Are you looking to improve your architectural firm’s digital footprint and gain more potential clients? Whether you’re starting from scratch or improving your current website, there are numerous things you need to keep in mind as you go.
In fact, architectural firm website design is about more than just a pretty page that has your basic contact information. When done correctly, your homepage can act as a sales tool that helps potential clients understand why they need to hire you over a competitor.
Not sure where to begin? That’s okay. We’ve put together this handy guide to help you out. Keep reading to learn our five best website design tips for architectural firms.
1. Show How You Can Help with a Great Website
When it comes to hiring an architect, your clients want to know right away that you have an eye for design. Unfortunately, a terrible website forces them to make the assumption that your work is just as sloppy.
Instead, make sure your website design features a crisp, clean appeal. It shouldn’t be too cluttered with too much boxy text or tons of animations. Add plenty of pertinent information, high-quality photos, and be clear about how you can help turn their vision into a reality.
By being as picky about your website as you are at your work, you’ll be able to convey that professional appeal that your customers are looking for.
2. Have a Visual Approach
In general, architecture website designs are supposed to have a visual approach to storytelling. What this means is you want to use photos anywhere you can to convey the services you’re offering.
Project galleries with before-and-after images are a great way to show your potential clients what they can expect by working with you. Likewise, boxes and tables with services that explain your various offerings in a visual way are also important.
Of course, you want to put a bit of a personal flair to your architectural firm website. Add professional headshot images of your team with bios. This allows others to see exactly who they can expect to work with should they hire your organization.
3. Make It Easy to Navigate
Additionally, you want your landing page and all subpages to be very easy to navigate. It should be abundantly clear how to find out more about your architectural firm, the services you offer, who works there, and how to get in touch.
If you’re adding a project portfolio or blog, make it easy to find. People truly want to see your work and learn more about the various projects you’ve done in the past. By keeping it simple to engage in this type of content, you’re truly portraying why you’re the best option for the job.
And always ensure you’re staying ADA and WCAG web compliant by keeping font sizes and graphics to a normal range. Much like you see in buildings, there are certain disability standards that must be met when it comes to site design.
4. Don’t Use Extra Large Images
Now, it is a good idea to clarify one aspect. While it’s important to have plenty of visuals on your website, you want to be concerned about the size of the photos.
Extra-large images slow download time, which irritates site visitors and can even hurt your search engine rankings. Google and Bing are notorious for cracking down on website load speed, which can cause your organic traffic to suffer if it takes too long.
Instead, there are plenty of great tools out there to ensure your website loads as quickly as possible and isn’t bogged down by graphic elements. By using one of these, you can keep potential customers happy and ensure your web traffic isn’t slowed down.
5. Continue to Add Informative Content
Even after your architectural firm website is complete, you’ll want to consistently add content on a regular basis. Why?
In general, search engines prefer you to produce engaging and informative content on a regular basis. The more pages to your website you have, the easier it is for them to tell what your company is about and what you offer. In turn, this can cause your rankings to go up for more keywords.
We like to think of it in terms of a building analogy. The more doors and floors you have, the more space for guests to enter. This is pretty much the same concept when it comes to growing your web traffic with consistent blog posts and articles.
The best part? New blog posts and articles on your website give you content to share on social media, too.
Wrap Up: Tips for Better Architecture Firm Websites
While these five tips are just the start of what it takes to create a beautiful and professional architectural firm website. However, our team at ER Marketing is here to help you the rest of the way. Please contact us today for a project quote.
