SEO for architects: beautiful websites that never mention money.

Architects have the best-looking websites of any profession I work with, and some of the least effective. The photography is excellent. What is missing is everything an anxious homeowner needs before they are willing to send an email: what happens first, how long it takes, and roughly what it costs.

01The title You have something no other trade here has.

"Architect" is protected in law. Under the Architects Act 1997 only somebody on the Architects Registration Board register may use the word to describe themselves, and misusing it is a criminal offence.

No other business on this site has that. A plumber can call themselves a plumber on a Tuesday afternoon. You went through seven years and a statutory register, and most practice websites mention it in a footer logo, if at all.

It matters because your competition in the search results is frequently not an architect. Architectural designers and technologists compete for the same drawings work, legitimately and often well. The difference is real, checkable and almost never explained to the person trying to choose.

02The search Your client does not know they need you yet.

They know they want a bigger kitchen, or that the loft is wasted, or that the council has said something about consent. The word "architect" arrives late, usually after somebody tells them they will need drawings.

So the searches that matter are permissions and outcomes rather than professions. Planning drawings. Extension plans. Whether a loft conversion needs planning permission. What listed building consent involves.

This is the part where a practice site with four pages, Home, About, Projects and Contact, competes for nothing at all. It is also the easiest thing on this page to fix, because the answers are things you explain on the phone every week.

03The levers What actually moves the needle for a practice.

• Pages for the planning route, not for architecture Householder planning application, listed building consent, change of use, permitted development, a lawful development certificate. These are the things people actually search, and they are work a builder cannot do. One page each, in plain English, is most of the opportunity.
• The fee question, answered before anyone rings Almost no practice publishes anything. A page explaining the difference between a percentage fee, a stage fee and a fixed fee, with honest ranges for a domestic extension, removes the single biggest reason an enquiry never gets sent.
• The Plan of Work, translated Stage 3 means nothing to somebody who wants a bigger kitchen. Set out what happens, in what order, who does what and what is paid at each point. Practices that explain their own process get enquiries from people who already understand what they are buying.
• Your ARB number where it can be checked Not the logos, the numbers. Your registration is publicly verifiable and almost nobody puts it where a client can use it. It is the one credential on this site that is backed by an Act of Parliament, and burying it in the footer wastes it.

The map pack matters least to you of anyone on this site. Nobody appoints an architect off a map pin. They read six practice websites over three weeks and talk about it at the kitchen table, which is why the pages have to do the explaining while you are not there.

04The fee The silence about money, and what it costs you.

Every domestic enquiry you do not receive has the same cause. Somebody looked at your work, decided it was probably beyond them, and closed the tab. They were often wrong, and you will never know it happened.

The profession's reasons for not publishing fees are real. Scope varies enormously, a percentage of an unknown construction cost is not a number, and nobody wants to be compared on price alone. All true, and none of it stops you writing a page about how fees work.

What that page needs to cover:

• The difference between a percentage fee, a fee per stage and a fixed fee.
• What a householder extension typically costs for full services, as a range.
• Which stages people commonly stop at, and what that costs instead.
• What is not included: survey, structural engineer, planning fees, building control.
• What happens if planning is refused.

That last one is worth its own paragraph on the page. It is the question every client has and almost nobody asks out loud.

05The price What it costs, and what you get.

£297 a month. The website, on-page SEO, missed-call text-back, a review funnel, follow-up on every enquiry, one inbox and a business number. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.

No build fee and no minimum term. The site runs on my hosting, and after three months you can buy the code outright for £1,000 if you would rather take it elsewhere.

I will say the obvious thing: you are a design practice being offered a website by somebody who is not an architect. What you are buying is the part underneath, the structure, the speed and the follow-up. Bring your own photography and your own taste, because they are better than mine.

06The awkward ones Common questions from practices.

If your work is mostly commercial and won through frameworks rather than homeowners, the construction page is a better fit. And if you came here looking for the people who build the thing, the builders page is here. Other trades are listed here.

※Send me your practice site and I'll tell you which planning searches you could realistically rank for, and which of the pages you're missing would earn its place first. That's twenty minutes and it costs you nothing. Book a call. Tell me what's going on.