138% Increase in time spent on site
Visitors engaged significantly longer with content, reflecting higher relevance and improved page experience.
Growing organic search visibility by up to 600%
Based in Segensworth, Hampshire, SHMS Accountants provide reliable accounting and tax support for small and medium businesses and have over twenty five years experience across a wide range of industries. With a focus on their friendly, client-focused team, they offer each client a dedicated accountant with unlimited support and fixed fees for clarity of service.
SHMS also provides dedicated accountancy support to Construction Contractors operating under the CIS scheme. Aiming to relieve the headache of complex CIS obligations, subcontractor payrolls and tax returns, this is a standalone service that requires its own messaging focus and strategy.
Visitors engaged significantly longer with content, reflecting higher relevance and improved page experience.
High-intent terms, including 'CIS payroll' and 'CIS management', secured page-one rankings within six months.
Drastically outperformed the standard industry average benchmark of 2.1% through targeted content strategy.
SHMS came to us with a clear brief and a tight deadline. They operate two distinct businesses, SHMS Accounting, a full-service accountancy practice, and SHMS Contracting, a specialist offering built around the needs of construction businesses managing large numbers of subcontractors. Both needed new websites, and both had to go from brief to launch within eight weeks.
The existing website was built on a WordPress template by a member of staff a long time ago and didn't reflect the calibre of the firm or the scale of what SHMS Contracting in particular offers. It was generating around only 4-5 enquiries a year, despite the firm having 16 years of clean HMRC investigations behind it, paying out around £50k a year in referral commissions and managing 600 or more subcontractors. A dated website wasn't just aesthetically off; it was actively undermining that credibility and posed a genuine commercial risk. Compliance and trust are everything in the finance industry. The challenge was to deliver two polished, professional websites, fast.
The firm operates under the SHMS Group banner with separate logos for Contracting and Accounting, but had no family group identity to tie them together. Working out how to give each business its own voice while making the group feel coherent was an important and strategic part of the brief that would lay the foundation for the website build.
The SHMS team also had strong feelings about the overall look and feel of their digital presence. They were specific about not wanting to look like a traditional practice or an aggressively modern one, so we were tasked with finding the happy medium to showcase the firm’s ethos; personal service at a fair price, with real expertise behind it. That direction shaped the design brief from day one.
With a small timeline and two distinct audiences to serve, efficiency was as important as the build itself on this project.
Design and build
The creative team designed both websites while keeping the client's refreshed branding intact. The brief wasn't to reinvent who they are, but to present them in the best light. Our technical team then built both sites in our bespoke content management system (CMS) - Serenity Source.
To maximise efficiency while ensuring brand unity for both sites, we developed a single, versatile toolkit of blocks and widgets for both sites. While sharing the same structural DNA, each site was given a unique personality during the content phase using contrasting colour schemes. This kept the project on track and each with its own messaging and audience focus. The client provided the content, of which we swiftly proofread, edited and uploaded to the website.
A bespoke tool for a specific problem
The SHMS Contracting website required more than good design, it needed to be useful. The business serves construction firms that rely heavily on subcontractors. One of the most pressing concerns in that sector is the risk of HMRC reclassifying subcontractors as employees, with significant tax and National Insurance consequences for the contractor.
To address this directly, we built a bespoke calculator into the Contracting site. Prospects can use it to estimate their potential tax and NI liability in that scenario, turning the website from a digital brochure into a genuinely useful tool that demonstrates expertise before a single conversation has taken place. It earns attention, builds credibility and gives the right prospects a concrete reason to get in touch.
Data reports on performance within 6 months of launch.
Broadened brand exposure across search engines, significantly expanding keyword reach.
Nearly doubled user click-throughs directly from search result pages to the website.
Generated massive organic visit growth, delivering high-intent natural traffic.
Marketing support
With both sites live, we laid the foundations for structurally sound SEO, paid advertising campaigns and content marketing, covering social media management, copywriting blog content and email marketing to build visibility and generate leads across both businesses.
Once everything was up and running, we then handed the reins back to the SHMS team for them to go forward with.
Data reports on performance within 6 months of launch.
Dramatically expanded overall brand presence and keyword coverage across search engine results.
Jumped over 14 places on average, bringing core search rankings significantly closer to page-one results.
Captured a higher volume of targeted, qualified traffic coming directly from search engine results.
Over four months, we grew SHMS Accountants' presence across social media, generating more than 1,000 impressions on Facebook and adding 162 new followers on LinkedIn. For SHMS Contracting, Facebook impressions passed 6,000, and their LinkedIn posts achieved an average engagement rate of 9.4%, more than four times the industry average of 2.1%.
Engagement at this level means the right people, potential clients, partners and industry contacts, are actually stopping to read, react and follow. For firms in accountancy and contracting, where trust and visibility drive new business, that kind of consistent attention on LinkedIn in particular is hard to buy and easy to lose.
SHMS is a firm where their knowledge of subcontractor tax risk sets them apart in a crowded marketplace of accountancy firms. The websites needed to communicate that clearly to the right people.
For accountancy businesses, trust drives every conversion and the quality of their digital presence is part of the product and service. Getting that right quickly and efficiently, without compromising on substance, is exactly the kind of problem we like to solve.
If you're keen to learn more about this case study or have similar challenges, don't hesitate to reach out.
