Vol. I · Confidential desk copy
The desk blueprint
A full teardown of Neobanque, FinWalletHub, CoinSutra and WhatsTheBigData — then the system we ship to beat them: category hubs, alternatives, a graveyard, and a review object Google can rank.
- 01What we are building
- 02Competitor teardown
- 03Where they leak traffic
- 04Information architecture
- 05Review field dictionary
- 06WordPress CPTs and ACF
- 07Headless stack
- 08What is live now
01 · What we are building
A financial desk, not a scraped app store. One product object powers reviews, country desks, alternatives, compare, the graveyard, and the journal. WordPress is the CMS (custom post types + ACF). React is the front. The sandbox you are looking at is that front, with the CMS schema already modelled in the data layer so a later MySQL WordPress install plugs in without redesigning pages.
- Consumer neobanks. Revolut, N26, Monzo, Starling, Chime, Fi
- Business banking. Mercury, Airwallex, Wise Business, Brex
- Brokers. eToro, IBKR, Trading 212, Saxo
- Crypto wallets + exchanges. Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, Ledger
- Virtual and crypto cards. Privacy.com, RedotPay, Crypto.com
- Kids / teen. GoHenry, Spriggy, Revolut <18
- Graveyard. Closed brands with successor links and dates
- Journal + news. Long explainers and short desk notes
02 · Competitor teardown
| Site | What they do well | Where they are thin |
|---|---|---|
| Neobanque.ch | URL map is the gold: /app/{slug}, /country/{iso}, /go/{slug}, business and crypto hubs. Stats page exists. Affiliate cloaking is done. | Country pages are a filter list plus recycled FAQs. Alternatives are four leftover brands. Reviews are AI App Store summaries. No licence, no deposit scheme, no graveyard, no funding, no Trustpilot. |
| FinWalletHub | Correct review object: HQ, funding, users, stores, Crunchbase-shaped facts, strengths/weaknesses, tags, last-verified. | Alternatives = the parent category. Thin editorial. No country desks. No graveyard. AML/deposit flags are wrong on Coinbase. |
| CoinSutra | Listicles with TOC, comparison table, per-brand pros/cons, FAQ cluster. Rank for “best X 2026”. | Blog engine, not a product CMS. No structured alternatives URL. Hard to keep 200 brands current. |
| WhatsTheBigData | /tool/{slug}/alternatives/ is a ranking machine. Reciprocal “also alternatives of” links. Huge internal graph. | Shallow blurbs. We copy the URL, not the thin copy. |
03 · Where they leak traffic
Neobanque ranks on “neobank + country” and “app name + review” because the URL map is clean: /country/australia/, /app/airwallex/, /go/airwallex/. The pages themselves are scrapes: App Store blurb, a country ISO dump, an alternatives block of four random brands, and the same three FAQs on every URL. FinWalletHub has the right fields (HQ, funding, users, Trustpilot, stores) and then leaves alternatives as a category dump. WhatsTheBigData wins the “X alternatives” query with a dedicated URL per tool. CoinSutra wins listicles with a TOC, a scoring table, and 2,000 words.
We take all four patterns and fill the holes: written country desks, scored alternatives pages, working filters, a graveyard, and a review that names the licence and the deposit scheme.
04 · Information architecture
| URL | Template | SEO job |
|---|---|---|
| / | Passbook home | Brand + hub links + featured files |
| /neobanks | Category hub | “Best neobanks 2026” + filters |
| /business | Category hub | Business banking cluster |
| /crypto-cards | Category hub | RedotPay-class pages |
| /app/revolut | Review | Head term + brand SERP |
| /app/revolut/alternatives | Alternatives | “Revolut alternatives” |
| /country/australia | Country desk | “Best neobank Australia” |
| /graveyard | Graveyard | Brand + shutdown queries |
| /insights | Stats | Linkable data, not a PNG |
| /blog | Journal | CoinSutra-style depth |
| /go/revolut | Cloak | Affiliate, not indexed |
05 · Review field dictionary
Every product carries this object. It is the ACF field group. It is also what the Revolut page in this preview is already rendering.
- Identity Name, slug, tagline, founded, HQ city/country
- Corporate Users, employees, funding, last round, ticker
- Links Website, Crunchbase, Wikipedia, Trustpilot, App Store, Play
- Licence Regulator, type, jurisdiction, number
- Safety Deposit scheme, issuer bank, AML flag
- Economics Monthly fee, FX markup, ATM, interest
- Card Physical / virtual / metal, network, Apple/Google Pay
- Coverage Countries, currencies, audiences, verticals
- Editorial Pros, cons, strengths, weaknesses, verdict, best-for
- Score Safety, fees, features, app, global, support (weighted)
- Graph Alternatives relationship, successor if closed
- Graveyard Status, closed date, reason
06 · WordPress CPTs and ACF
Production CMS is WordPress + MySQL, headless. The React app talks to WPGraphQL / REST. In this preview the same shapes live as TypeScript modules so the front can be designed and ranked before the CMS is wired.
| CPT | Slug | Taxonomies / notes |
|---|---|---|
| product | app | Core review. Verticals + audiences + country as taxonomies. |
| country | country | Regulator, guarantee, intro, local FAQ. Not a tag page. |
| article | blog / news | kind = journal | news. Related products relationship. |
| glossary | glossary | EMI, FSCS, BaaS, safeguarding — definition SERPs. |
| redirect | go | Affiliate cloak. Noindex. |
ACF groups: Identity, Corporate, Licences, Stores & ratings, Product economics, Card rails, Score breakdown, Editorial (pros/cons/strengths/weaknesses/verdict), Graveyard (closed date, reason, successor), Alternatives (relationship). Yoast / Rank Math on every public CPT. Affiliate URLs cloaked as /go/{slug}.
07 · Headless stack
Now (this preview)
React + TanStack Router, typed catalog, compare tray, filters, tools (IBAN, FX, compound). Looks and ranks like the finished front.
Next (your server)
WordPress 6.x, MySQL (MariaDB), ACF Pro, CPT UI, WPGraphQL. Editors fill reviews in wp-admin. No PHP templates for public pages.
Front stays React
Same routes. Data source swaps from
src/datato the WP API. ISR / stale-while-revalidate on hubs so Google never waits on wp-admin.
08 · What is live now
Click through the desk. Every URL below is a real page, not a mock.