Proposal · prepared for Johns of Appledore · 18 May 2026

A few specific fixes for johnsofinstow.co.uk

Johns of Instow & Appledore · North Devon · website rebuild

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 in the first ten minutes on the live site. Three findings below, then a working rebuild you can click through.

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

Appledore village photographed from across the Taw-Torridge estuary at Instow, the Johns of Appledore shop sits on The Quay row

7 The Quay · Appledore · since 1926

Two banks of the Taw-Torridge estuary. One Johns family kitchen, four generations on the counter. Open the live preview ↗

01

The only structured data Google can read on johnsofinstow.co.uk is a generic Organization stub. No LocalBusiness, no openingHours, no two-branch markup, no FoodEstablishment, no FAQPage. Nearly a century of provenance is invisible to the schema layer.

What I saw: View source on the homepage. The single application/ld+json block emits one Organization entity with just a name and a URL, no address, no telephone, no geo coordinates, no openingHoursSpecification, no LocalBusiness or FoodEstablishment or Cafe type, no AggregateRating, no FAQPage, no parentOrganization linking Instow and Appledore. The SEO Framework plugin generates the schema, and it has only been wired to "Organization" mode. The Appledore branch and the Instow branch do not exist in the structured data at all.
Why it matters: Searches for "deli Appledore", "cafe Instow", "fishing village deli North Devon", the queries Johns should own, currently surface third-party directories (Tarka Trail, Bideford.com, Visit Devon) above the canonical site, because those directories have LocalBusiness markup and the official site does not. AI assistants asked "where do I get breakfast in Appledore on a Saturday" cannot answer "Johns of Appledore, 7 The Quay, 8:15am" because the structured fields are absent. The 99-year provenance is sitting behind a schema blackout.
After rebuild: Full LocalBusiness + Cafe + Store schema for each branch (Appledore + Instow), wired together as a parent Organization (Johns of Instow Ltd, founded 1926), with PostalAddress, geo coordinates, telephone in E.164, separate openingHoursSpecification covering the half-hour weekend variation, AggregateRating once a sourced number is agreed, and a FAQPage block matching the customer questions the rebuild surfaces. The Beach Hut joins as a seasonal sub-entity with its April-to-September opening pattern.

02

The brand reads as "Johns of Instow" everywhere on the site, page title, og:site_name, JSON-LD name, footer, yet the Appledore branch has its own postcode, phone, sales@ inbox and 18 years of trading. A customer who Googles "Johns Appledore" lands on a site that does not name itself after their village.

What I saw: The homepage title element reads "Johns of Instow & Appledore | Artisan Delis & Cafés | Deli Cafe". The og:site_name and the JSON-LD Organization.name both read just "Johns of Instow". The /locations/appledore/ subpage exists but the brand framing positions Appledore as a footnote to Instow, while the actual Appledore branch on The Quay has its own ten-year history and its own sales@johnsofappledore.co.uk inbox. The Speciality Food Magazine 2018 piece ran as "Johns of Appledore celebrates 10 years of trading". The local press, the press release wire and the village all know the shop as Johns of Appledore. The site does not.
Why it matters: A trade buyer searching "Johns of Appledore" Googles into a homepage hero that says "Johns of Instow" with Appledore one rung lower. A visitor on a Tarka Trail day-trip who saw the Appledore shopfront from the ferry and is looking it up on their phone gets the same brand priority mismatch. The 2008 Appledore opening, the RNLI coxswain ribbon-cut at the launch, the Leader 5 community funding, the Anthony Johns "we have been part of the local community in North Devon for over 90 years" quote, all of it lives behind a brand frame that defaults to the older Instow branch.
After rebuild: Sister-branch framing, not parent-child. The rebuild speaks as "Johns of Appledore & Instow", names both villages in the hero eyebrow, gives each branch its own visit card with its own address, hours, photo and Google Maps embed in the visit section. The Appledore Quay history (2008 opening, the Leader 5 funding, the RNLI ribbon-cut) is told alongside the Queenie 1926 Instow founding, not under it. One brand, two banks of the estuary.

03

The history page that names Queenie, Freddie and Low-Water Dick, the only thing on the site that distinguishes Johns from any other Devon deli, currently returns a 404. The family story is offline mid-redesign, and no equivalent has been surfaced on the homepage.

What I saw: The URL /local-community/johns-history/ used to carry the full family narrative: great-great-grandfather Dick Johns rowing across the estuary regardless of the tide (the "Low-Water Dick" nickname), his son Freddie meeting Queenie on the train into Instow station, Queenie opening the business at The Quay Inn in 1926, the 1940s Beach Hut, the 2008 Appledore opening. As of today that URL returns the WordPress 404 template. The homepage carries only the line "Family-run for nearly 100 years" as a one-sentence summary. The og:image meta is missing. Every WhatsApp or iMessage share unfurls blank.
Why it matters: Of every Devon deli on the estuary, Johns is the only one whose name traces back four generations to a man rowing provisions across the water at low tide. The "Low-Water Dick" gin on the shelf in both shops is literally named for him. Hiding that story is hiding the most defensible thing the business sells. A heritage that has outlasted every competitor on the Taw-Torridge counter, behind a 404. The 99-year mark is in May 2026 and the centenary is in May 2027, and the family-history page is currently the WordPress 404 template.
After rebuild: Heritage as the centrepiece, not a footer link. The rebuild brings the Dick-to-Freddie-to-Queenie-to-Anthony-and-Sue line to the homepage, a sourced timeline running 1900s through 2026, the Low-Water Dick anecdote in pull-quote, the 1940s Beach Hut on a re-opens-April marker. The 2018 ten-year Appledore refit and the Anthony Johns "best of Devon, gin to cheeses, items from our own kitchen" quote sit in the heritage block. og:image set to the Appledore-from-the-water hero so every share carries the harbour, not a blank card.

Pricing

Fixed scope, fixed price.

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

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)

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 North Devon builds this quarter, and first confirmed wins the slot. If I do not hear back by 28 May 2026, the proposal site comes down.

See the live rebuild ↗

A working preview you can click through. Opens in this tab.

johns-of-appledore.builtbycorey.com/preview/