What should an architecture firm website do to win commissions?

An architecture firm website wins commissions when it answers four questions in order: what work you do, whether you've done work like the client's, who they'd be working with and how to start a conversation. Here's how to set up the portfolio, client quotes, team page and inquiry form to do that.

Most architecture firm websites are built for other architects.

Architecture firms tend to build websites for their peers: a gallery with little context, a team page that reads like a CV and a contact form at the end of a long scroll. It looks considered and gives a client little reason to get in touch.

Ask one question of your site: does it tell a client why your firm is right for their project? This post covers what the site should include to win commissions. To see how we run these projects, our page on architecture firm website design sets it out. For examples of other firms' sites, see our list of the best architecture firm websites of 2026.

Tell clients what your firm does before you show the projects.

The instinct is to show every project. A long list makes visitors do all the work and most will not bother. Say first what problems your firm solves well and which clients get your best work, and a client reaches your portfolio already looking for proof.

• Write a homepage headline that names who you work with. "Architects for logistics and light industrial developers" tells a client far more than "Architecture and interiors."
• Keep the featured portfolio to eight to twelve selected projects. Archive the rest.

Project pages should show sector, scale, your role and the client type.

A project page is where a client decides whether you have done work like theirs. Put the facts a client filters by in written text near the top:

• Sector: healthcare, education, workplace, industrial, residential or heritage.
• Scale: floor area, number of units or beds and a construction value band if the client allows it.
• Your role: lead designer, architect of record, executive architect or interiors only. These are very different jobs and developers and public owners filter by them.
• Client type: private developer, owner occupier, university, hospital system, city or federal agency.
• Stage and year: completed, on site or in design.

Then tell the short story: the client's problem, your response and a named client quote.

These written facts are also what Google and AI tools read. Getting your firm named in AI answers starts here. Our guide to turning a project list into pages that win work walks through the structure and structured data for AI search covers how to mark it up.

The other pages an architecture firm website needs.

Sector pages. Write one page for each sector you want more work in. Each should link to its projects, name the person who leads that work and answer the questions a client in that sector asks first. They can show up when someone searches for a healthcare architect in their city. Nobody can promise they will rank, but without them there is nothing to rank.

Team and credentials. Clients want to know who will run their project day to day and whether the principals stay involved. Write a short paragraph per person on the work they lead, with their registrations and accreditations.

Awards and publications. Keep one page listing each award and article, dated and linked to the source. It is third-party proof for clients and for AI tools. Our post on how AI tools decide who to recommend explains why.

An inquiry path for clients. Give clients a "Start a project" form that asks for project type, location, rough size and timing. Give press and recruits their own routes so client inquiries do not get buried.

How public and institutional clients check your qualifications before an RFQ.

For federal work, the Brooks Act has agencies select architects and engineers on qualifications first and negotiate the fee after, and federal buyers collect those qualifications on the SF 330 form. Many states apply similar rules locally, and institutional owners such as universities often shortlist on qualifications too.

So before shortlisting, someone on the panel will look you up to check:

• That you have done comparable projects for comparable owners, with your role stated.
• Who the key staff are and whether their registrations are current.
• That past clients are named, so references can be called.
• Your licenses, small business or DBE certifications and any contract vehicles.

Put each of these one click from the homepage. Keep the project facts on your site consistent with your SF 330s, because a panel that finds different numbers will notice. If you sell to public owners, an accessible site is a sensible baseline. The government contractor website checklist covers the rest.

Large images that still load fast.

Architecture sites live on photography, and big images often make them slow. Google's Core Web Vitals score a page as good when its largest element loads in 2.5 seconds or less, it responds to a tap in 200 milliseconds or less and its layout shift score is 0.1 or less, according to DebugBear's guide to Google's thresholds. A good build resizes images for the screen, serves modern formats and loads lower images as the visitor scrolls. Our explainer on website speed and Core Web Vitals goes further.

Put client quotes next to the projects they describe.

Testimonials often sit at the bottom, after the visitor has decided. Place each quote beside the project it describes, with the client's name, title and company. A developer's quote beside a commercial project says this firm has worked with people like me and it went well. One specific quote beats three vague ones.

Be specific where the famous firms are general.

Clients often look first at famous names like Zaha Hadid Architects, Foster + Partners and BIG, whose sites show work of every type and scale. You cannot match their budgets. A firm clearly expert in heritage conversion will read as more credible to a client with that exact brief.

A good site answers four questions in order.

• What kind of work does this firm do?
• Have they done work like mine?
• Are they people I could work with?
• How do I start a conversation?

Most sites handle the first two and muddle the last two. The third comes from how you write. The fourth needs a specific invitation, such as "Tell us about your project," with a short form.

What a redesign involves and what it costs.

A redesign usually runs in five stages: discovery to agree on sectors and audiences, content work on project and team pages, design, the build and a launch that redirects every old page address so you keep your search traffic. Content drives most of the cost: the projects to rewrite, the sector pages, the redirects, extra languages and links to other systems. Our guide to what a company website costs in 2026 gives an honest breakdown.

What to ask a designer for when you brief a rebuild.

Ask for these in writing:

• A project page template with fields for sector, scale, role and client type, plus sector filters.
• Image handling that keeps pages fast on a phone, with Core Web Vitals results before launch.
• A content system your team can use without calling anyone.
• The site, code, domain and hosting accounts owned by your firm.
• A redirect plan for every old page address. Our guide to moving off WordPress without losing rankings covers what to expect.
• A check that AI tools can read the site.
• A plan to meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility.

If you are putting the project out to bid, the architecture website RFP checklist turns this into a full brief.

Our own proof is iknow.us, the site for Iknow LLC, which we rebuilt and launched in September 2026. Read the Iknow case study.

Where to go next.

The free Website Health Check shows how outdated and exposed your site is. The free Search Check shows whether Claude names your firm when clients ask for an architect, and who it names instead.

If your site already does this work, our SEO Growth Program adds the pages clients search for each month. See pricing for details.

If the site is hard to change, our website rebuild service moves it onto a fast, secure platform your team can update. Firms that want a modern stack or already run one can read how we build and run sites on Next.js and Payload CMS.