A search agency built out of 25 years of web work
Rank First Digital launched on 27 February 2025 as the search-focused sister company of Mid-Hudson Web, which Steven Franzken founded in 2000. Together the team has delivered more than 500 projects across industries.
Senior people do the work, with no hand-offs
The model rejects the industry pattern where a senior person wins the pitch and junior or offshore staff execute. The people on the call are the people doing the work.
Built for Google and for AI answers
SEO, AEO and GEO work as one system so businesses appear in traditional results and in the answers generated by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
Where the Story Actually Starts
Most agencies run on a familiar pattern. A senior person wins the pitch, then the work lands on someone junior or an offshore contractor following a script. The client pays for experience and receives a template.
Rank First Digital exists because its founders lived on the wrong side of that pattern and decided to end it. Steven Franzken founded Mid-Hudson Web in 2000 to build websites and applications for businesses in the Hudson Valley, and the work soon reached across New York State. The operating principle was simple and has not changed: do not sell smoke. Build things that work, and let the results do the talking.
By 2013 the agency had outgrown a one-person engine. That year, Nehal Malvi joined as co-founder, bringing range across UI/UX design, web development, mobile apps, digital marketing and animation. With him on board, Mid-Hudson Web became a full team spanning design, development and marketing. Steven brought the search and strategy discipline. Nehal brought the design, build and creative muscle. Together they delivered more than 500 projects across industries.
The Split That Created Rank First Digital
Over the years, one department kept pulling ahead: search. SEO clients were ranking higher and, more importantly, converting that ranking into real revenue. Then search itself changed again. Answer Engine Optimization and Generative Engine Optimization grew into a discipline with their own skills, tools and measurement, different enough from website building to deserve their own company.
So the founders made a deliberate call. Search deserved a dedicated firm with singular focus. On 27 February 2025, Rank First Digital launched to handle SEO, AEO and GEO, while Mid-Hudson Web stayed focused on websites, apps and AI solutions. Two focused companies, one shared philosophy.
What Rank First Digital Actually Does
Rank First Digital is a full search-growth partner for businesses across New York. SEO, AEO and GEO work together as one system so a business appears in traditional Google results and in the AI-generated answers its customers now read first. The work covers technical SEO, local SEO, content built to be cited, structured data, and AI search visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Paid advertising on Google, Meta and TikTok runs alongside it.
The Technical Work Behind the Rankings
The work starts with the site itself, not a slide deck. Every engagement begins with crawl and index checks, Core Web Vitals testing, structured-data review, and an analysis of server logs to see how search and AI crawlers actually behave on the site, not how we assume they behave.
Because the sister company builds the websites, Rank First Digital can fix problems at the source instead of emailing a list of issues to a separate vendor. That is the practical advantage of a search team and a build team sharing one origin: fewer hand-offs, faster fixes, and accountability that does not end at a recommendation.
Where We Work
Rank First Digital serves businesses across the Hudson Valley and New York State, including Dutchess, Ulster, Orange and Westchester counties and New York City, with a focus on local service businesses that depend on being found at the moment of intent: legal practices, healthcare and dental providers, and home-service and trades companies.
What Makes Rank First Digital Different
Seven commitments that shape every engagement, and that most agencies cannot make:
The people on the sales call are the people doing the work, from first call through every sprint.
Qualified leads, cost per customer and closed revenue from your CRM, not vanity impressions.
You own your accounts and we charge no media markups, so every dollar of spend is visible.
Decisions come from server logs, crawl data and pipeline numbers, not opinions.
No bought links. Authority is earned through editorial placements and useful content.
Clear entities, clean schema, and factual pages that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews can safely cite.
In Their Own Words
"Marketing has changed more in the last two years than in the ten before it. People ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini a question and get one answer, not ten blue links. Most searches now end without a click. So the goal is no longer just ranking, it is being the brand that AI names and trusts."
"We started tracking where our clients were actually showing up in AI answers, and the pattern was obvious: the brands named most often were the ones with clear, factual pages, clean schema, and real expertise behind the content. Ranking still matters, but it is no longer the finish line. That is why I built our search process around being the source an AI can safely quote."
"Everyone wants to talk about the latest trend, whether it is short videos, creator-style posts or AI-generated content. Here is the thing: a trend earns you a day of attention, and a marketing plan turns that attention into customers."
"I have spent years across marketing, design, apps and animation, and the campaigns that work always start with one question: what should the person do next? Search, social and content have to answer that together. Now that AI tools decide which brands get named, a consistent message across every channel matters more than any single viral post."
25 Years, One Standard
The track record behind every engagement, continuous since 2000.
Client outcomes, including ranking and lead results, are documented on the case studies page.
Where We Go From Here
The focus is deeper investment in AEO and GEO, because that is where search is heading. Businesses that build answer-ready content now will own the AI citations their competitors have not yet noticed. Expect new hires, expansion into more industries and regions, and original research on how businesses appear in AI answers.
The philosophy stays exactly where it started in 2000: build things that work, tell the truth about what they do, and put senior people on the work. The tools changed. The standard did not.
Ready to Work With the People Doing the Work?
No sales reps, no junior hand-offs. Get a direct diagnostic consultation with our search and performance media leadership, and a short plan of what we would fix first and why.
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Co-Founder and Head of Search Architecture at Rank First Digital. Founded Mid-Hudson Web in 2000 and has spent 25+ years building websites, applications and search systems for New York businesses. Leads search strategy and technical SEO, and built the agency's AEO and GEO practice around being the source AI engines can safely quote.
