Disrupting what professional fianance looks like.
Design and build of a strong brand presence for a finance firm
What did Shire Professions Finance need?
Shire Professions Finance is a specialist finance broker for professional practices. The website needed to make that specialism immediately clear – and then convert it into enquiries.
Generalist business finance is a crowded space. Shire Professions Finance is not a generalist. They work specifically with accountancy and legal practices – firms with predictable seasonal pressures, specific funding needs and a professional audience that responds better to demonstrated expertise than to broad claims.
The old site was not communicating that specialism effectively. Visitors landing on it could not immediately tell that SPF understood their world. The messaging was not sector-specific enough, the navigation did not guide accountants and lawyers to what was relevant to them, and the site was not structured to support the SEO and content marketing ambitions the business had for the long term.
The brief was to fix all of that – build a site that establishes SPF as the go-to finance broker for professional practices, backed by over 100 years of combined experience and recognised partnerships with the Law Society, Bar Council and NACFB.
What the site needed to do:
- Instantly communicate SPF’s specialism in finance for accountancy and legal practices
- Guide accountants and lawyers quickly to solutions relevant to their specific situation
- Drive leads through clear Apply Now and Request a Quote journeys with minimal friction
- Build authority through partner associations, testimonials and FCA regulatory disclosure
- Create a content platform to support ongoing SEO and sector-specific thought leadership
- Structure pages around target keywords in professional practice finance from day one
Our approach
Project overview
A new build for an established specialist broker. Discovery, audience mapping, content strategy, site architecture, design and a bespoke WordPress build – structured around sector-specific lead generation and a long-term content marketing platform.
Discovery and strategy
- Target audiences mapped across accountancy practices and legal firms, with distinct user journeys for each
- Key use cases identified: cash flow support, growth funding, seasonal peaks such as practice certificate renewals and SRA renewals
- Core messaging pillars defined: finance built for professional practices, dedicated one-to-one support, preferential rates, 100+ years of combined experience
- Partner associations with Law Society, Bar Council and NACFB identified as central trust signals
Design
- Professional, approachable design that signals expertise without feeling corporate or intimidating
- Hero statements and benefit markers used to communicate value quickly to time-poor professionals
- Partner and regulatory logos positioned prominently to build authority and reassure visitors
- Clear Apply Now and Request a Quote calls to action throughout – no dead ends in the user journey
WordPress build
Bespoke build on our own custom starter theme. Dedicated sector pages for Accountancy and Legal, purpose-built ACF content blocks and a full Insights section give SPF the infrastructure for ongoing content marketing.
The CMS is structured so the SPF team can publish sector-specific content – cash flow tips, renewal guides, growth funding case studies – without developer involvement. That content platform is how the site earns authority over time.
SEO and content
Key pages structured around target keywords in professional practice finance: finance for accountancy firms, practice cash flow solutions, practice certificate loans. FAQs and structured benefit content support both user clarity and authority signals.
Meta titles, descriptions and internal linking planned and implemented at build stage. AEO signals reinforced throughout via partner logos, regulatory disclosure, testimonials and transparent contact details. The Insights section is ready for ongoing topical content from day one.
A specialist broker in your sector?
If you are a specialist in a specific professional market and need a website that communicates that specialism clearly – and converts it into leads – we should talk.
Tell us who you serve and we will tell you how we would build around it.
The results
As this was a brand new site, we have no prior benchmarks for comparison.
95
Google PageSpeed score on mobile and desktop at launch
2 sectors
Accountancy and Legal – each with its own dedicated content and user journey tailored to that audience
100+
Years of combined experience – communicated clearly as a core differentiator throughout the site
Zero
Third-party page builders or plugin frameworks – built entirely on our own custom theme
FCA
Authorised – regulatory disclosure, partner logos and testimonials built in to support trust at every stage
Ready
Insights platform built and ready for ongoing sector-specific content to compound search visibility over time
Technical details
WordPress theme
Built on our own bare-bones WordPress starter theme. No inherited styles, no third-party framework dependencies, no bloat. Before any design work goes in, we run the blank theme through Google PageSpeed Insights and aim for 100 out of 100 on both mobile and desktop. That discipline is what makes the performance scores possible.
Plugins
We keep third-party plugins to a minimum. This site uses ACF-powered content blocks edited in the Gutenberg editor. The default WordPress block library was disabled entirely – editors can only use the purpose-built blocks we created, which means every page is built consistently and on-brand regardless of who published it.
Insights platform
Dedicated Insights section built as a proper content architecture – not a blog bolted on as an afterthought. SPF can publish sector-specific articles on practice certificate loans, SRA renewal funding, cash flow management and growth finance, with each piece contributing to the site’s authority in professional practice finance search terms.
SEO configuration
Page titles, meta descriptions and on-page structure configured throughout. Internal linking and FAQ content structured to support both organic search and answer-engine visibility. AEO signals reinforced via partner logos, FCA authorisation disclosure, testimonials and transparent contact information – all in place at launch, not added later.
Why WordPress was the right platform for Shire Professions Finance.
Specialism is the whole argument. The website has to prove it, not just claim it.
Anyone can say they specialise in finance for professional practices. What actually demonstrates it is having dedicated pages for accountancy firms and legal practices, content that speaks directly to the pressures of SRA renewals and practice certificate cycles, and an insights section publishing articles that only someone who genuinely understands that world would write.
That kind of content depth is not possible on a template. Templates are built for the generic case. A generic business finance site looks exactly like what SPF is trying to differentiate from.
WordPress gave us the control to build a content architecture specifically around the two sectors SPF serves. Dedicated sector pages with their own URL structure and their own content. An Insights platform built as a first-class section of the site, not a neglected blog. FAQs structured around the actual questions an accountant or solicitor would ask. All of that contributes to search visibility, authority signals and – critically – to the credibility of the business in the eyes of the visitor.
The Law Society and Bar Council partnerships are genuine differentiators. The site is built to make sure that is obvious the moment someone lands on it. A site that buries those credentials in a footer note is not doing the job. WordPress let us put them exactly where they need to be.
