Architecture Firm Website: Aesthetics vs Marketing

Your architecture firm website needs the right structure, design and messaging to connect with your prospective clients and guide them to the next step. Strategic and well crafted website design will connect your visitors with your brand and guide them in an effective, authentic and meaningful way.

In this article you will learn why it is important to implement effective marketing tools for your architecture firm website. Always with an aesthetic approach in mind of course…

The Typical Architecture Firm Website

What image do you have in mind when you think about the typical architecture website?

The common architecture websites we usually see are typically portfolio websites which are project- and image-focused. They are often certainly beautiful (if they are designed well) and have a minimal approach. Usually they are structured in a gallery style and do not have a lot of text descriptions.

Now this is definitely a bit of a stereotypical description. But it is very common that architecture firm websites use some kind of image grid or project overview directly on their homepage.

And do not get us wrong here. We love architecture firm websites in terms of the design and how they look. But the problem with these kinds of websites is that they are not very effective in terms of the user flow and lead generation.

To put is simply, architecture firm websites simply do not convert. Which means they are not leading the user to a clear next step.

The Typical Marketing Website

On the other extreme there are the websites from the world of digital marketing. And when we think of these websites you will probably picture the following characteristics.

In this industry you see a lot of very sales focused websites. They use bold and wordy marketing language, trying to sell products to the visitors. But let’s look at the positive side. What these websites usually do very well is that they guide the user to the next steps because they are well-structured and conversion optimized.

They might not be as aesthetic as architecture websites but what these “marketing websites” do really good is to craft a targeted website experience.

Craft a Targeted Website Experience

In today’s digital age you need to differentiate yourself from the competition. And your architecture firm website is your number one marketing tool. It is your 24/7 business card and usually the first touch point with your firm for prospective clients.

So that is why you should guide your visitors to discover your website the way you want them to. Because this enables you to design a very targeted website experience that works best for the specific client you want to attract.

Effective website design for architecture firms

When done correctly you can help visitors who land on your website to:

Easily identify what your practice is about, what you do and
How you can provide your visitors with solutions to their problems; and
How they can engage with your business by figuring out where to take the next step,

…because if your visitors don’t know what the next step is, they’ll probably leave without taking any actions. And next action steps could be to visit a project case study, your service offering page, download a guide, watch an informational video, sign up to a newsletter series or submit their contact details.

This is why effective web design is all about making your website easy to use and navigate. It allows you to steer your visitors’ focus to things you want them to pay extra attention to.

Combining Aesthetics and Marketing

But as Archipreneur is created by architects for architects we know how our profession thinks and we also value the aesthetic approach we have towards websites. And we also understand how much we want to showcase our beautiful projects.

So the Archipreneur concept towards modern architecture firm websites really is to combine “Aesthetics” and “Marketing” and take the best from the both worlds:

We want to take the:

Aesthetics and minimalism from architecture firm websites and
Combine this with the tools, techniques and structure of marketing websites

So our outcome should be beautifully designed websites. Which also incorporate all effective marketing tools to improve the user experience and also to reach our goals, like:

Objectives of your architecture firm website

Getting new clients
Communicating our work (Also read: Content Marketing for Architects)
Building a brand
Creating a lead funnel
Growing our practice
Automising processes

Your website should really work hard for your firm and bring in new leads and connect with your prospective clients so that you can focus on the fun part: designing and planning buildings.

To help you with this we have created a new course on the building blocks of effective website design for architects…

The Building Blocks of an Effective Architecture Firm Website

The “Building Blocks of an Effective Website” course focuses on the crucial aspects and elements of modern, lead generating websites. You will learn how to structure your website that it guides your visitors to discover your website the way you want them to. And you will also learn all the elements that you should integrate in order to build an effective architecture firm website.