Hero comparison

The premium build, and what the v2 template now does with it

Carl picked out three things from the premium React version: the buttons, the stars with the review count, and the years of experience. All three are now in the template that every lead gets, at zero cost per site. Style 1, the full-bleed hero, is the default.

The premium React build hero — Reference **Premium React build** One-off, hand-built, roughly 40 minutes of model time per site. Not repeatable across 30 leads.

The v2 template, style 1, full-bleed hero — Style 1 · now the default **v2 template, full-bleed hero** Template plus a data record. Zero model calls per site, so lead number 30 costs the same as lead number 1.

What came across

Element	Premium	v2 now	How it was done
Buttons	Pill, arrow on the primary, phone glyph on the secondary	Same	Radius to 999px, inline SVG arrow that nudges 3px on hover, phone glyph on the call button. On the photograph the outline button gets a blurred translucent fill so it holds up against a busy image.
Stars and reviews	Star, 5.0, "from 85 Google reviews"	Same	Each item pairs a NUMBER with the SOURCE you could check it against. That pairing is why it reads as evidence rather than as a badge.
Years of experience	Shield, "9 years", "per Companies House"	Same, sourced per lead	Source is chosen automatically: Companies House where we hold a company number, otherwise "stated on their own site". Never blank, because an unsourced number in the trust bar is exactly what the QA gate exists to stop.
Serif and sans mix in one headline	Yes	Not carried over	Deliberate. It looks superb on "Not as landfill" and awful on a headline that does not have a natural pivot. It needs a human eye per lead, which is the one thing that cannot scale to 30 sites.

The honest limit. The premium build is still the better-looking page, and the gap is the part that was hand-tuned to Willow & Oak specifically: the exact line break, the crop on the photograph, the serif pivot. What the template can take is the structure of those decisions, not the decisions. That is what moved here.

Style 1 against Style 2

Style 1, full-bleed hero — Style 1 · defaultFull-bleed photograph The photograph does the selling before a word is read. Best where the lead has one genuinely strong image.

Style 2, split hero — Style 2Split: copy left, photograph right More words visible at once, and it survives a weaker photograph. The fallback when the imagery is thin.

The switch sits in the header, top right, labelled PAGE STYLE 1 | 2, and the choice is remembered. Every lead ships with both.

Also changed in this pass

Reviews were a full-width slab. Now a three-column wall, with the most specific quote leading. Same proof, a third of the height.
"What happens when you call" is now The way we work → From the first call to the last barrow out, four steps, all in second person.
"Who you would be calling" is now The people who turn up → Who turns up at your gate.
Areas were pill chips, which are a filter control on a page where nothing filters, so they read as a broken widget. Now an editorial split: a statement and a phone number on the left, the places numbered and hairline-ruled on the right, with the home town marked Base.