Read time: 5 minutes
Design your website for your clients and prospective clients. Think of your website as a place where clients get to know you and your work. Make it easy for them to navigate and easy to contact you.
Ignore these fundamentals and web visitors won’t stay long on your site. Get them right and watch web visitors stick around.
Page contents:
Where to begin
Seek out an experienced graphic designer or brand agency. You may wish to begin your search by asking colleagues or other practices for recommendations. Then, check out the graphic designer/brand agency’s previous work to see if it meets your expectations.
Favour graphic designers/brand agencies who’ve designed similar sites for creative services. These designers will be a better fit than those who design websites primarily for products and online sales.
Aim to engage a graphic designer or brand agency who can recommend – and work in tandem with – an experienced web developer. Your web developer will be responsible for the ‘backend’ of your website (ie all the ‘tech’ elements and functionality of the site). Meanwhile, the graphic designer/brand agency will design the ‘front end’ of your website (ie the look and feel of all your online content).
A note about web developers – ensure they can deliver you a simple backend structure. Once it’s up and running, your team will need easy access to perform basic software updates and to refresh the site with your latest news, projects, text and images. Managing all of this in-house will, of course, help contain ongoing costs.
To avoid unexpected budget blowouts during your site’s construction, request a detailed quote before commencing work.
Well-designed websites
An architect’s website should look sensational and operate efficiently. Think of your site as a reflection of your built work – both must be equally well-designed. Naturally, your online audience (ie clients, prospective clients and influencers of clients) will all assume what they see online is indicative of what they can expect from you offline.
A word of warning – Avoid technical jargon and long paragraphs of text. Remember, web readers have very short attention spans. To capture and sustain their interest, you’ll need well-crafted text that’s concise.
While you may wish to draw inspiration from other websites, never copy images or text – either intentionally or unintentionally. Breaching copyright can have serious repercussions for you and your practice. See Acumen note Copyright.
To help protect your own work from similar breaches, talk to your web developer about ways to inhibit your work from being easily saved and uploaded elsewhere.
Getting the most out of your website
Be guided by your web developer when it comes to optimising the performance of your website. Swift load times and mobile responsiveness should be among your top priorities. Simple strategies, like resizing images, can have a big impact on your site’s speed and accessibility.
Next, access Google Analytics to discover how people interact with your site. Use key insights – like how they found you, where they click and how long they linger on certain pages – to help inform the type of content you share.
Search engine rankings are determined by complicated algorithms that are constantly evolving. Popular Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies may include:
- Using keywords (ie to target frequently searched terms)
- Uploading fresh content — consistently and frequently
- Decreasing load times for your website
- Incorporating internal and external links
- Appropriately labelling images and videos (ie to include keywords)
When thinking about keywords, remember you’re competing in a crowded marketplace. Avoid over-use of generic words and phrases. Instead, highlight your point of difference and use those words in headlines, body copy and file names. Be specific. For example, perhaps your point of difference is climate-responsive design. Those three words should appear in your navigation, headlines and body copy.
Top tips for website design
Highlight contact details
Your location and contact information must be easy to find. Ideally, incorporate a hyperlinked phone number to enable smartphone users to call you instantly. Avoid using templated ‘contact-us’ forms that demand enquirers share their details with you. It’s unlikely your clients/prospective clients will have the time and patience to complete these forms.
Stay on brand
Every element of your website should mirror your brand. Remember, play up your point of difference. For more on brand, refer Acumen note Brand creation and implementation.
Integrate social media
Use your social media channels (eg LinkedIn, Instagram and/or Facebook) to help drive traffic to your website. A short one or two-line ‘teaser’ with a website link to ‘read more’ is a good way to entice your social media followers to visit your site.
Consider embedding your social media feeds (eg Instagram) within your website, so visitors can access instant updates on your latest news.
Create compelling content
Put your best foot forward. If your budget allows, invest in a team of professionals to assist you. A professional photographer, videographer and copywriter will give your words and images the polish required (refer Acumen note Copyright and architectural photography for a guide to publishing photographs of architectural works). Resist the temptation to solely rely on artificial intelligence (AI) text-generating tools. Be sure to add your expertise and experience as a real-life architect.
Showcase your expertise in simple language (free of architectural jargon) that is relatable to clients and potential clients. Share how you’ve overcome project challenges or driven innovations.
What to share on your website
Who are you? For example, ‘… an architect based on the Gold Coast’.
What do you do? For example, ‘… we design architecture and masterplans for privately-owned multi-residential developments’.
And, how can you be contacted? Include your phone number, email address and studio location.
Ensure all this information is easy to find – fast.
Next, consider the questions clients commonly ask you. Your website should cover these topics too, so that prospects can easily identify your practice as being well-equipped to provide solutions to their problems/challenges.
Give context to your content
Always conclude your text with a call-to-action. What do you want the reader to do next – eg get in touch to learn more? If so, be sure to add contact details.
You may wish to consider highlighting some of your practice values within the ‘footer’ navigation of your website. This part of your website will be visible at the end of every page of your website. An Acknowledgement of Country, a commitment to climate action and gender equity are just some of the values you may wish to succinctly highlight.
Finally, always ensure you have a reliable back-up system in place to protect your website in the unlikely event of a server crash.
DO |
DON'T |
Use professional photographers to capture your projects and your team |
Clutter your layout with too many images or too much text |
Deploy conversational language, tailored to clients and prospects |
Complicate your design with multiple drop-down menus and confusing navigation |
Be mindful of the sector you wish to target and highlight relevant information for that market |
Treat your website as an internal archive for the practice |
Before going live, enlist loyal clients and trusted peers to critique and review your website |
Incorporate a generic contact-us tool that demands time-consuming input from time-poor users |
Ensure contact details are quick and easy to locate |
Set and forget your website – this is an evolving marketing tool that requires continual updates |
Lindy Johnson, marketing specialist for architects and designers, kindly prepared the content of this note.
Related courses:
- Business development: Writing websites (Available via Online CPD)
Disclaimer
This content is provided by the Australian Institute of Architects for reference purposes and as general guidance. It does not take into account specific circumstances and should not be relied on in that way. It is not legal, financial, insurance, or other advice and you should seek independent verification or advice before relying on this content in circumstances where loss or damage may result. The Institute endeavours to publish content that is accurate at the time it is published but does not accept responsibility for content that may or has become inaccurate over time. Using this website and content is subject to the Acumen User Licence.