Built by Corey →  See the live rebuild
Proposal · prepared for South Gate Gallery · 19 May 2026

A few specific fixes for southgategallery.co.uk.

South Gate Gallery · Cathedral quarter, Exeter · website rebuild

I rebuild small-business websites in my spare time, free, for prospects I think are leaving conversions on the table. Three things stood out in ten minutes on the live southgategallery.co.uk on a phone, all three downstream of the same thing: the brothers took the bench in February 2020 and the homepage still reads like the shopify-themed shopfront the previous owners left behind. Three findings below, then a working rebuild of the homepage at /preview/.

Open live preview  ↗ Read the three findings Reply to the proposal
64 South Street · Exeter · since February 2020

Picture framers and contemporary gallery in the Exeter cathedral quarter, run by the brothers Stephen and Matthew. Open the live preview ↗

Three findings · in order of impact

What stood out on the live site, on a phone, in ten minutes.

Each finding has a sentence on what I saw, and a sentence on what the rebuild does about it. The rebuild itself is at /preview/.

01

The brothers’ takeover story, the strongest credibility moment the gallery has, sits two clicks from the homepage.

Stephen moved his wife and two children from West London to Exeter in October 2019, after ten-plus years on a single West London framing bench. Matthew, already settled in Exeter, brought fifteen years of construction operations behind a counter. Together they took the keys on 10 February 2020, four months before a national lockdown closed the doors. The takeover narrative, the move, the children, the four-months-before-Covid timing, are written on /pages/about-us, two navigation clicks from the homepage. The homepage hero on southgategallery.co.uk shows a generic stock-style gallery image and the word South Gate Gallery. A first-time visitor cannot tell who is at the bench, when the brothers took over, or that the workshop is run by two people whose CVs join at the same address.

After rebuild  ·  The rebuild opens with the brothers in the lede, the February 2020 acquisition date in the eyebrow, and the October 2019 move into the cathedral quarter in the heritage block. The four-months-before-lockdown timing, honestly told, becomes a quiet point of credibility rather than an absent fact. The customer arriving from the Devon Artist Network member listing sees Stephen and Matthew first, the address second, and the trade third.

02

Conservation framing is the headline claim, but the four glass options and the museum-standard mount-board specification sit on a sub-page rather than the homepage.

The /pages/framing-in-exeter page names the conservation specification in trade terms, the four glass options stocked side by side (float, anti-reflective, conservation, museum), the museum-standard pH-neutral mount-board, and the acid-free working environment. This is the technical detail the customer with a £400 textile commission, a £900 framed original, or an antique print to protect for fifty years is reading for. It does not appear on the homepage. The homepage carries only a generic four-tile services strip with no glass options named, no mount-board specification, and no conservation language above the fold. A customer comparing South Gate Gallery to a high-street chain framer cannot see, on the homepage, that they are dealing with a conservation-grade workshop.

After rebuild  ·  The rebuild surfaces the four glass options as a single block under the framing section, with a one-line decision note for each option. The museum-standard pH-neutral mount-board is named in the same block, alongside the acid-free working environment. The customer choosing between South Gate and a chain framer sees the conservation specification on the first screen of the homepage, in trade terms, without having to navigate two pages deep.

03

Stephen’s London CV, Tower of London Poppies, Hermes Scarves, Team Shirts, Insect Collections, pieces up to six feet by ten, is invisible in the service tiles.

Stephen spent ten-plus years on a single West London framing workshop bench, where he framed Tower of London Poppies, Hermes Scarves, sports Team Shirts, entomological Insect Collections, and pieces up to six feet by ten. This is the kind of working envelope most regional framers outside London never see in a career. The current homepage has a four-tile service strip naming box frames, canvas stretching, multi-aperture mounts, and memorabilia, with no portfolio of the unusual jobs and no mention of the six-by-ten envelope. The customer with a textile commission, a memorabilia frame, or a three-dimensional specimen reads a generic service tile and assumes the workshop only handles flat artwork.

After rebuild  ·  The rebuild lifts Stephen’s London CV into a dedicated specialism block on the homepage, named in trade terms. The six-by-ten working envelope is surfaced as a number. The Tower of London Poppies, the Hermes Scarves, the Team Shirts, the Insect Collections, are named individually as the kind of work the bench handles. The customer reading the homepage now sees that the workshop is the rare regional bench that takes the unusual brief.

Pricing · fixed, one-off

One price for the rebuild, one for hosting and care.

£2,000 Fixed for the rebuild, one-off. £150 Per month for hosting and ongoing care. £50 Optional. Embedded chatbot trained on FAQs.

No retainer. No contract. No in-person visits, fully remote from Switzerland.

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 South West builds this quarter, and first confirmed wins the slot. If I do not hear back by 29 May, the proposal site comes down.

Live rebuild  ↗

See the live rebuild

A working preview you can click through · opens in a new tab