01 The Chichester office is a deliberately specialised two-discipline desk, and the homepage hides that behind a six-banner Slider Revolution carousel of generic service tiles.
What I saw
The live Chichester office page describes the operation in the firm's own words as a "small team of expert commercial property and private client lawyers" with Annabelle Langmead leading commercial property and Serena Elliott leading private client. That is the single most distinctive line on the page and the one a Chichester landowner reading the page would notice. Yet the homepage at batealbonsolicitors.co.uk opens with a Slider Revolution carousel that rotates through six full-bleed service banners (commercial property, private client, residential, secured lending, landlord and tenant, debt recovery) with no narrative weighting and no named solicitor in any of them. The Chichester specialism, which is the firm's most defensible position in this part of West Sussex, is buried behind a "we do everything" facade.
What the rebuild does about it
After rebuild: the rebuilt Chichester office page leads with the two named solicitors above the fold (Annabelle on the commercial property side, Serena on the private client side), their portraits in the hero, direct dials and individual email addresses. The two-discipline positioning becomes the headline rather than a paragraph below six rotating banners. The service grid drops from six rotating tiles to four written cards that match the office's actual catchment work: commercial property, private client, residential conveyancing, landlord and tenant.
02 No opening hours are published anywhere on the site, and the Yoast schema graph stops at Organization with no LegalService, no openingHoursSpecification, no Person records for the named partners, and no FAQPage.
What I saw
A view-source on the home page surfaces a Yoast schema graph with a WebPage, an Organization with logo and breadcrumb, and a WebSite, and stops there. There is no LegalService or LocalBusiness type, no openingHoursSpecification block, no aggregateRating, no review, no Person record for Carl Bate or Chris Albon or Annabelle Langmead or Serena Elliott, no Service record for commercial property or private client, no FAQPage. The contact page and the Chichester office page also publish zero opening hours in body copy. The practical consequence is that Apple Maps and Google show the Chichester office as "Hours unknown" and the named partners do not appear in the knowledge-panel-style results AI assistants now build from structured data.
What the rebuild does about it
After rebuild: a single JSON-LD graph at the bottom of the page declares LegalService with the full Chichester PostalAddress, the E.164 telephone, the SRA 618095 credential, an openingHoursSpecification for Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:30, separate Person records for Carl Bate (founder, qualified 1995), Chris Albon (partner since 2017, name partner), Annabelle Langmead (Chichester commercial property, qualified 2014), and Serena Elliott (Chichester private client, qualified 2006, Solicitors for the Elderly member, certified Dementia Friend), Service records for the four lines, and a FAQPage block tied to the on-page FAQ. The static utility bar publishes "Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:30" as a one-liner so Apple Maps stops saying "Hours unknown".
03 Annabelle Langmead and Serena Elliott are the two named Chichester solicitors and each has a portrait, a direct dial and a paragraph on a hidden bio page, but neither name nor face appears on the homepage or above the fold on the Chichester office page.
What I saw
Annabelle Langmead has a portrait, a 01243 969244 direct line, a paragraph saying she qualified in 2014 and has worked in Chichester for the whole of her career, and a list of specific work types including option agreement negotiations with Thakeham and listed property acquisitions. Serena Elliott has a portrait, a 01243 969246 direct line, the fact that she qualified in 2006 with nearly eighteen years of south coast practice, Solicitors for the Elderly membership and certified Dementia Friend status. Both bios live on individual profile pages a visitor would have to drill into the Meet the Team page to find. The Chichester office page mentions Annabelle and Serena once each in body copy, neither above the fold, and shows neither portrait. A Chichester landowner who lands on the office page sees no faces, no direct dials, and no names attached to the two specialisms the firm has chosen to lead with.
What the rebuild does about it
After rebuild: a two-portrait hero (Annabelle on the commercial property side, Serena on the private client side) above the fold on the rebuilt Chichester office page, with direct dials and individual email addresses next to each face. The Court of Protection / Dementia Friend / Solicitors for the Elderly credentials surface on a credential strip directly under the hero. Annabelle's real work types (Thakeham option agreements, listed property acquisitions, commercial warehouse purchases) move into the commercial property card as concrete language rather than a buried bullet list.