Talk to me about websites

[ashleyclarke]

I've been a bit lazy over the last year or so, mainly relying on existing clients for work but I know one can't do this forever and if I don't start actively gaining new business then things will eventually dry up. Now I'm not much of a salesman so I find it difficult building up client networks etc which is why I'm thinking I need to invest in a proper website.

 

I do have a website already of course but its just a free site with basic do it your self edibility. However it's not professional and it certainly isn't getting seen very much and for as long as it's been up I don't think I've ever gotten a enquiry through it. It's mainly just a place to stick an online portfolio and somewhere I can direct people to look at it.

 

So I've been thinking, should I go all out on an all singing all dancing professionally made website and pay some decent money to get it SEO'd and have proper ad words camping's and all the rest of it.

 

The goal being to have a website that is being regularly found by prospective new clients, presents a much more professional image for my business and hopefully leads to new work in the future, which will more than cover the investment costs in the site.

 

What are people's views on this? Has anyone done similar? and if so what was the result? I just want to know if it's worth it really.

[Devin Johnston]

I've had a professional website up for about 4 years and have yet to get a job directly from it. Potential clients will visit it to see examples of my work and it does see some traffic but it's not effective at all at bringing in new clients. I think this is because most people tend to do business with people they know, they don't want to take a chance on an unknown quantity. Making personal contact with someone is much more effective than a cold call or an email solicitation. That's not always an easy thing to do especially in a world where your client may live half a world away. This has been my experience and it could be an outlier, just my 2 cents.

[Scott Schroeder]

If you have an Adobe CC plan, you get Adobe Portfolio included with it. That will suffice for showing your work. You do not need a professionally designed website for that.

 

If you have money you want to spend, you may want to contract a business development person and have them do the salesmanship for you.

[MarcellusW]

Pretty sure Chris Stoski and Dylan Cole made their own websites. Sometimes "professional" just means trendy. HTML coding is pretty easy if you have dreamweaver and any questions you might have, have already been answered on stackoverflow.com, even for the "professional" looks. Most of the javascripts for intro slide shows and what-not is out there for free if you acknowledge the source in your code view.

Edited June 30, 2016 by MarcellusW

[Devin Johnston]

Or you could go to Template Monster and buy one for under $200.

[ashleyclarke]

Yes I'm not so much worried about the process of getting a nice looking website. I know there are a few options out there to get one built which looks the part.

 

What I'm really wanting is to get a range of views on whether having a nice website which actually comes up in google is likely to generate much in terms of sales from people finding me online.

 

Devin, you seem to think not, which is fair enough. Just wondering what the broader view on it is. If the consensus is that it just serves as part of the overall branding and a place to put your online portfolio then I don't need to spend too much money on a new site. But I'm prepared to spend a a decent amount on one, along with monthly fee's for ad words and SEO work if its going to lead to new business.

[Devin Johnston]

I forgot to mention I also paid for a few months of Google advertising and nothing came of it either despite many clicks on the add.

[RyderSK]

Website is kind of staple but unless you run e-shop, its usefulness borders on obsolete these days, but it's still rather awkward to mention you don't have one. It doesn't take that much of attention to create and maintain one. It creates an aura of seriousness, our clientele (architects and developers) are rather conservative than liberal in business sense, so they do appreciate it.

 

Architectural images look far less glamorous in 500 pixels of Instagram then wedding photos or food blogging do.

 

You won't drive traffic through crappy marketing methods, people don't go googling "architectural visualization". The information of your work travels, the boss will ask project manager, the project manager will ask young drafter and the young drafter wastes endless time on pinterest. And your work, if great enough, simply happens to be there, shared by many, tracked back to your (Adobe)Behance portfolio.

 

So instead of wasting money on adwords, and looking like desperate loser, producing good work that people notice pays better. There is absolutely no need to know anyone. I don't know anyone, I live out nowhere, and I get emails from all around the world, 20+ per week ? Nothing unique, everyone I talk to shares the same experience. Few people happen to live in London, NYC, Berlin, to mingle with socialites connected to great projects. The rest of us simply need to live on internet space. It's of absolute necessity in today's global market, unless you already secured enough reputation and contacts to live from for the rest of your life, something that applies to veterans, but surely not to young upstarts.

 

This has very little to do with website, but website can be that connecting link, or first starting block. Unless too lazy, there is no excuse not to own one.

 

ps: It's 2016, there is no "SEO". No magical words you put into your Wordpress template (they are all already there), and suddenly rank

[ismailrebbane]

You need a plan. All websites online look good nowadays! But that's not enough. You need to think of it as an Online Business.

 

I agree with Juraj, on several points, especially the one about SEO, it's not relevant it all today. google just changed everything!

 

What shows on the first google search page, is 100% relevant to the user!

 

Not with SEO effort!

 

but Quality Content only. Based on backlinks (60% I guess, especially when an authoritative Website link to your content), shares, comments.. etc

 

 

Creating, Remarkable Content that adds value is the way here. as this is what makes people share your content.

 

 

There is also, Sharing tutorials and Case Studies for previous projects.

 

obviously, the clients don't care about this but, it will show that you know what you are doing.

 

Actually, people in the same industry will recommend you as well,

 

Because you'll be the first company that pops into their mind when they think of your expertise, but you have to be consistent tho.

 

 

There are more things that can be done like (Copywriting, Creating Videos for you process etc..), but If you start with a plan to make Remarkable Content, I think you'll be good.

 

You can always Refine your plan afterwards.

 

best,

-Ismail

[Nic H]

again this chatter is all irrelevant if you have average / generic work. its the classic arch vis worker "cant see the wood for the trees" conundrum.

 

spend your time making amazing work backed up with targeted approaches to people you want to work with and making connections that way.

blindy yelling into the endless internet will get you no where.

 

ad words is for peasants

[philippelamoureux]

When it's ready I'll check out https://thegrid.io/

It's like an intelligent site-maker, where the site create itself based on what you throw at it...photos, videos, etc. Interesting concept. No more god damn templates!!!

 

The less time I spend on my site the better! It's funny but being very active on some forums, twitter, etc bring opportunities. I have a website but I rarely show it. I don't feel the need right now because I create more opportunities just being active on forums. For example, the guys at ue4arch.com asked me to become a moderator on their forums. Now I get private messages from people wanting me to do ue4 viz for them (all of them a crazy projects that I don't accept, but still :-). Ue4arch noticed me because I post a loooooooooooooooooot on the official ue4 forums.

 

But it's still a good idea to make a minimalist website, just with some explanation of what you do, where you are from, etc. It's more professional. The big work is being active on social medias after that!

[philippelamoureux]

Making another post for clarity. I'm not a social media power-user. What would be the essential medias to use for arch-viz in 2016?

 

I currently use Behance, Twitter, and have a website.

 

I'm not sure about Facebook yet. Anything i'm really missing out?

[Nic H]

i get about half of my work through initial contacts on twitter

[philippelamoureux]

This is interesting!

[RyderSK]

Making another post for clarity. I'm not a social media power-user. What would be the essential medias to use for arch-viz in 2016?

 

I currently use Behance, Twitter, and have a website.

 

I'm not sure about Facebook yet. Anything i'm really missing out?

 

Choose one or two at best. And focus only on one you enjoy. There is no reason to maintain network that you get no use out of. There are people with 20 social network profiles, which are then dead.

I use FB, because that's what I started using 4-5 years ago, and I simply stuck. I have zero need to start using twitter for example now.

 

I still like Behance a lot, it's the most democratic one, which on other hand means it's super polluted. I had to unfollow any archivz and simply go there to enjoy nice selection from other creative fields. And be searchable, it became a google for project managers trying to find artists.

 

 

again this chatter is all irrelevant if you have average / generic work. its the classic arch vis worker "cant see the wood for the trees" conundrum.

 

This should never be of discussion :- ) It's something I take for granted that everyone does spend time foremost improving what we do. But there are a lot of incredibly good, talented people who go unnoticed and quite struggle. I usually happen to meet them on face-to-face basis as some have conscious issue with presenting themselves.

They might perhaps become excellent employees but even then would struggle with this outlook.

[Joel Gray]

I can add to this conversation by backing up some of the data other people have shared.

 

I use Squarespace for my website, it's minimalist, inexpensive and has robust features if you need them. As far as generating work from my website (as a result of a Google search), hardly any over the past 16 years, but whenever I make a new contact, that's where I send them so they can see my level of quality and personal style. It's also how I communicate my progress with clients - I create a password protected page for them where they can review progress images and download the final rendering(s).

 

I landed a full time job through Twitter once, which was helpful back when the economy was really bad and architects were shutting down at a ridiculous pace. Once the economy started to improve I jumped ship and re-booted my business with a fresh new outlook and enthusiasm to make a go of it again. Business has been shaping up nicely ever since.

 

Joel

[MarcellusW]

Anyone have a positive experience with their basic web analytics (provided by the hosting company)? I use fatcow and I suspect they purposefully hide the country origin info from the IP stats so that they make me sign up for google-monster's analytics (which they spam all over my dashboard). I just want to know a vague location of visitors, not what they had for breakfast.

 

I'm thinking of switching next month. Any better suggestions re: above?