Building and ranking websites since 2019.

It started because I couldn’t afford an agency

In 2019 I opened a clothing store. I had stock, a shopfront and a website, and almost nobody could find any of it. So I did what everyone does and asked a few agencies for quotes. The numbers came back in the thousands, none of them would tell me what I’d actually get for the money, and I didn’t have it to spend anyway.

So I learnt to do it myself. Badly, at first. I read everything, broke the site more than once, and slowly worked out which of the things people say about SEO actually move anything and which are filler. Then it started working — the store got found, and the people finding it were the people I wanted.

Then other people started asking

Other business owners noticed and asked whether I’d do theirs. Since 2023 I’ve been building and ranking websites for Australian businesses properly, under my own ABN. Rankforge is simply the name on that work now — the business is new, the skills are not.

I mention the clothing store because it explains how I price and how I talk to people. I have sat where you’re sitting, holding a quote for thousands of dollars with no way to judge whether it was fair or whether it would do anything at all. That is the reason the prices are on this website, the reason the scope is written down before you pay anything, and the reason I’ll tell you when you don’t need what you’re asking for.

How I work

Prices are published, because making someone sit through a sales call to learn a number wastes their afternoon and mine. There are no lock-in contracts, because a contract that keeps a client who wants to leave is just a tax on my own underperformance. And every domain, hosting account and analytics property goes in your name from the first day, so leaving is always genuinely possible.

I also say no reasonably often. If your site doesn’t need rebuilding, I’ll tell you. If the keywords in your niche have almost no search volume, I’ll show you the numbers rather than take a retainer for twelve months of nothing. There is more long-term work in being straight with people.

Why remote, and why that isn’t a hedge

Rankforge has no office, and I’m not going to pretend that’s a limitation. Every part of this work happens on a screen: research, design, code, reporting. What an office adds is rent, and rent gets billed back to you. In practice you get a kickoff call, a shared document for content, design reviews over a screen share, and a private link to click through before launch — plus more of my time, because none of it is spent driving.

Who I work with

Small and medium businesses across Australia: trades and home services, health and dental practices, professional firms, accountants, real estate agencies and online retailers. Businesses where the owner still cares personally whether the enquiries arrive — which, having run one, I understand better than most.

What I’m not

Not the cheapest — there are $990 template shops and they serve a real purpose. Not a full-service agency either; if you need television, media buying and a brand platform, you want somebody bigger. Rankforge sits in the middle, and I’m honest about which side of that you might be better off on.

Abaseen
Founder, Rankforge