannot fake is a number in a government database. The fastest way to be believed is to hand someone the means to disbelieve you.

What it cost

A visitor who leaves to check may not come back. The bet is that one who checks and returns arrives already convinced.

2 of 6

No promised outcome, anywhere on the site. Not once.

All twelve pages end with the same line: Immigration New Zealand makes the final decision on every visa application, and no outcome is guaranteed. Her site’s answer to ‘Can you guarantee my visa?’ starts with one word: no.

Partly this is the law. Mostly it is the argument. A reader who has spent a month on sites promising approval recognises the one site that refuses to promise anything.

What it cost

The site reads cooler than its competitors. That is the point.

3 of 6

A path finder that gives an answer, then says it is not advice.

One question, what brings you to New Zealand, suggests a starting visa. Under the answer it says plainly that this is a general starting point, not immigration advice. For a licensed adviser, that line is not decoration.

The most common first question is not ‘what do you charge’. It is ‘which visa am I even asking about’. Answering that for free is how a stranger finds out the practice is useful.

What it cost

Careful wording on every answer, checked line by line against what an unlicensed tool is allowed to say.

4 of 6

The first prices on the page: a free first call, and an assessment from NZ$49.50.

Many sites in the category give no figure at all. The people they leave guessing have often been quoted a round sum by an unlicensed agent, and are trying to work out what normal looks like.

Her fees page gives the two prices she can fix in advance: the first phone consultation is free, and a full eligibility assessment starts from NZ$49.50. After that, each case is quoted on its own and agreed in writing before work begins. The complaints process sits on the same page.

What it cost

A few conversations never start. Those are the ones that end at the price anyway.

5 of 6

Six pathway pages instead of one ‘services’ page.

Few people search for ‘immigration services’. They search for the visa they need. A partner visa applicant and an investor visa applicant have almost nothing in common except the adviser, and a page that tries to speak to both speaks to neither.

What it cost

Six pages to write properly instead of one. This was most of the work.

6 of 6

Short sentences, because many readers have English as a second language.

Her team speaks six languages. The site is in one. Every sentence was cut until it could be read once and understood: no clauses stacked three deep, no idiom, no words doing two jobs.

This is invisible when it works, which is why it usually does not get done.

What it cost

Several passes of pure deletion, which always feels like losing something.