01 — What I found
Eight things costing you money or trust
Everything below I checked against your live site on the day of writing. The grey blocks are the actual code or the actual response — not a description of it. You are welcome to check any of them yourself.
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01
Revenue
The main shop button goes to a page that does not exist
The largest call to action on the homepage — SHOP NOW — points at a URL that returns 404. Anyone who arrives wanting to buy something hits a dead end at the first click.
<a href="/shop-1" class="sqs-button-element--primary">SHOP NOW</a> $ curl -I londonbikestudio.org/shop-1 → HTTP 404 Not Found -
02
Revenue
The shop page itself is empty
The real /shop page loads, but there is nothing on it — no products, no bikes, not a single line of copy between the header and the footer. You stock Marin, Genesis, Brother, Ridgeback and 6KU, and none of it exists online.
$ curl londonbikestudio.org/shop → HTTP 200 OK → body content between nav and footer: 0 products, 0 words -
03
Trust
Every page carries an address you left years ago
The header and the footer disagree with each other on both address and phone number. Google reads that inconsistency as uncertainty about who and where you are, and it costs you local ranking.
header 12 Glading Terrace, London, 07735359499 footer 129–131 Stoke Newington Rd, 020 8064 0425 -
04
Trust
A 2019 template placeholder is still on the site
Squarespace ships this string as filler in the Brine template. It has been sitting in the navigation area of every page since the site was built.
Your Custom Text Here -
05
Trust
Three links in the footer are broken
BUILD, EVENTS and JOURNAL appear in the footer navigation on every page. All three return 404. The events programme and the journal are two of the most interesting things you do, and both are unreachable.
/build → 404 /events → 404 /journal → 404 -
06
Search
No page has a description, and titles are defaults
The description tag is empty sitewide, so Google writes your search results for you from whatever text it finds first. The homepage title is your name and nothing else — no service, no neighbourhood.
<meta name="description" content=""> <title>London Bike Studio</title> -
07
Search
Two custom build pages compete with each other
Both URLs load the same offer. Google has to guess which is canonical, so it splits the ranking signal between them instead of concentrating it on one.
/custom-builds → 200 /custombuild → 200 -
08
Trust
The Instagram feed has lost its connection
The homepage block is serving Squarespace’s unauthenticated fallback rather than your posts. The account link needs re-authorising — or the block should come off the page until it does.
class="sqs-block-instagram instagram-unauth"
02 — What is already right
The problem is execution, not the business
It matters that this is fixable. The proposition is strong and clearly articulated — it is the delivery that leaks.
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You publish your prices
Bronze £85, Silver £130, Gold £200, tuition from £62, modifications at £45 an hour. Most independents will not put a number on a page. It is a genuine competitive asset and every direction below keeps it front and centre.
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The class programme is properly differentiated
Six classes, a City & Guilds course leader teaching them, and gift vouchers already packaged. High margin, hard to copy, and almost invisible on the current homepage.
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The membership idea is the best thing you have
“A workshop that recalls key moments in your bicycle’s life” is a better line than anything your competitors are running. Right now it is a mailing list signup, so the promise is made and not kept.
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The photography and the writing are good
There are seventy usable photographs on the site, and the Learn and Modify copy from 2019 is specific and well written. Every mockup below is built from your own pictures and your own words — nothing is stock.
03 — Three directions
Three homepages, all of them real
These are working pages, not pictures of pages. Click any of them, scroll it, open it on your phone. Every price, class and product on them is yours, and every photograph is one you took.
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01 The safe choice
The Studio
Your site, tailored
Keeps the typefaces and editorial character you already have — same wardrobe, properly fitted. Sage and brick sampled from your own photographs. The signature is a service record card that finally shows what membership actually gives someone.
- Unna and IM Fell, your existing faces
- Editorial, photograph-led layout
- The brand marquee, fixed
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02 The confident choice
The Workshop
Lead with the bench
Dark, warm and wooden like the shop actually is, with the paperwork of a workshop laid over it in cream. Opens with what is on the stands today rather than a brand statement. Built to convert bookings first, retail second.
- The interior’s real colours
- Job tickets and quotes as the visual language
- Every published price, up front
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03 The bold choice
N16
The shop window
Risograph inks, flat colour blocks and a literal noticeboard, because Stoke Newington Road runs on flyposters and you already make your own. The one thing carried over untouched is IM Fell — your 2019 face — kept for the marks that should still feel old.
- Your hand-brushed wordmark
- IM Fell English SC, from the original
- Your real Halloween ride poster
04 — Common to all three
Whichever you pick, this changes
The look is a preference. The list below is not — it is the same in all three, because it is the part that earns money back.
| Today | All three directions | |
|---|---|---|
| The main shop CTA | Goes to a 404 | Goes to a working shop |
| Products online | None | Bikes and accessories, reserve and collect |
| Cycle to work | A link out to Cyclescheme | Quote capture on your own site |
| Membership | A Mailchimp form | A service record the customer can actually see |
| Address | Two different ones | One, correct, marked up for Google |
| Descriptions | Empty sitewide | Written per page |
| Events and journal | 404 | Live, and on the homepage |
05 — How it would run
Four phases, and you can stop after any of them
Nothing here requires committing to a rebuild. Phase one alone pays for itself by stopping the obvious losses, and each phase after that is a separate decision.
Figures left blank on purpose. Fill these in before you print it — I did not want to anchor the conversation before you have had it.
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Week one
£____
Stop the leaks
Everything in the findings above, fixed on the current Squarespace site. No rebuild, no risk, no downtime. You keep the site you have and it stops losing people.
- Point SHOP NOW somewhere real
- Fix the WhatsApp number
- One correct address, header and footer
- Repair the three dead footer links
- Remove the template placeholder
- Write descriptions for every page
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Month one
£____
Build the shop
The single biggest revenue gap. Forty to sixty accessories with real prices, plus your bike range with reserve-and-collect rather than full checkout, so you never sell a bike you have not got.
- 40–60 accessories, priced
- Bike range with enquiry and reserve
- Cycle-to-work quote form
- Duplicate pages consolidated
- Local search markup for N16
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Months two to three
£____
Rebuild on the chosen direction
Whichever of the three you pick, built properly and fast — static pages, your photography optimised, and a membership area that shows a customer their bike’s history instead of promising it.
- Chosen concept built in full
- Membership and service record
- Booking flow joined up end to end
- Events and journal restored
- You keep every published price
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Ongoing
£____ a month
Keep it alive
The reason the site drifted is that nobody owned it. This is the part that stops it happening again — stock, events, seasonal copy, and a short monthly note on what actually moved.
- Stock and price updates
- Events and classes kept current
- Monthly performance note
- Hosting, backups and fixes
- First call on anything urgent
06 — Next
Pick a direction and I will fix the broken things this week.
The eight findings are a day of work whichever way this goes, and I would rather they were done than used as leverage. Tell me which of the three you like — or which bits of each — and I will put a real number against it.