Architecture clients spend months on due diligence before they commission a project.
They look at your portfolio obsessively. They compare you with five other firms. They read about your approach. They judge your website as a proxy for the quality of your work.
A weak website, for an architect, is a contradiction in values.
What is the most important part of an architecture website?
The project portfolio. Clients commission architects based on demonstrated work, not promises. Your portfolio needs to be deep, beautifully presented, and well-organised.
Should architects publish fees on their website?
Guidance rather than fixed fees. A note like 'fees are calculated as a percentage of construction cost, typically 8–15%' sets expectations without over-committing.
What image format works best for architecture photography online?
WebP or AVIF at 1600–2400px wide. Never full-resolution RAW exports — they're unnecessarily large and will destroy your page load time.
What Architecture Clients Are Looking For
When someone is considering commissioning an architect, they arrive at your website with a specific question: do you have experience with projects like mine?
Residential clients want to see houses. Commercial clients want offices and retail. Heritage clients want restoration work.
Your portfolio needs to make this immediately clear. If someone has to dig through 40 mixed projects to find the 8 residential homes you've designed, you've already lost them.
Portfolio: The Heart of Every Architecture Website
Organise by Project Type, Not Chronologically
Group projects in ways your clients think about their brief.
Residential · Commercial · Education · Heritage · Interiors · Competitions — or whatever categories reflect your practice.
Chronological portfolios only make sense to you. Clients navigate by project type.
Give Each Project Its Own Page
This is essential. Not a lightbox gallery — a proper project page.
Each project page should include:
- Project title and location
- Type, scale, and year
- The brief and what made it challenging
- Your approach and design decisions
- Construction/completion photography
- Client testimonial (where possible)
This is also excellent for SEO. "Contemporary kitchen extension Islington" is a specific search that a project page can rank for. A lightbox gallery cannot.
For more on how to structure this, the website case study design guide and the portfolio design guide are both relevant.
✦A Note on Quantity
8 exceptional, fully documented projects are more powerful than 40 thumbnails. Architects consistently undervalue depth of documentation in favour of breadth of portfolio. Choose quality.
Photography Standards
Architecture photography requires professional photographers.
Phone camera or wide-angle lens shots of completed buildings are not acceptable — they communicate that you don't value the presentation of your own work.
Brief your photographer for each project type:
- Exterior: blue hour, overcast daylight, and one lifestyle shot with occupants
- Interior: natural light, detail shots of key design elements, spatial shots that convey scale
- Process: site photography during construction builds narrative
Invest in photography that does justice to the work. It's the primary asset of every project page.
The Studio Page
Architecture clients aren't just hiring a firm — they're hiring the person or people they'll be working with for 18–36 months.
Your studio page needs to introduce the principals, associates, and key team members. Photos of real people, not stock images. Professional but approachable.
Include:
- Founded year and practice history
- Qualifications (RIBA, ARB, AIA, AIBC, AACA etc.) — displayed prominently
- Named project types and sectors
- Awards and recognition
- Approach/philosophy in plain language — not 200 words of architectural theory
ℹRegulatory Display
In the UK, architects registered with ARIBA or ARB are required to display their registered status on business communications, including websites. In Australia, registered architects must display their registration number in each state. In the US, AIA membership is optional but displayed widely for credibility.
Services Page: More Than "Architectural Design"
Most architecture websites list services vaguely: "design, planning, construction management."
Clients — especially residential clients who may be commissioning an architect for the first time — don't know what this means in practice.
Be specific. Explain each RIBA stage (or equivalent) in plain language:
Stage 1 – Feasibility: We assess what's possible on your site, budget, and planning context. Typically 2–4 weeks.
Stage 2 – Concept Design: We develop 2–3 design options for your feedback...
This transparency builds trust with clients who feel uncertain about the process. And it differentiates you from firms that assume clients already know how architecture works.
See the services page design guide for how to structure this properly.
Awards, Press, and Recognition
Architecture practice is one of the few industries where awards genuinely influence purchase decisions.
RIBA Awards. Civic Trust Awards. AIA Awards. Regional architecture prizes. Features in Dezeen, Architectural Review, ArchDaily, or local press.
Display these. Not in a long, dated list — but integrated into relevant project pages and on the homepage as credibility signals.
A practice that has won awards for residential design and prominently features them has an immediate advantage with residential clients over one that buries them or doesn't mention them at all.
Local SEO for Architects
Architecture searches tend to be local + type:
- "residential architect London"
- "house extension architect Edinburgh"
- "commercial architect Manchester"
- "heritage architect Bristol"
Each of these is worth a dedicated landing page if you serve those markets.
Your Google Business Profile also matters more than most architects realise. People searching "architect near me" see a local 3-pack — you want to be in it. The local SEO guide covers the setup.
Website Speed and Architecture Photography: The Balance
The biggest technical challenge on architecture websites is image performance.
You need beautiful, large images. You also need your site to load quickly. These two goals are in tension.
The solution:
- Export at 1600–2400px wide maximum. Not full resolution.
- Convert to WebP. 30% smaller than JPEG at the same visual quality.
- Lazy load images below the fold. They only load when the user scrolls to them.
- Use responsive images. Serve smaller files to mobile devices.
Getting this right means you can have a visually stunning architecture portfolio that still passes Core Web Vitals. It's not a compromise — it's engineering done properly.
Architecture practice that needs a website as considered as your buildings?
Evoke Studio builds portfolio websites for architecture studios — with project pages, photography optimisation, and design that reflects the quality of your practice.
An architecture website needs: a portfolio organised by project type (not chronologically) with individual project pages for each significant commission; a studio page introducing the principals and team with photos; a services page explaining each stage of service in plain language; display of professional registrations (RIBA, ARB, AIA, AACA etc.); awards and press coverage integrated into relevant pages; and a contact page with a clear first step. The most common gap is shallow project documentation — a thumbnail gallery does nothing for the client who needs to understand your approach.
Architects win clients online primarily through: (1) ranking for local + type searches ('residential architect London') via individual project pages and service pages; (2) being found by clients who were referred and use the website to validate the recommendation; (3) appearing in design press and online publications that link to the practice website. The website's job in most cases is to convert a referred or searching prospect into a phone call or meeting — not to generate cold traffic. Deep project documentation and clearly communicated process are the conversion tools.
Absolutely yes. Individual project pages — each with photos, the brief, your design response, and the outcome — are significantly more effective than gallery lightboxes. They rank for specific search queries, provide the depth of information that serious clients require, and allow clients to find projects most similar to their own brief. A practice with 12 deep project pages will outperform one with 40 thumbnail galleries every time, both in search rankings and in client conversion.
A basic template-based architecture website costs $500–$2,000 to set up. A custom architecture portfolio website with individual project pages, professional photography integration, and SEO setup typically costs $5,000–$20,000 depending on the number of projects to document and the design complexity. Given that a single residential commission can be worth $30,000–$100,000+ in fees, the ROI on a well-built website is typically very strong. See the guide on how much web design costs for a full breakdown.
For architecture practices: Next.js (built by a professional developer) offers the best combination of performance, design flexibility, and SEO control. Webflow is an excellent alternative for studios who want to manage content themselves. Squarespace is acceptable for smaller practices that want simplicity. Avoid WordPress unless you're comfortable with ongoing plugin maintenance. The platform matters less than the quality of photography, depth of project documentation, and load performance — all of which can be achieved on any modern platform.