diff --git a/CLAUDE.md b/CLAUDE.md index 308d75a..c640768 100644 --- a/CLAUDE.md +++ b/CLAUDE.md @@ -1,3 +1,8 @@ +--- +permalink: false +eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true +--- + # CLAUDE.md - AI Assistant Guide for Chobble Client ## Project Overview diff --git a/EEAT-CREDENTIALS.md b/EEAT-CREDENTIALS.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68cc047 --- /dev/null +++ b/EEAT-CREDENTIALS.md @@ -0,0 +1,194 @@ +--- +permalink: false +eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true +--- + +# Complete Marquees — EEAT Credentials (sober draft) + +A working reference of what Complete Marquees can verifiably claim, what it cannot, and where it sits in the UK marquee-hire market. Compiled from authentic site copy (FAQs, testimonials, sidebar copy, footer, privacy notice, equipment listings, package specs, older un-rewritten location pages) and from independent industry research. AI-generated marketing paragraphs on the site (those carrying ChatGPT export artifacts such as `data-start`/`data-section-id`/`data-message-model-slug="gpt-5-3"`, checkmark emojis, and the typical "elevate / unforgettable / seamless" register) have been ignored. + +This is a sober document, not a sales pitch. It exists to ground future marketing in facts that survive scrutiny and to flag the gaps that need closing before pitching against MUTA-member competition. + +--- + +## 1. The market Complete Marquees actually operates in + +Useful context for honestly placing the business: + +- The recognised UK trade body is **MUTA (Made-Up Textiles Association)** — ~190 members, code of practice, audited insurance, audited working practices. MUTA membership is the single most important external trust signal in the sector. +- The relevant technical standard is **BS EN 13782:2015** "Temporary structure — Tents — Safety", which kicks in at **>50 m² ground area**. By that threshold, three of Complete Marquees' four Capri sizes (20'×30' ≈ 56 m², 28'×38' ≈ 99 m², 28'×58' ≈ 151 m²) are within scope, as are all linked configurations. +- **Public liability insurance** baseline expected by venues, councils and most wedding planners: **£5 m minimum**, £10 m for corporate / festival / council work. +- Fire-retardancy of marquee fabric is normally evidenced by **BS 7837** or **DIN 4102 B1** certification. +- "Family-run, 20+ years" is **common, not exceptional**, among regional MUTA-tier operators. Lewis Marquees claims 180 years; Monaco Marquees, Alresford Marquees and several others cite 20-30+. Twenty-four years of trading is mid-pack for serious operators. +- Owning **Capri marquees is now commodity** — Eureka, Curlew, Custom Covers and others supply the UK trade, and most regional hirers stock them. It is not a differentiator. +- **Fair price benchmark, southern England, 80 guests, 2024-2026:** £25-£45 per dinner guest, i.e. roughly **£2,000-£3,600** for a complete package. Complete Marquees' 80-guest package is **£995 + VAT (£1,194)** — they sit at the **budget / family-celebration end** of the market, well below the MUTA-tier wedding hirers. That positioning is the honest one and worth owning rather than trying to fight the wedding-luxury operators on their turf. + +--- + +## 2. What is verifiable today + +Sourced from non-AI, long-standing site copy unless noted. + +### Trading record +- Site states **trading since 2002**, repeated consistently across the about page, party-marquees, equipment-marquee-hire and every individual location page. As of 2026 that is 24 years on the trading record. Continuity over that period is self-stated — there is no external annual-accounts trail in this audit. +- The site self-states **"hundreds of events"** delivered. This is the company's own number, not externally verified. +- The gallery shows **multi-marquee linked installations** (2× and 3× linked 28'×38' Capris), evidencing capability beyond a single-tent operation. + +### Legal entity (claimed; verify on Companies House) +- Privacy notice states **"company number 1090110 registered in England, United Kingdom"**. Anyone using this document for a pitch should cross-check the live Companies House entry — number, status, accounts filing history, persons with significant control. +- Privacy notice states **registered office: Southleigh Farm, Havant, Hampshire, PO9 2NX**. +- Site schema / meta states **trading address: 27 The Oakwood Centre, Downley Road, Havant, Hampshire, PO9 2NP** — a separate, distinct address. + +### Contact and presence +- Geographic Portsmouth/Havant landline **02392 717 925**, listed in JSON-LD organization schema and on every page. Not a mobile, not a redirect number. +- Email **completemarquee@gmail.com** — a free Gmail address, not a domain-aligned mailbox. Worth flagging: a `@completemarquees.co.uk` mailbox would be a stronger signal at very little cost. +- The business is run as a **husband-and-wife operation by David and Joanne**. Joanne is named explicitly in a customer testimonial that opens *"Dear Joanne"*, evidencing an accountable, named principal answering correspondence personally. David's name is not currently on any public-facing page. +- **Facebook** page facebook.com/completemarquees and **Twitter/X** @completemarquee both established (vintage of accounts not independently verified here). +- Google, Bing and Yandex webmaster verification meta tags present — confirms the site has been registered in those search consoles, no more than that. + +### Geographic coverage +27 individually-named locations have dedicated pages: Aldershot, Andover, Basingstoke, Bournemouth, Camberley, Chessington, Chichester, Cobham, Crawley, Dorking, Epsom, Esher, Fareham, Godalming, Guildford, Hampshire, Leatherhead, Oxshott, Portsmouth, Reading, Salisbury, Southampton, Surrey, Sutton, Winchester, Woking, Wokingham. The older pages (e.g. Salisbury, Southampton) are written in the original house voice rather than recent AI copy — evidence the location strategy predates the rewrite. + +### Product specifics (real domain knowledge) +The FAQ and equipment pages contain operational detail no first-season hirer would know: +- Capri arches **7-8 ft head height**, centre pole **~16 ft**. +- Four standard Capri sizes: **20'×20', 20'×30', 28'×38', 28'×58'** + Pagoda **6 m × 6 m**. +- **Linking kit** to combine multiple Capris. +- Side walls supplied as standard, **half clear / half solid PVC**, fitted on / off / mixed at the customer's choice on the day. +- Honest weather statement: **"waterproof, but not in stormy weather"** — not a blanket "weatherproof". +- Site rules: **must be flat grass, no trees / bushes / hedges through the footprint** — published in CAPS. +- Build limitation: **Capris cannot connect to buildings** due to their shape — stated upfront. +- Decoration rules: **string only, no sticky tape, no staples, and no crepe paper because it stains the fabric**. This last detail in particular is hard-won experience. +- Flooring is optional in summer depending on grass condition; required if a wooden dance floor goes down. + +### Inventory with public unit pricing +Every item on the equipment page has a published price. This is meaningfully more transparent than most competitors: +- Tables: plastic patio £4, 5 ft round £7.50, 4 ft round £6, 6 ft trestle £7.50. +- Chairs: white bistro £2.50. +- Capri matting: £100 / £155 / £185 / £355 by marquee size. +- Dance floor 12'×12' £225 (larger on request). +- Lighting: uplighters £95/marquee, archway pea-lights £250/marquee, ivy garlands £250/marquee, ivy + lighting combined £450/marquee. +- Stage hire available. + +### Pricing and terms +- Marquee from-prices: £295 (20×20) to £650 (28×58). +- Five published packages: £390 (25 standing), £785 (40 seated), £995 (80 seated), £2,100 (100 seated, dance floor), £3,100 (150 seated, dance floor). +- **VAT explicitly disclosed as exclusive** in the footer of every page. +- **Hire term explicitly stated:** Friday delivery, Sunday collection. + +### Customer testimonials +Four named, schema.org/Review-marked testimonials with content that would be hard to fabricate: +- Judith — *"…your team were polite on set up and take down…"* +- Jane — addresses owner directly: *"Dear Joanne… the wonderful teams that you sent with the marquee for my party last weekend… the marquee looked incredible."* +- Lucy — references a specific themed event by name: *"The pirates ahoy was a complete success!"* +- Johan — *"thank you very much for letting us hire the Capri Marquee! It was so much fun…"* + +### Privacy and data handling +- A **GDPR-style privacy notice** is published, dated **22 May 2018** (i.e. drafted for the GDPR coming-into-force date, not retrofitted). Cites the company number, registered office, the six lawful bases, customer rights, and a withdrawal-of-consent route. Whether the underlying processing fully complies with GDPR is not something this audit can verify; the published notice is a reasonable-quality document. +- Notice explicitly states **payment data is never taken or stored** by Complete Marquees. + +### Sister business +- **Monster Event Hire** (monstereventhire.co.uk) is run by the same operation, broadening the offer with inflatables, photo booths and similar. Adds operational scale and supplier diversity. + +--- + +## 3. Owner-confirmed facts (added after first audit) + +After the first draft, the owner confirmed the following directly. These are now treated as verified rather than self-stated: + +- **£10 million public liability cover.** This is the corporate / festival / council baseline, double the £5m most wedding-luxury operators quote, and a serious credential to surface on every page. It moves Complete Marquees from "PL not stated" (a phase-1 gap) to "over-insured for its market tier". +- **Genuinely delivered into all 27 named locations.** The location pages are not aspirational. The trading record across Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex, Berkshire, Wiltshire and the Greater London edge is real. +- **No MUTA membership.** This stays a gap — the only one missing the strongest external trade-body signal — but it is now confirmed rather than assumed. Honest copy should not imply MUTA membership. +- **No specific named-venue references** to publish at this point. Location pages will need to differentiate on route, drive time, area characteristic and trading-record, not on named venues. +- **The royal-wedding line is dropped** from public copy. The sidebar CTA has been replaced with the £10m / family-run / in-house-team line. + +--- + +## 4. What Complete Marquees can credibly claim above a hobbyist / one-van operator + +Real, defensible differentiators against the bottom of the market: + +- 24 years on the public trading record vs the typical 1-3 years before a hobbyist folds. +- A **registered limited company** with a published company number and a registered office (verify in Companies House before pitching). +- Two distinct physical addresses (registered office + trading premises) rather than a residential garden. +- A **geographic landline** answering on published 8 am-9 pm hours, weekends 8 am-8 pm. +- **Per-item public pricing** for every marquee, package, and accessory, with VAT status and hire term stated. The bottom of the market quotes only on the phone. +- A **GDPR-style privacy notice** dated to the GDPR commencement, citing company number and lawful bases. Hobbyists rarely have any. +- **Schema.org markup** (Organization, Service, Product, Offer, Review) — SEO hygiene that cheaper sites skip. +- **Four named, structured-data-marked testimonials** rather than unattributed star scores. +- **Honest operating constraints** published upfront — flat grass, no trees, no crepe paper, weather limits — rather than over-promising on the phone and under-delivering on the day. +- **Twenty-seven location-specific pages** evidencing route knowledge across Hampshire / Surrey / West Sussex / Berkshire / Wiltshire / Greater London edge. +- **In-house team** for delivery and install, evidenced by repeated mentions in the customer testimonials. +- **A linkable Capri fleet plus Pagoda** — a hobbyist usually has one tent. + +This is a real list, but it's a list aimed *downwards* in the market. Most of these credentials are baseline-expected of any serious regional operator. + +--- + +## 5. What Complete Marquees cannot credibly claim above MUTA-tier competition + +The honest part. These are the gaps a buyer comparing Complete Marquees against Lewis Marquees, Monaco Marquees or any other MUTA-member regional competitor will probe: + +| Industry-standard credential | On the site? | Notes | +|---|---|---| +| **MUTA membership** | Not held (owner-confirmed) | The single biggest external trade-body gap. Pursue if commercially viable; do not imply it in copy. | +| **Public liability insurance — £5 m / £10 m** | Held: £10m (owner-confirmed). Not yet displayed on the site. | Above the £5m wedding-tier baseline. Surface on every page; certificate available on request. | +| **BS EN 13782:2015 compliance documentation** | Not advertised | Applies to ≥50 m² tents. Three of four Capri sizes qualify. | +| **Fire-retardancy certification (BS 7837 / DIN 4102 B1)** | Not advertised | Wedding venues frequently ask for the certificate. | +| **Wind-loading certificates / structural calcs** | Not advertised | Standard ask for any pitch on a council-licensed site. | +| **SafeContractor / CHAS / SSIP** | Not advertised | Required for many corporate / council jobs. | +| **Published terms of business / contract template** | Not on site | Customers cannot read the agreement before enquiring. | +| **Site-visit policy** | Not stated | Bridebook lists "skipping a site visit" as a top red flag; the site says nothing. | +| **References from recent customers** | Not offered | Four old testimonials, no named, recent, contactable references. | +| **Owner / staff bios** | Not on site | Named testimonial reveals "Joanne", but there is no team page. | +| **Verifiable third-party reviews (Google, Trustpilot, Hitched, Bridebook listings)** | Not visible from site | No review aggregator embed and no inbound links found. | +| **Environmental / sustainability claims** | None | Increasingly asked-for in corporate work. | + +Several "claims" in earlier drafts of this document also need hedging: +- *"Hundreds of events"* — Complete Marquees' own number, not externally verified. +- *"24 years of continuous operation"* — site states "since 2002"; continuity over that period has not been independently verified here. +- *"GDPR-compliant"* — what's verifiable is that a GDPR-style privacy notice is published; underlying processing compliance is outside this audit. +- *"Specialist in Capri marquees"* — true, but Capri stock is commodity in southern England. +- *"Two decades of trading is exceptional"* — it isn't; it is mid-pack for serious operators. + +--- + +## 6. Honest comparison: the three rungs of the market + +| Tier | Examples | Typical credentials | 80-guest price band | +|---|---|---|---| +| **Wedding-luxury / MUTA-tier** | Lewis Marquees, Monaco Marquees, Alresford Marquees, County Marquees | MUTA member, £5-10 m PL, BS EN 13782 docs, fire certs, branded styling, traditional canvas-pole and clearspan stock, dedicated wedding planner | £2,000-£3,600+ | +| **Regional mid-market / value** | **Complete Marquees**, many comparable Capri specialists | Limited company, geographic phone, public prices, in-house install, family-run, 15-25 yrs trading, Capri / Pagoda fleet. **Complete Marquees specifically: £10m PL cover, no MUTA membership.** | £900-£1,400 | +| **Hobbyist / back-garden / one-van** | Bark.com listings, Facebook-Marketplace operators, seasonal | Sole trader, mobile only, no fixed address, on-the-phone pricing, often no insurance, often no contract | £400-£900 | + +Complete Marquees clearly belongs in the middle tier and should pitch from there. The honest sell is **"professional, transparently-priced, family-run regional operator with 24 years on the books and £10m public liability cover"** — not "wedding-luxury" and not "the cheapest tent in your back garden". The £10m PL is the single strongest line item separating Complete Marquees from the rest of the mid-market — it matches or exceeds the wedding-tier operators and dwarfs anything the back-garden hirers can show. Trying to compete with the top tier on MUTA / fabric-cert paperwork without holding those credentials will get caught out by any moderately diligent customer; trying to compete with the bottom tier on price will erode the very trading record and insurance position that are the company's main assets. + +--- + +## 7. Recommended actions to harden the credentials + +Roughly in order of effort:value. + +1. **Verify and publish the Companies House entry** with a direct link from the site footer. Confirm the number 1090110 resolves correctly and the company status is active. +2. **Publish the £10m public liability cover figure on every page** (with the certificate available on request). The figure is held; it just isn't yet on the site. This is the highest-leverage single content change available. +3. **Get fire-retardancy certificates from the fabric supplier** scanned and available on request; mention them on the FAQ. +4. **Consider MUTA membership.** Confirmed not held. The eligibility threshold (>2 years trading, code of practice) is comfortably met. Membership would close the largest remaining gap against the wedding-tier competition. A commercial decision; cost-benefit depends on how much wedding-tier work the business actively chases. +5. **Move email from `@gmail.com` to `@completemarquees.co.uk`** — a one-day job that materially raises perceived professionalism. +6. **Publish a one-page terms-of-business / standard contract** (deposit, cancellation, weather, ground damage, customer obligations) so customers can read the agreement before enquiring. +7. **Add a site-visit offer** to the booking flow. It removes the biggest red flag consumer guides warn about. +8. **Replace the AI-generated paragraphs** on the home, about, weddings, parties, corporate, sizes, packages, gallery and Hampshire pages. The smoking gun is on the gallery page (`capri-marquee-hire.html`) where raw ChatGPT conversation HTML — including `data-message-model-slug="gpt-5-3"` — has been pasted into the source. A diligent customer Googling phrases from the site can find this, and it directly undermines every other trust signal. +9. **Solicit five fresh, recent (2024-2026), named, photographed customer reviews** and embed them with structured data. The existing four are warm but undated. +10. ~~**Reword the "royal wedding" sidebar line**~~ — done. The sidebar copy on every page now reads *"Family-run from Havant since 2002, with £10m public liability cover and our own install team."* +11. **Add an owner / team page** introducing David and Joanne by name with a photograph and a one-paragraph bio for each (years in the trade, role split — bookings vs workshop / install). The named-owner signal in the testimonial is strong; making the husband-and-wife ownership explicit on the site is stronger, and it directly neutralises the "anonymous van and a website" objection. + +--- + +## 8. Notes for marketing copy + +- The strongest verifiable line for the homepage hero is something like: + *"Family-run from Havant since 2002. Twenty-seven towns covered across Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex. £10 million public liability cover. Capri and Pagoda specialist for weddings, parties, corporate days and community events."* +- The "Dear Joanne" testimonial is the single most persuasive piece of content on the site and should be quoted in full somewhere prominent. +- The honest FAQ constraints (no crepe paper, weatherproof-but-not-stormproof, must be flat grass) are an asset and should not be rewritten by anything that smooths them out. +- The royal-wedding line is dropped from public copy. Do not reintroduce. +- Lead with **transparent pricing** and **£10 million public liability cover** as the differentiators vs the bottom of the market. Lead with **24 years on the books, named husband-and-wife owners, and the £10m PL** as the differentiators vs anyone less established. +- The £10m PL line is the single most useful sentence to add to every page. It is verifiable on demand, materially uncommon at this price tier, and immediately answers the unspoken question planners have ("what happens if it blows over?"). diff --git a/LOCATION-PAGES-PLAN.md b/LOCATION-PAGES-PLAN.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b119ed6 --- /dev/null +++ b/LOCATION-PAGES-PLAN.md @@ -0,0 +1,303 @@ +--- +permalink: false +eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true +--- + +# Location pages — improvement plan + +A plan for working through the 27 pages under `Complete-Marquees/`. Aimed at the same standard as the EEAT and VOICE docs: verifiable, plain-spoken, not over-claimed, useful to a planner doing real research rather than a search engine reading boilerplate. + +This is a working draft. There are decisions in section 8 that the owner needs to weigh in on before phase 3 starts. + +--- + +## 1. The current state + +Triage of the 27 pages by content health: + +### Type A — heavily AI-rewritten (full rewrite) +- `aldershot.html` (60 ChatGPT artifacts, emoji headings, fragments) +- `andover.html` (58 ChatGPT artifacts, same pattern) + +These are the worst of the set. The headings carry circus-tent and fireworks emojis (🎪 🎉 💍 📞 📍), the paragraphs carry `data-start` / `data-end` / `data-section-id` attributes lifted straight from a ChatGPT export, and the prose is wedding-magazine vocabulary throughout. + +### Type B — lightly AI-touched (targeted clean-up) +- `hampshire.html` (7 ChatGPT artifacts, mixed) + +The county overview page got an AI rewrite but only a partial one. It needs the AI fragments cleaned out and a fresh opening paragraph written. + +### Type C — original voice, generic (light edit + standardisation) +- The remaining 24 pages. + +These are still in the pre-AI house voice (e.g. salisbury, southampton: *"Complete Marquees has been delivering their renowned marquee hire service in Southampton since 2002. As a family run business..."*). They aren't broken, but they are: +- Near-duplicates of one another with only the town name swapped +- Dated phrasing ("renowned marquee hire", "wonderfully modern outdoor shelter") +- Generic — no genuine local knowledge per page +- Inconsistent in their use of the existing shared includes (some use `location-page-body.html`, some don't) + +This is the bigger job in volume but a smaller job per page than Type A. + +--- + +## 2. The shared-include architecture as it stands + +Three includes already exist for location pages: + +- `_includes/location-header.html` — opens body / main / grid / sidebar scaffolding. +- `_includes/location-page-body.html` — the "by linking together our Capri marquees" boilerplate paragraph, plus the trailing "many years of experience" paragraph. +- `_includes/location-event-types.html` — the bulleted list of event types (Wedding / Party / Corporate / Fun Day / Garden Parties of any size). + +Use is uneven: +- 14 pages include only the header (1 include each). +- 13 pages include header plus body or event-types (2 includes each). + +The architecture is right; it's just not consistently applied. Refactor to one shared boilerplate block per page, plus a small location-specific block. + +--- + +## 3. The new per-page shape + +A target template for every location page after this work, in order: + +1. **One H1**, location-specific. Example: *"Marquee hire in Guildford"*. Not *"Complete Marquees in Guildford"*. No emojis. + +2. **Lead paragraph** (location-specific, the only genuinely unique block on most pages). Real content, not template-spun. Three good options for what to put here, in order of quality: + - A factual route + distance line: *"Guildford is about an hour up the A3 from our workshop in Havant. We deliver into the surrounding villages too — Compton, Shalford, Shere — and we know the routes."* + - A real local reference point: a venue we've delivered to, an area characteristic, a specific kind of garden common to that town. + - A real customer / event reference if one exists for that area. + +3. **Standard credentials block** (shared include). One or two short paragraphs: + - Family-run by David and Joanne from Havant since 2002. + - Registered limited company, two physical addresses (workshop and registered office), insurance and fire-retardancy certificates available on request *(once those are confirmed and published — see EEAT-CREDENTIALS.md section 7)*. + - In-house team, no sub-contracting. + +4. **What we hire** (shared include). Capri sizes, linking kit, Pagoda, side walls plain and clear, matting, lighting. Two to three sentences, no lists. + +5. **Honest site rules** (shared include or short paragraph). Flat grass, no trees or hedges through the footprint, can't tie into a building. Same plain language as the FAQ. + +6. **Packages link with one real "from" price** to anchor the reader against the back-garden hirers and the wedding-luxury operators. *"An 80-guest seated package starts from £995 plus VAT including delivery, set-up, flooring and uplighting."* + +7. **One named, schema-marked testimonial** (shared include, can be the same one across many pages). Use the existing four — Judith, Jane, Lucy, Johan — rotating where it makes sense. + +8. **Site-visit and contact line**. Plain: *"We'll come and have a look at your garden before you commit. Call 02392 717 925 or send the form below."* + +9. **Existing footer / sidebar / map iframe** (already shared). + +Aim for under 350 words of body copy per page. The current pages run around 250-500 words; the model gets us closer to 300, with the location-specific block taking around 60-80 of those. + +--- + +## 4. Phase plan + +### Phase 1 — quick wins, all pages (one PR) +Surgical, no rewriting yet. Lower-risk, high-readability. + +- Strip every `data-start`, `data-end`, `data-section-id`, `data-is-last-node`, `data-is-only-node`, `data-message-model-slug`, `data-message-id`, `data-turn-id`, `data-testid` attribute from every page. Regex-able across the corpus. +- Strip the embedded ChatGPT export HTML on `capri-marquee-hire.html` (the `
"Madison Avenue guy who's just lost his job. Ivy League suit a bit scuzzed up, an outgrown layer cut and five o'clock shadow." - John Cooper Clarke (used here as an example of how strong specificity reads) + +### 3. Plain word choice + +"The kit" not "our equipment range". "Set up properly" not "professionally installed". "We've been doing this a while" not "with extensive industry experience". "What's actually involved" not "comprehensive solution". Trade vocabulary where it fits. If we wouldn't say it standing in the workshop, we don't write it. + +The voice is plain, not casual. Avoid the very-matey end of British speech in customer-facing copy: "a few quid", "lads' work", "no problemo", "easy peasy". A wedding customer reading "a few quid extra for the dance floor" alongside a £2,100 package quote will hear glibness, not honesty. Save the most casual register for internal contexts only. + +### 4. Looseness over polish + +Long sentences with sub-clauses. Hedges ("around twenty miles", "give or take"). Asides in the middle of a thought. Sometimes a paragraph just stops because there's nothing else to say. The voice gets its texture from looseness, not from rhythm. + +The opposite (short polished sentences with parallel structure) is what marketing copy sounds like. + +### 5. Complete sentences, no punchline closers + +The voice never uses sentence fragments. Every sentence has a subject and a verb. Fragments masquerading as sentences ("The lot." / "Same-day quotes." / "No fuss.") don't belong in the house voice, even when they sound emphatic or efficient. They're a copywriter's tic. + +This applies anywhere in the copy, not just at paragraph ends. Rewrite fragments by absorbing them into the surrounding sentence, or by giving them their own subject and verb: + +- Bad: "We only quote on jobs we can actually do. No upsells, no extras." +- Good: "We only quote on jobs we can actually do, and we don't push upsells or tack on extras you don't need." + +Even grammatically-complete sentences shouldn't be used as cinematic punchline closers ("Complete Marquees was born." / "And the rest is history."). A complete sentence is necessary but not sufficient; the structure also has to read like prose, not like a tagline. + +Specific patterns to avoid: + +- Single-word or fragment closers: "The lot." / "No fuss." / "Sorted." +- Multi-fragment summaries: "£995 plus VAT. Same-day quotes. Insurance certificate on request." +- Cinematic one-line summaries: "Complete Marquees was born." / "That's how we've worked ever since." +- Lists of three where the third item is comic or undercutting (we don't do this earnestly). +- The X / X / X - Y structure: "Not a call centre, not a ticketing system, not a chatbot - Joanne." +- The "and yes, it works on a south-facing site" handle-the-objection move. + +Bullets and headings are exempt; they aren't sentences. + +### 6. Trust the reader + +Don't explain the joke. Don't justify the claim. Don't repeat yourself. The voice is economical because it assumes intelligence on the other end. Wedding clients, corporate planners and family hosts have all been sold to before, and the voice that doesn't try to sell to them is the voice they remember. + +### 7. Calm, not matey + +Plain-spoken doesn't mean we're sitting next to the customer at the bar. The voice is reserved by default - more like a tradesman at a kitchen table working through what's needed than a salesman warming the room. No exclamation marks, no winks, no "we love what we do!", no first-name terms with people we've never met. The customer can be friendly first; we follow. + +## Phrase pool (sparingly) + +Words and turns of phrase that fit the voice when they appear naturally, never as 1:1 substitution: + +- "the kit" +- "round our way" / "round here" +- "in good order" +- "give or take" +- "set up properly" +- "we've been doing this a while" +- "we know our way around" +- "first time of asking" +- "no bother" +- "we'll come and have a look" +- "well before the day" +- "in plenty of time" +- "by close of play Friday" + +Build this up over time as more copy gets written. One or two per page is plenty. + +## No-go list + +Burnt out by ad campaigns and class tourism. Avoid: + +- "Cor blimey" / "guv'nor", Cockney parody +- "Lovely jubbly" / "cushty", Del Boy parody +- "Bovvered", Catherine Tate parody +- "Innit", mockney appropriation +- Cockney rhyming slang of any kind +- "Treacle" / "love" / "darling" as terms of address, patronising +- "Marvellous" / "splendid" / "frightfully" / "awfully" / "rather", RP parody +- "Cheerio" / "ta-ta", RP parody +- "Posh" / "common", class signalling +- "Pompey" outside a customer's quote +- "Our kid" / "champion" / "ay up" / "owt" / "nowt", imported northern markers +- Phonetic accent spelling ("'appy", "summat", "fella") +- "Salt of the earth" / "honest as the day is long" / "no nonsense" / "down-to-earth", clichés about ordinary English character that signal the writer isn't ordinary +- "Made in Britain" / "British family business" used as a value-claim if not literal and relevant +- Sailor or yachtie clichés ("ahoy", "shipshape", "smooth sailing") +- Yacht-club / golf-club voice ("dear chap", "old boy") +- Wedding-magazine vocabulary ("your special day", "magical", "fairy-tale", "bespoke", "luxe", "elevated", "curated", "stunning") +- "Unforgettable", "memorable", "once-in-a-lifetime" as a default adjective for anything we hire out +- "Stress-free", "seamless", "hassle-free" - these are what cheap copy claims; a calm sentence demonstrates them without naming them + +These can appear inside quotation marks if a customer or guest says them. They don't belong in house voice. + +## Em-dashes + +Em-dashes have been normalised out of this codebase. Use spaced hyphens (the kit, all of it, lives in our workshop) or commas and full stops where an em-dash was doing rhetorical work. + +The reason: em-dashes are one of the strongest tells of generated copy. Real plain-spoken writing uses commas, full stops and the occasional spaced hyphen, not the em-dash's characteristic dramatic pause. + +## Process + +1. Write the page in plain English first. Don't reach for the voice yet. +2. Read it aloud. Mark every sentence that sounds like it could be on a brochure. +3. Apply the WhatsApp test to each marked sentence: could David or Joanne type this on their phone between two delivery stops? If not, take the polish off, usually by lengthening the sentence, adding a hedge, or breaking up a too-neat structure. +4. Read aloud again. If you smirk, pull back further. +5. Run a final pass for the wedding-magazine words ("magical", "stunning", "bespoke", "your day"). They sneak in by reflex; cut them. + +## Where to use it + +- About page +- Homepage section intros (not the SEO-heavy hero) +- Headlines where SEO allows +- Transitions and link text +- Area-page intros +- Wedding, party, corporate and special-events page intros +- FAQ answers (the existing FAQ already has this voice; protect it) +- Site-visit and enquiry-response copy + +## Where NOT to use it + +- Legal text and policies (Terms & Conditions, Privacy, Cookies) +- Technical specs and accreditation pages (public liability cover, fire-retardancy certificates, BS EN 13782 statements, risk assessments, method statements, anchoring schedules) +- Contact details and form labels +- Insurance certificates, contracts, deposit and cancellation terms +- Quote breakdowns and invoice copy +- Anywhere ambiguity costs the customer money or clarity + +Inconsistency between pages is fine. Different pages have different jobs. A planner reading the contract clauses wants flat, unambiguous prose, not voice. + +## Anti-patterns + +The specific failure modes of trying-too-hard: + +- **Fragment "sentences"** - "The kit." / "No fuss." / "Same-day quotes." Anywhere in copy, not just at paragraph end. See principle 5. +- **Cinematic one-liners** - "Complete Marquees was born." / "That's how we've worked ever since." +- **The deflating undercut** - used once, it's a flourish; used as a pattern, it's marketing. +- **The rule-of-three list** - "Bigger, better, faster, stronger" is parody. Don't do it earnestly. +- **The handle-the-objection move** - "and yes, it works at a wedding" / "and yes, even on a sloping lawn". Pure copywriter device. +- **Punchline-delivery dashes** - "Not a sub-hire, not an agency middleman, not an outsourced team - us." A spaced hyphen used as an ordinary explanatory aside ("we use the same kit at every job, all of it serviced annually") is fine. Use spaced hyphens, never em-dashes. +- **Tag questions on every paragraph** - even one per page is often too many. Use only when it genuinely lets the reader in. +- **Trying to be funny** - the voice is dry, not jokey. If a line gets a laugh, fine. If it's *for* the laugh, cut it. +- **Wedding-magazine adjectives as filler** - "stunning", "magical", "luxurious", "bespoke", "elevated". They signal the writer is reaching, not the marquee. +- **Generic "south coast" or "Hampshire" markers as a substitute for voice** - sprinkling in "the Solent" doesn't fix marketing-speak underneath. The voice has to live in *content* and *structure*, not just word choice. diff --git a/_includes/sidebar-cta.html b/_includes/sidebar-cta.html index 060acbc..859ac3d 100644 --- a/_includes/sidebar-cta.html +++ b/_includes/sidebar-cta.html @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
- From small gatherings to a royal wedding, we have the right marquee whatever the event. + Family-run from Havant since 2002, with £10m public liability cover and our own install team.
Packages from only diff --git a/pages/not-found.md b/pages/not-found.md index 97975fa..e2b6e53 100644 --- a/pages/not-found.md +++ b/pages/not-found.md @@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ layout: complete-marquees meta_description: meta_title: Not Found no_index: true +eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true permalink: /bunnycdn_errors/404.html --- diff --git a/pages/thank-you.md b/pages/thank-you.md index 613c3dd..8853011 100644 --- a/pages/thank-you.md +++ b/pages/thank-you.md @@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ meta_description: meta_title: Thank You navigationParent: Contact no_index: true +eleventyExcludeFromCollections: true --- ## Thank You diff --git a/scripts/consts.js b/scripts/consts.js index 3b3c4b5..0a54955 100644 --- a/scripts/consts.js +++ b/scripts/consts.js @@ -18,6 +18,10 @@ export const sourceExcludes = [ ".*", "*.nix", "README.md", + "CLAUDE.md", + "VOICE.md", + "EEAT-CREDENTIALS.md", + "LOCATION-PAGES-PLAN.md", "scripts", "node_modules", "package*.json",