IN VIEW
Found. Fast. Yours.

A look at your four businesses,
and what is getting in their way

I had a short chat in store with one of your team, who mentioned you might be looking at your websites. So I went through all three properly, and through what somebody sees when they search Google for a camera shop, a vape shop or outdoor gear in Underberg. There is no charge for this and nothing you need to do with it.

The clearest example. Every word on The Vaping Ape home page, including both shop addresses, is part of a picture rather than text, so Google has nothing it can read. Instead it has taken the sample wording that came with the template and is showing that as your description:

thevapingape.co.za
The Vaping Ape: HOME
HOME - The Vaping Ape. ARCHITECTURE STUDIO Art party kickstarter adaptogen,

Nobody typed that. It has been there since the site was built, and it is what a customer reads before deciding whether to click.

What is already workingWorth saying first

  • The Photo Shop comes up first on Google for a search like camera shop underberg, on the strength of its own site.
  • Sani Outdoors has eleven Google reviews at a full five stars, Sani Apparel four at 4.8. Those are hard to earn.
  • The Sani site already carries real photographs of both shop interiors, a map for each and a full set of opening hours, which is more than most small sites manage.
  • The Photo Shop About page is genuinely good, and the contact form on that site works.
  • Reputation is not the problem here. Being found, and what people see when they are, is.

Sani Outdoors and Sani ApparelThe biggest missed opportunity

  • None of the product pictures on the Our Range page load. All eight show as broken images.
  • The phone number, address and opening hours are spread across two inner pages rather than sitting where people land first.
  • The hours are a single block at the foot of the Visit Us page, under both shops, so it is not clear whether Saturday's 09:00 to 14:00 applies to one of them or both.
  • Those five star reviews are not mentioned on the site at all.
  • The maps are not Google maps. They come from a different mapping service, so they are not connected to your Google listings, and tapping one does not open directions in the app almost everyone actually uses.
  • Sani Apparel is described as a premium preloved European jackets outlet. That is the most distinctive thing on the entire site, and it appears once, in small type, at the foot of a page most visitors never reach.
  • People come here to fish, hike and camp. When someone forgets a rod, boots or a warm jacket they search on a phone, with money in hand, and that search does not reliably reach either shop.

The Photo ShopGood copy, working against itself

  • The copy is genuinely good and worth keeping. The layout fights it: the two branches sit side by side and stack awkwardly on a phone, over a colour wash that makes the text harder to read.
  • No opening hours anywhere, no map at all, and the phone numbers cannot be tapped to call.
  • Your About page carries the full picture, ID and passport photos, PC and laptop repairs, networking, trading since 2009. The home page mentions none of it, and About is the page a customer is least likely to open.
  • The Our Range page has no readable text at all, only supplier banner images, so it is invisible to Google in exactly the same way as the vape home page.

Across all of themSmall things, quick to fix

  • Addresses do not agree online. The Vaping Ape appears in four different forms, and a Trout Walk Centre address still shows on directory sites alongside the Clock Tower Centre one.
  • Only the Sani site publishes opening hours, and only on an inner page. The other two give none at all, and it is the first thing a visitor checks.
  • WhatsApp appears only on the vape site's contact page. It is on neither of the others, and on none of them as a button a customer can tap from wherever they happen to be.
  • The largest thing on two of the sites is a slideshow of suppliers' logos. Their brands are doing the talking, not yours.
What I would do about it. Rebuild all three sites so every word is readable by Google, with opening hours, a map, a tap to call number and a WhatsApp button on each, and the contact details on the page people land on. Bring the material that is already sitting on your About page forward to where it will be read. Swap the maps to Google ones tied to your listings, so a tap gives directions. Fix the broken pictures. Show the reviews where customers see them. Give Sani Apparel a proper page of its own rather than a fourth website it does not need. Get the addresses agreeing across Google and the directory listings. And keep the movement and polish, in a way that loads quickly on a phone with one bar of signal. On photographs you are better placed than most to shoot your own shelves and stock, sitting alongside supplier images rather than replacing them.

Happy to walk through any of it in person, at the shop, at no cost and nothing owed either way.