★ Exeter · trading since December 1995 · Mon & Thu-Sat, 10:30 to 17:00

A few specific fixes for roosterrecords.co.uk.

I rebuild small-business sites in my spare time when I can see they are leaving conversions on the table. Three things stood out on mobile when I read the current roosterrecords.co.uk. Three findings below, then a working rebuild you can click through at /preview/.

Open live preview ↗ Read the three findings Reply to the proposal

Address · 98 Fore Street, Exeter, Devon EX4 3HY Trading · since December 1995, by Jaimie Fennell Open · Mon and Thu-Sat, 10:30 to 17:00

98 Fore Street · Exeter · trading since December 1995

Jaimie Fennell. Thirty years on the counter, over 75,000 records on the shelves, opposite the Mint Methodist Church on Fore Street. Open the live preview ↗

Three findings, in order of priority

What thirty years on Fore Street is currently leaving on the homepage.

A walk-through of the live roosterrecords.co.uk on 19 May 2026. The thirty-year tenure, the 75,000 items, and the four-day opening pattern are the three things a planning visitor most needs to see. None of them sit above the fold.

01

Thirty years on the counter and over 75,000 records in stock, and neither line is on the homepage above the fold.

Observation: Rooster Records has been trading since December 1995, first in Taunton, then on Fore Street in Exeter from November 2006. That is thirty years and five months as of today, longer than any other independent record shop in Exeter. The current homepage carries a Chicle-script wordmark, a stock-feeling banner photo, and a long lede about the South West. The thirty-year tenure does not appear at all on the landing screen. The 75,000-items-in-stock claim sits in a paragraph two scrolls down from the top of the page, not in any heading.
Impact: The two strongest credentials a UK record shop can carry are tenure and stock depth. A crate-digger driving over from Plymouth or Taunton, a Visit South Devon editor writing the music trail, a journalist filing a piece on independent vinyl, every one of them lands on a homepage that reads as "another small record shop" rather than "Exeter's longest-standing record shop, 75,000 records under one roof". The credentials Jaimie has earned over three decades are, functionally, hidden.
After rebuild: After rebuild: a hero on the homepage that names Fore Street, the December 1995 founding, and the 75,000 items in 60-point type. Crate-diggers and tourist-board editors see the credential in the first second.

02

The four-day Mon and Thu-to-Sat opening pattern is the most important fact for any planning visitor, and it is buried two clicks deep on the contact page.

Observation: The shop trades Monday and then Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 10:30 to 17:00. Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday are closed. The current homepage names none of this. A planning visitor has to click through to /contact-us before learning the shop is shut three days of the week. Older Yelp and Yell snippets still hint at wider hours that no longer apply. Anyone driving in from Honiton or Topsham on a Wednesday finds the shutters down.
Impact: A Wednesday tourist on the Fore Street stretch toward the Quay walks past a closed door and assumes the shop has shut for good. A first-time crate-digger planning a Tuesday-Wednesday trip from Bristol never learns the four-day rhythm is by design. The opening pattern is the single most important practical fact for any planning visitor, and the homepage hides it.
After rebuild: After rebuild: a Mon and Thu-Sat badge above the fold in the hero, and a Visit block that names the pattern as positioning, not as absence. The four-day rhythm framed as how the shop chooses to trade.

03

The cockerel illustration in the masthead is the strongest brand asset the shop has, and the homepage hero is a stock-looking banner photo that buries it.

Observation: The Rooster Records mark is a hand-illustrated cockerel: cherry-red comb, brass-ochre feathers, a real piece of identity. The current homepage banner is a wide cropped photo of records in a generic-looking interior, with the Chicle-script wordmark laid over it. The cockerel is reduced to a small cached PNG above the navigation, on a flat parchment background that drains the colour out of it. The mark that could carry the whole brand is not allowed to do any of the work.
Impact: A record shop competing for attention in 2026 needs an identity a customer can describe to a friend in one phrase. "The one with the rooster on Fore Street" is that phrase. The current site puts the cockerel where nobody looks and uses a stock-feeling banner where the bird should be. Every poster, every Instagram post, every Visit South Devon listing flattens into "another small record shop on the west side of the High Street".
After rebuild: After rebuild: the cockerel as an inline SVG element in the hero, sized large enough to be the visual anchor. The mark, the cherry-red comb and the brass-ochre feathers carried through the whole palette so the shop reads as Rooster from the first scroll.

Current it'seeze setup and the gaps

Current ↗ roosterrecords.co.uk

Platform: it'seeze Exeter website builder (single inline stylesheet, _webedit/ cached-images CDN)
Hosting: it'seeze managed hosting, no direct edit access for the owner
Identity: Chicle script + Bungee Shade display, stock banner photo, cockerel mark reduced to small PNG
Story: Thirty-year tenure, the Taunton-to-Exeter move, 75,000 items, four-day rhythm, all in body copy or two clicks deep
Schema: No JSON-LD anywhere. No LocalBusiness, no MusicStore, no opening hours, no FAQPage.
Open Graph: og:image absent. WhatsApp / iMessage / Slack unfurl is text-only and reads as broken.
Analytics: GA4 (G-ZH90PH9QMM) + dead UA-128421846-24 (sunset July 2023) still firing.

Proposed

Framework: Astro static site, hand-built single-page rebuild, no it'seeze dependency
Hosting: Vercel edge network. Domain stays in your name, DNS cutover handled.
Identity: Cream paper + vinyl-black ink + cherry cockerel-red + brass-ochre + Devon sandstone. Crimson Pro serif. Cockerel as the visual anchor.
Story: Hero names Jaimie Fennell, December 1995, Fore Street, 75,000 items, Mon and Thu-Sat 10:30 to 17:00. Cockerel inline on the page.
Schema: LocalBusiness + MusicStore + Person + FAQPage. Real opening hours, real phone, full PostalAddress.
Open Graph: Real shopfront photo. Description names Fore Street, December 1995, 75,000 records, four-day opening pattern.
Analytics: GA4 only. Dead UA tag removed. One clean measurement surface.

Pricing

Fixed price, no hourly billing, no surprise upgrade tier.

One-off fee for the full rebuild, optional monthly care plan, optional chatbot add-on. Source code handed over on day sixty. You own everything.

Build

Full Astro rebuild with the thirty-year tenure and 75,000 items above the fold

New homepage anchored on Jaimie Fennell, December 1995, Fore Street, 75,000 items, and the Mon and Thu-Sat opening pattern. Cockerel as the visual anchor. LocalBusiness + MusicStore + FAQPage schema. Real Open Graph card. Empty /rooster-news/ retired.

£2,000

fixed · one-off

Care

Hosting and ongoing care

Vercel hosting, automatic SSL renewal forever, monthly stock-rotation refreshes, schema maintenance, monthly analytics email.

£150

/ month · cancel any time

Optional

Embedded chatbot, trained on the FAQs

Answers the open-days, buying, genre depth and visit questions in the corner of the page. Hands off to email for anything it does not know.

£50

/ month · optional

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

Timeline · phased rollout

Three phases. The credential lands on day one.

Phase 1 / Week 1

The credential above the fold

● New homepage anchored on Jaimie Fennell, December 1995, Fore Street and the 75,000-items-in-stock claim.
● Mon and Thu-Sat opening badge above the fold. Four-day rhythm framed as how the shop trades, not as absence.
● LocalBusiness + MusicStore + Person + FAQPage schema. Real Open Graph card with the shopfront photo.
● Cockerel mark moved off the small cached PNG and surfaced as the visual anchor of the hero.

Phase 2 / Weeks 2-3

The story and the depth

● Heritage band on the homepage carrying the Taunton-to-Exeter move and the solicitor-to-records career change.
● Stock-depth block separating new audiophile pressings on 180g and 200g vinyl from the used pre-1990s crates.
● We-buy-collections copy lifted off the live site and laid out clearly: drop in, email a list, or arrange a home visit.

Phase 3 / Week 4+

Notes, news and ongoing care

● A small notes block for new arrivals, collection highlights and RSD updates. Replaces the empty /rooster-news/ page.
● Optional embedded chatbot trained on the FAQs in the corner of the page.
● Monthly analytics email, stock-rotation refreshes, schema maintenance, automatic SSL renewal forever.

Next step · one email, one decision

If the proposal lands, two or three 20-minute slots in the next ten days.

I take on three south-west independent builds this quarter. First confirmed wins the slot. If I do not hear back by 29 May 2026, the proposal site comes down.

Reply to the proposal Open live preview ↗

See the live rebuild

A working preview you can click through

Opens in this tab. The hero with the cockerel, the stock-depth block, the heritage band, the Visit map at 98 Fore Street, the FAQs.

Open live preview ↗