Websites for local businesses, built by hand.
No page builders. No WordPress plugins quietly breaking at 2am. No monthly subscription you can never get out of. Just a fast, sharp website that makes your business look like what it actually is — and that you own outright.
Northern Rivers, NSW · Usually replies same day
Nothing to update
Nothing to break
After handover
Code, domain, hosting
Real businesses. Real sites.
Every one of these was built the same way — hand-written code, hosted on infrastructure the owner controls, handed over with everything in their name.
Garden restoration specialist, far north coast
Built around the two moments people actually go looking: getting a place ready to sell, and taking on an overgrown garden they just bought. Quote form, service-area map, mobile-first.
Barbershop, Flemington VIC
Walk-ins only, so the whole site exists to answer three questions fast: what it costs, when they're open, where they are. Full price list, warm vintage photo grade, custom domain and email-free contact by choice.
Screen printing, trade & own label
Two audiences under one roof — custom runs for businesses, plus his own clothing label. Split into two lanes with a shared identity, and an order builder that takes size breakdowns and artwork uploads.
Sole trader, complex-needs support work
Written for the person actually choosing the provider — the support coordinator or the parent. Scope, funding types and credentials stated plainly up front, because in that market clarity is the whole pitch.
The whole job, not just the pretty bit.
Most people don't need "a website" — they need to stop losing enquiries. That usually means design, words, domain, hosting and Google all sorted at once.
New website build
One page or many. Designed from scratch for your business — not a template with your logo dropped in. Written, built, tested on real phones, and launched.
Rescue & rebuild
You've got a site, but it's slow, dated, unfixable, or someone else holds the keys. I rebuild it clean and put every login back in your name.
Online stores
Shopify builds and custom theme work — I run my own Shopify store, so this is the day job, not a side experiment.
Domain, hosting & email
Registered properly in your name, DNS configured, SSL on, business email working. The boring part that goes wrong most often.
Google & local search
Google Business Profile set up or claimed, service areas and hours correct, page titles and structure done so you turn up when someone nearby searches.
Words & photos
I'll write the copy if you'd rather not, and tell you exactly which photos to take. Real photos of real work — never stock, never AI-generated.
What you get, and what you won't.
Worth knowing before you call. If the second list is a dealbreaker, no hard feelings — I'll point you at someone who works that way.
What you get
- ✓A fixed price agreed before I start. Not an hourly rate that creeps.
- ✓A site that loads in under a second on a phone, on regional 4G.
- ✓Every account — domain, hosting, Google — registered in your name, with the logins handed to you.
- ✓Enquiries emailed straight to you the second someone submits the form.
- ✓Someone local you can actually ring.
What you won't
- ✕A WordPress site with 22 plugins you're expected to keep updated.
- ✕A monthly fee to me forever just to keep your own site online.
- ✕Stock photos of models in hard hats, or AI-generated pictures of work that never happened.
- ✕Made-up five-star reviews. Your testimonials go up when real customers write them.
- ✕Being held hostage. If you ever want to leave, you already own everything.
Four steps, about two weeks.
You're busy running the business. I'll only ever need you for two of these — and the two weeks starts once you've sent your bits over, not before.
A chat
Half an hour on the phone or over a coffee. What you do, who you want ringing you, what's not working now. You get a fixed quote after this — free, no obligation.
You send me everything
Deposit and your photos, details and any wording you want used. I don't start until it's all in — that's how this stays two weeks instead of two months.
Draft & one round of changes
I build a real, working site — not a slideshow of mockups. You look at it on your phone and send me everything you want adjusted, in one list. I make those changes, and we launch.
Launch & handover
Domain pointed, SSL on, forms tested, Google set up. Then I hand you every login and a plain-English page explaining what each one is.
Fixed quotes. No surprises.
One price, agreed before any work starts. No hourly rate ticking over, no line items appearing at the end.
Half to start, half when it's finished. Online stores are quoted separately — there's a lot more to them.
What it costs to keep running
Almost nothing, and none of it comes to me. Hosting for a site this size is free on the plan I use. A .com.au domain is about $23 a year — often around $10 for the first year on an introductory deal — paid directly to the registrar, in your name.
If you want business email on your own domain, that's a few dollars a month to Google or Microsoft — again, straight from you to them. I don't mark any of it up and I don't sit in the middle of it.
Changes later on
Once it's launched the site is yours and there's nothing more to pay. If you want me to make changes down the track I'm happy to — I'll quote it before I start, same as the original job. You're never obliged to come back to me, and plenty of people don't need to.
Start yours →
I ran a trade before I built websites.
I'm Ryan. I'm a gardener by trade, I run a garden restoration business on this coast, and I built my own site because the quotes I got back were four grand for something I could see was a template.
So I learnt to build them properly. Then mates started asking. Then their mates. Now it's a business — and the trade background is the useful part: I know what it's like to be quoting on a job with your phone in your hand, and I know that a website's only job is to turn a stranger into a phone call.
I'm not an agency. You won't get passed to an account manager. It's me building it and me answering the phone.
In their words.
[REAL CLIENT QUOTE]
[REAL CLIENT QUOTE]
The ones I get every time.
Do I actually own the site?
Yes — completely. The domain is registered in your name, the hosting account is yours, and you get every login at handover. If you decide next year that you'd rather someone else looked after it, you hand them the logins and walk. Nothing is locked to me.
Why don't you use WordPress?
For a business your size it's the wrong tool. WordPress means a database, a theme and a stack of plugins that all need updating — and when one breaks, your site goes down and you have no idea why.
I write the site directly, so there's nothing to update and nothing to break. It's also dramatically faster, which matters because most of your customers are on a phone with a couple of bars of reception.
How long does it take?
About two weeks — but the clock starts when you've sent me your photos and details, not at our first chat. That's deliberate. The slow part is almost never the building, it's waiting on content, so I don't start until I've got everything.
If you turn up organised, it's often quicker.
I need to change something after launch. Then what?
Ring me and I'll quote it before I start — same as the original job, no hourly rate ticking over. Most changes are small and priced accordingly.
What I won't do is charge you a monthly fee for the privilege. There's no retainer and no minimum spend to keep the site online, so if you go two years without needing anything, that costs you nothing.
Do you only work in the Northern Rivers?
It's where I'm based and where I prefer to work, because being able to turn up in person makes a real difference. But I've built for businesses interstate too, and the process works fine over the phone.
I don't have any photos. Is that a problem?
It's the single biggest thing that makes a site work, so it's worth solving. I'll give you a shot list — specific, like "the ute parked at a finished job, shot from the kerb, mid-morning" — and your phone camera is genuinely good enough.
What I won't do is fill the gaps with stock photos or AI-generated images of work that never happened. People can tell, and it costs you the trust the site was supposed to build.
Tell me about your business.
Fill this in, or just ring me — whichever suits. The first conversation is free and you'll get a fixed price out of it either way.
Northern Rivers, NSW — Tweed to Ballina, coast to hinterland
Ring any reasonable hour — I'm often at the desk late. If I miss you, I'll call you back the same day.