Proposal · prepared for W. Carter & Son · 1 June 2026
A few specific fixes for wcarterandson.co.uk
W. Carter & Son · Salisbury · website rebuild
I rebuild small-business sites in my spare time when I can see they are leaving good work on the table. I spent some time on wcarterandson.co.uk and three things stood out, mostly around how little of what makes the shop remarkable, the 1817 history, the watch and clock work, the 4.2 reviews, actually reaches a first-time visitor. Three findings below, then a working rebuild you can click through.
Finding 01
Two hundred years of history sits behind an off-the-shelf theme.
What I saw
The shop has traded from the same Minster Street premises since 1817, the founder’s own clocks are still bought and sold by antique dealers, and the family line runs five generations deep. None of that reaches the homepage. The site is a WordPress build on a generic Elementor template (the kind any shop can buy), and the first photo on a key page is a stock shot of unrelated goldsmith tools rather than your own black-and-gold shopfront.
What the rebuild does
The rebuild opens on the 1817 story. The hero leads with two hundred years on the same Minster Street, the real shopfront photo, and a dark heritage band that walks the timeline from the original 1817 newspaper notice through to Sebastian and Charlotte Salt today. The history becomes the first thing a visitor sees, not a buried About page.
Finding 02
Unoptimised images and duplicate navigation slow and muddle the site.
What I saw
The pages carry full-size WordPress images that have not been compressed for the web, so the homepage document alone is heavy before any of the photography loads. The navigation also repeats itself, with www and non-www links sitting alongside each other, which makes the menu longer and more confusing than it needs to be on a phone.
What the rebuild does
The rebuild is a single fast static page, images sized and compressed, one clear navigation that never doubles up. It loads quickly on a phone in the shop doorway and the menu reads in one glance.
Finding 03
No structured data, so Google cannot see the shop properly.
What I saw
A look at the page source shows there is no LocalBusiness or jeweller structured data anywhere on the site, and the homepage title is just the shop name with no location or trade. So the Minster Street address by the Cathedral, the opening hours and the 4.2 rating across 27 reviews are invisible to Google rich results and to the AI assistants people now ask for a Salisbury jeweller.
What the rebuild does
The rebuild ships Jeweler and Store schema with the Minster Street address, the opening hours, the 4.2 aggregate rating and an FAQ block, plus a written meta description and a proper share card. The credentials the shop already has start showing up where people actually search.
What it costs
No retainer. No contract. No in-person visits, fully remote from Switzerland.
- One round of revisions before launch
- DNS cutover handled (you keep the domain in your name)
- 30 days of post-launch tweaks at no extra cost
- Source code handed over on day 60 (you own everything)
A few things worth answering
What happens to the wcarterandson.co.uk domain and the shop email?
The domain stays exactly as it is, in your name. Only the hosting moves, from the current WordPress setup to a fast static build. The info@wcarterandson.co.uk address keeps working throughout. Nothing about how customers reach you changes, the site that answers them just gets quicker and clearer.
We are not very technical. How much work is this for us?
Very little. I take the words, photos and history that are already on the current site, plus anything new you want to add, and do the build remotely. You review one round of changes before it goes live. The only thing I would ask for is a few minutes on a call to confirm the 1817 story is told the way you would tell it.
Can new pieces and photos be added after launch?
Yes. The monthly care option covers small content changes, so when there is a new commission worth showing, a clock back in stock, or a change to the hours, you send it over and it goes up. No page builder to wrestle with.
If the proposal lands, reply with two or three 20-minute slots in the next ten days for a video call. I take on three Wiltshire builds this quarter, and the first confirmed wins the slot. If I do not hear back by 11 June, the proposal site comes down.
See the live rebuild ↗ A working preview you can click through. Opens in this tab.