How to create a website for an architect: pages, the Ordre and budget

1. Define your practice's profile and the clients the site needs to convince

A sole practitioner working for private clients and a fifteen-person practice bidding for social housing providers do not need the same website. First decide who needs to find you and what they should understand when they arrive.

When you are setting up, you rarely have more than a few photographed projects. The site can then show ongoing projects (with the client's consent), competition sketches or a building site followed step by step, and explain how the first meeting, the survey and the first sketches work.

If you do not yet have a logo or brand guidelines, branding work for the practice beforehand lets the site, the competition boards and the site hoardings speak the same language.

2. Build the site structure around your services

Five pages come up almost every time. The home page says in one sentence what the practice does, for whom and where. The projects page shows completed work. The practice page presents the team, its background and its way of working. The services page describes in concrete terms what you take on: feasibility studies, building permit or prior declaration applications, design, contractor tendering, site supervision, refurbishment, interior architecture. Finally, the contact page qualifies the enquiry before the first meeting with a few well-chosen fields: type of project, floor area, property location, intended timeline, indicative budget.

A sole practitioner's clients often type the name of their town. A services page that names the towns where you work, an up-to-date Google Business Profile and a few location-specific project pages do most of the work for a practice's local SEO.

Private clients often wonder whether they need an architect for their building permit. In France, for a private individual building or extending for themselves, the 150 m² floor area threshold matters, assessed after the works in the case of an extension, and other exemptions exist depending on the project. A prior declaration (déclaration préalable) does not require an architect. A page that explains these cases and invites visitors to have their project checked by the planning department attracts qualified visitors.

For a practice that covers architecture, urban planning and interior architecture, one page per area of expertise works better, explaining the approach specific to that field and linking to the corresponding projects, with each project page attached to one or more areas of expertise. An English version requires translations reviewed by someone who knows the profession's vocabulary.

3. Design the project page and the portfolio

The project page is often the most visited page, and the hardest to get right. It gives the brief, the floor area, the location (at town level for a private client), the client when they agree to be named, the exact commission entrusted to the practice and the credits: associate architects, engineering consultants, photographer. Its template, copy and visuals are worked on together to design project pages that showcase your completed work.

Beyond about ten projects, visitors filter by category (multi-unit housing, public buildings, commercial, refurbishment, private houses) and find the same information in the same place on every project page. This requires an editable template, so that a team member can add a project without touching the layout. Each project page can then end with a contact prompt suited to its building type, which helps turn the portfolio into a source of qualified enquiries.

A signature practice will rather want a site that reflects it, with the risk of a very beautiful site that says nothing: a developer in a hurry still needs to find the area covered, the services and the contact details within seconds. Several editorial templates are generally planned to tell the story of different kinds of project (a house, a cultural building, a refurbishment), with light interactions that do not slow the page down.

Photos, plans, sections and perspectives quickly weigh down an architect's website. Plan for compressed files resized for mobile, alt text that describes the building, and the photographer's name on each series. Check with each photographer the extent of the rights their contract grants you (website, social media, press).

Projects completed as an employee of another practice call for caution. The code of ethics (code de déontologie) forbids an architect from claiming a project they did not produce, and the law of 3 January 1977 requires every architectural project to bear the signature of all the architects who contributed to it. Before showing them, check the publication rights with the original practice and the authors of the images, then name the practice and your precise role (project lead during the design phase, for example). The 2026 version of the code of ethics also prohibits infringing an architectural work within the meaning of the French Intellectual Property Code: only present projects of which you are the credited author or co-author.

4. Choose the solution: website builder, CMS or professional support

An online website builder lets you publish on your own, using templates, and suits a sole practitioner with few projects and time to write. Depending on the tool and the plan, a custom project page, filters by building type or a multilingual version will be more or less feasible: check this before committing, as well as the ability to export your content.

A WordPress website offers more freedom over the structure of projects and languages, provided someone handles updates, security and backups.

Bespoke support takes care of the portfolio structure, design, copywriting and SEO, with a project page template designed for your building types. Project pages structured in the same way are also easier for search engines to read; once the site is live, a GEO audit shows whether your practice appears in LLM answers when a client uses them to look for an architect.

5. Set the budget according to the scope

At Gemeos, the cost of an architect website mainly depends on the number of projects, templates and languages.

The document area is used to share drawings, site meeting minutes and permit documents other than by email. As the architect is bound by professional confidentiality, each account must be named, access rights limited to the project concerned and backups planned.

The length of the project depends on what is ready at the outset (projects to document, photos and rights available, approvals from the partners). Ask for a timeline broken down by stage rather than a single date.

6. Build the Ordre's requirements in from the mock-up stage

The title is protected. The law of 3 January 1977 reserves the title of architect for people registered on a regional roll of the Ordre des architectes (the French architects' professional body), and that of "société d'architecture" (architecture firm) for registered companies. Using these terms without meeting the conditions, or fostering confusion, amounts to misuse of a protected title. This concerns the domain name, the title tag, the H1 and above all the team page: a qualified but unregistered team member must not be presented there simply as an "architect".

According to the Service-Public guidance on mandatory website notices, a regulated profession displays its professional title, the applicable professional rules, the State in which the title was granted and the name of the professional body it belongs to. It specifically gives the example of an architect's practice, which must state the details of its registration with the Ordre; the simplest approach is to include your registration number on the roll. Added to this are the publisher, the host and information about the data collected by the form, which gathers the property address and a budget. If you work for private clients, also display the contact details of the consumer mediator you are covered by and the address of their website. A cookie choice becomes necessary as soon as you use trackers that require consent.

The Ordre's logo is reserved for the institution and cannot be used for your promotion. On the other hand, the "OA" acronym followed by the words "inscrit à l'Ordre des architectes" (registered with the Ordre des architectes) is free to use, and it naturally belongs in the footer. The Ordre's FAQ on architects' rights and obligations details these rules as well as how to mention subcontractors in your publications.

The reformed code of ethics, in force since 1 July 2026, allows advertising in compliance with the law, without manifestly misleading undervaluation of your services or statements that discredit a fellow architect. In its FAQ, the Ordre also considers comparative advertising incompatible with professional ethics: consult your regional council before any campaign that comes close to it.

Professional confidentiality also applies to published projects. Before putting a private client's house online, obtain their written consent (a clause in the project management contract is the simplest option) and remove the exact address, the client's name and the cost of the works if they do not want them published.

7. Write for private clients as well as professional clients

A social housing provider or a local authority does not read your site the way a private client does. They look for comparable references, the size of the team, the site supervision method and the practice's ability to deliver a brief. The information that reassures a client must be easy to find without searching for it. On expertise and project pages, conversion-focused copywriting matters here as much as design.

For the team page, the code of ethics requires the architect to mention separately the qualifications under which they are registered with the Ordre and their other qualifications. So present registered partners, state-qualified architects who are not registered, team members working towards their licence to practise (HMONP) and other profiles separately.

8. Go live and keep the site up to date

If the current site is old and ranks well, list the URLs that receive traffic and plan redirects before the switchover: an SEO migration of the old URLs preserves the visibility you have built up.

On the operational side, plan for HTTPS, a domain name and accounts (hosting, CMS, analytics) registered in the practice's name rather than a provider's, regular backups, and a contract that specifies who owns the copy and photos.

Track contact enquiries from launch: knowing which project pages generate them will tell you where to focus your next photographs.

At Gemeos, an architect's website starts from the practice's profile and its real projects: portfolio structure, design, project page copy and SEO are worked on together, with the notices and credits the profession requires included from the mock-up stage.

FAQ

How much does an architect's website cost?

At Gemeos, building an architect's website costs €5,000 to €13,000 excl. VAT depending on the profile: €5,000 to €9,500 excl. VAT for a sole practitioner, €6,000 to €13,000 excl. VAT for a practice with a structured portfolio or an international practice, and €5,000 to €11,000 excl. VAT for a high-end practice. A redesign that keeps the CMS costs between €6,000 and €12,500 excl. VAT.

Can you create your own architect's website for free?

Yes, a website builder's free plan may be enough to get started, but a custom domain name and some features quickly become paid. The copy, photos and the legal notices specific to the profession remain your responsibility, and the tool must allow consistent project pages if your portfolio grows.

Can you use AI to create an architecture practice's website?

Yes, for a first draft of the site structure or introductory copy. AI does not, however, know your exact role on each project, the credits, your clients' consent or your Ordre registration details: the practice writes and checks these.

What legal notices are required on an architect's website?

The professional title, the Ordre des architectes registration details, the applicable professional rules and the State in which the title was granted, in addition to the notices required of any business (identity, publisher, host, data collected) and, with private clients, the contact details of your consumer mediator.

Is an Instagram account enough for an architect?

No, as soon as you want to present your services and projects in an organised way. Instagram shows images well, but their presentation and reach depend on the platform, whereas on your site each project has its own page. The account is mainly useful for bringing visitors to the site, and for a campaign on a specific type of commission, creating a dedicated landing page avoids sending them to an overly general home page.

Can you publish photos of a house designed for a private client?

Yes, if the client has given their consent, ideally through a clause in the project management contract. The professional confidentiality that binds the architect also covers what interior photos reveal: have the client approve the image selection and the project page copy before going live.