SEO for architects
Nobody searches for the name you gave the project.
Practice sites organise work by project name, which is meaningful internally and meaningless as a search. Clients search the thing they want and the constraint they fear: side return extension, listed building consent, barn conversion, green belt replacement dwelling. Those pages win the work, and most practices do not have them.
Straight answer
A beautiful portfolio that says nothing readable.
Architecture sites are among the best looking on the web and among the hardest for a search engine to understand. Enormous images, minimal text, and navigation built around names only the practice knows.
What practice sites usually do
- Projects listed by internal name
- Images at full resolution, several per project
- Little or no written context per scheme
- No page for the project types clients search
- Fees never mentioned at all
- ARB and RIBA shown as footer logos
What brings enquiries
- Pages for the project types people search
- An image pipeline that keeps the work and the speed
- Each scheme explained: brief, constraint, outcome
- Planning content that helps during a long decision
- Fee bands and the basis they are charged on
- Named architects with credentials marked up
The planning content point
The most valuable content an architecture practice can publish is usually about planning rather than about architecture: what consent involves, what gets refused and why, realistic timescales, what a pre-application achieves. It is searched constantly by exactly the people who later need an architect, and it demonstrates judgement in a way a photograph cannot.
Scope
What architecture SEO covers here.
Weighted towards making beautiful work findable.
Project type architecture
Pages for extensions, conversions, listed buildings and new build, each linking to the schemes that demonstrate it. The structure clients actually search.
The image pipeline
Every visual kept, served sized and in modern formats from cache. Architecture sites are consistently the heaviest we measure, and it is entirely fixable.
Scheme write-ups
Brief, site constraint, planning route, outcome. Enough context to be findable and to demonstrate judgement rather than only taste.
Planning content
The questions asked during the year before anybody appoints an architect, answered properly. Consistently the highest earning content in this sector.
Credentials as entities
ARB registration and RIBA chartered status expressed as machine readable credentials attached to named people and the projects they led.
Local where it applies
Practices working in defined areas benefit from local signals, particularly where local authority knowledge is part of the pitch.
Cost
What it costs.
The £95 blended hourly rate, or a monthly package which is those hours multiplied out. Minimum engagement is 4 hours.
Site and speed audit
From £650
Image weight, portfolio structure and what the site currently gives a search engine to read, with a prioritised list.
Portfolio restructure
Scoped
Project type pages built, schemes written up properly, and the image pipeline rebuilt so nothing is removed but everything loads.
Growth, 8 hours a month
£760/month
Planning content built out over time, with the technical layer maintained underneath.
FAQ
Questions clients actually ask
Our portfolio is the whole site. Is that a problem?
Only in how it is built. The portfolio should be the site, because it is the product. What causes problems is a portfolio of enormous images with no text around them, which gives a search engine almost nothing to read and gives a visitor on mobile data a long wait.
Both are solvable without showing less work. Sized, modern image formats served from cache, and each project carrying enough written context to be findable.
What do prospective clients actually search for?
Rarely the word architect on its own. They search the thing they want done and the constraint they are worried about: side return extension, listed building consent, barn conversion, passivhaus, basement dig, green belt replacement dwelling.
Those are the pages that win work, and most practice sites do not have them. They have a portfolio organised by project name, which is meaningful to the practice and meaningless as a search term.
How long is the consideration period?
Long, and it should change how you measure. Somebody researching an extension may take a year to appoint, and will visit several times before making contact. Judging a campaign on a quarter of enquiry volume will mislead you.
It also means the content that wins is the content that helps during that year: what planning actually involves, realistic cost bands, how long approval takes, what gets refused and why.
Should we publish fees?
Bands and the basis, yes. Percentage of build cost, stage fees, what a feasibility study costs. Practices are reluctant, and it is one of the most searched and least answered questions in the sector.
Publishing a range filters out enquiries that were never viable and produces better conversations with the ones that remain. It also answers a query most competitors leave open.
Does RIBA registration help?
It helps, and most practices waste it. ARB registration and RIBA chartered status are exactly the kind of verifiable credential that separates a practice from a content site, and they usually appear only as a logo in the footer with no alt text.
Named architects with credentials that resolve, connected to the projects they led, is a stronger signal than any amount of writing about quality.
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Beautiful site, no enquiries?
Send the practice website. You get a straight answer on what a search engine can currently read, how heavy the portfolio is, and which project type pages are missing.