► The Brief
Google didn't have the shop's address, the sitemap was full of old market pages, and nothing on the site showed what you could find on the shelves.
► What I Built
Infinite Lives fixed the search basics and wrote a guide to the shop.
- What’s in Store guide pages for each kind of stock, linked to the makers who sell it.
- Local SEO with the full address, map position and unique titles.
- Market pages that list the next dates by themselves.
- About, FAQ and Shelf Rental pages written from scratch.
- A Square till link built and ready for when the online shop opens.
The brief
The Curious Hideaway is a shared shop at 15 West Street in Weston-super-Mare, where every shelf belongs to an independent maker or small business: gothic art, oddities, crystals, handmade jewellery, candles, tabletop gaming and pre-loved fashion. Most people found the site by searching the shop’s name, and very little else. Google didn’t have the shop’s address, the sitemap was crowded with old weekly market pages, and there was nothing to show what you could actually find on the shelves. Infinite Lives sorted out the search basics and wrote a proper guide to the shop.
What we built
What’s in Store guide pages
A new What’s in Store section gives each kind of stock its own page, from gothic gifts and oddities to crystals and spell kits, handmade jewellery, candles, D&D and tabletop gaming, CBD and pre-loved fashion, plus gift guides for unusual presents and Christmas. Each page links to the stockists who sell that kind of thing.
Pages that look after themselves
The guide pages, the homepage tiles and the “find more like this” links on stockist pages all come from one list. When a stockist leaves or is hidden, they drop out of the guides on their own, so nobody is sent to a maker who has gone.
A homepage that shows what’s inside
The homepage now runs from the stockists straight into photo tiles for What’s in Store, with the full address and a link to visit. A section that repeated the stockist cards was taken out.
Local SEO that Google can read
The shop’s details now carry the full address, map position and founders, and stockist pages have their own titles and social profiles. Every page has its own title and description, duplicate headings were fixed and image descriptions filled in. The sitemap was cut down to the pages worth finding, with private pages like the basket and stockist login kept out of search.
Events and markets
Event pages get clear dated titles and say where the event is, and only events in the next couple of months are offered to Google. New pages for Weston Independent Market and Clevedon Market list the next dates automatically.
About, FAQ and Shelf Rental
New About and FAQ pages tell the shop’s story and answer the common questions, and the Shelf Rental page, which had no text at all, now explains how makers can apply for a shelf.
Ready for the shop’s Square till
A stock link between the website and the shop’s Square till is built and ready, written as our own plugin. The online shop stays closed for now; when it opens, stock counts will come from the till, and an item only goes online once it has a real photo.
The result
A site that shows what the shop is really like, gives Google the address and the detail it was missing, and sends visitors from a search for gothic gifts or crystals in Weston-super-Mare to the makers who sell them.
Screenshots
See it live: The Curious Hideaway, an alternative gift shop in Weston-super-Mare.