Blogging for architects in 2023 – the complete starters guide
Why you should blog as an architect
With the domination of social media, you’d think that running an actual blog is becoming obsolete.
While Instagram and TikTok have their place in the arsenal of architects looking to promote their practice, a blog is evergreen and effective method of getting the word out.
Yes, blogging is still relevant, and effective, and gives a lot of advantages for your architectural firm and for you as a professional. However, you need to do it right. This guide will help you start an architecture blog that will grow into a revenue-generating asset.
Benefits of blogging for architects
There are tons of different ways you can go with an active and well-kept blog.
A lot depends on your goals and resources – but you can be sure that a powerful blog will help you reach almost any objective.
Let’s go over some of the most common ways a blog can benefit your architectural firm.
Branding
A blog is your chance to send out creative and unique pieces of content.
Your visual style, voice, opinions, and company name will all be getting eyeballs the more you post and promote your posts.
Make sure your messaging is consistent and original.
SEO
Search engine optimization refers to techniques that help you get traffic from Google searches.
Potential architecture clients are googling thousands of keywords, from straightforward ones like “hire an architect” to more nuanced ones like “how long should X project take”.
As both an architect and a blogger, your job is to identify and predict the searches that your potential clients make. You will find a list of keyword research tools for that at the end of this guide, but you need some creativity too.
Put together a list of your client’s main pain points, and address them with your blog posts.
Topics related to architectural services like pricing, project timelines, best practices, materials, site selection, – all of that can bring you targeted traffic from Google.
Blogging traffic takes time to build up, but the best part about it is once you start and stay consistent, in several months you will have a competitive advantage over other architects in your area.
Lead generation
Every blog post that solves a specific need of your customer audience or answers a question can potentially turn blog visitors into clients.
Use PlanMan’s architecture client management module to transfer and store all client data from your blog post inquiries to communicate and pitch services to your clients.
Online real estate
One of the best parts about blogging is that you have total control of your blog. Unlike a social media page, a blog on your own domain is 100% immune to cancellations and algo changes. Your exposure and reach are as big as you make them.
With time, your blog becomes an asset that gives your architectural firm an edge over architects that are only running social media accounts.
Trust
If all you have on your website is a couple of service pages, your architecture practice looks pretty generic.
A set of authoritative and informative blog posts, on the other hand, give you a chance to express your professionalism and expertise.
If you want to build trust, you need to run a guest posting campaign and get published in authoritative online architecture magazines. We had a list of those in our post on getting architecture clients, check it out.
Industry experience
When you are running a blog, you are inadvertently getting deeper into your industry and niche – networking, researching, running outreach, and a lot more.
In this regard, a blog is a vehicle that gets you out there and puts you in a better position among your peers and in front of bigger and better clients.
Data on client audience
This one is important – the more blog posts on your site are indexed by Google, the more data they are gathering.
We’re talking about useful first-hand data no third-party tools can give you: the searches of your audience, what type of posts they stay longer on, and tons of other behavioural data.
All that data helps you refine your offer and the way you address your audience, which ultimately grows your business.
A chance to experiment
Adding website pages is costly and contains a lot of risks – you have to rely on your web designer’s taste without any guarantees that your pages will convert a lot of clients.
However, publishing blog posts allows you to create quick and cheap landing pages for a bunch of topics to see which performs best.
Blogging as part of a larger content marketing picture
Your website is your mothership, and every piece of content you distribute online leads back to it and powers it up.
Once you have started producing quality blog posts you can turn them into social media posts, podcasts, infographics, and guest posts.
All of those can be distributed online to spread your message further.
Content marketing goes way beyond blogging, and you need to make sure everything you do is scalable and has a clear purpose. You can check this guide on the basics of content marketing.
Blog post ideas for architects
“What do I write about on my architectural blog” is the first question people ask.
You need to create an editorial calendar that follows a clear vision and will take you closer to your goals.
Here’s a set of blog post ideas for your architecture firm or private practice:
Interviews
This format usually works really well and can be promoted on social media.
You can create short interviews with yourself, your employees, or other architects.
Case studies and project showcases
This is your time to shine and expose some of the work you’re the proudest of.
It’s always a good idea to include addresses of your projects (at least approximately with zip codes and areas) so that these posts pick up some local traffic on Google.
Make sure to explain why exactly you chose the styles, materials, and techniques that you did. The more details about each project you have, the more traffic your blog post will pick up, and the more authority you will have in the eyes of your readers.
“Meet the team”
This is a great format as well – provided that you have a team of architects of course.
Your clients will enjoy learning more about the architects that might be working on their projects.
FAQs
Publishing answers to questions is a great way to harvest targeted traffic and showcase your authority. Check out this post on harvesting questions from Google’s keyword data.
Please note however that you shouldn’t put all your FAQs into one post since that’s a bad SEO practice. Instead, produce a series of short and focused blog posts dedicated to one question and answer each.
Industry & niche news
Curating content is also a skill, and you can become an authority simply by republishing things that are truly noteworthy and moving the industry forward.
Add your commentary to everything you repost to make sure your posts are unique.
Trends and styles
Use your architectural expertise to showcase and explain all the latest architectural styles.
Branch out into interior and exterior design for more diverse articles that can attract attention on social media.
Customer pain points
This category of blog posts can bring you the most leads and clients.
Remember all questions your past clients have sent your way, and turn their problems and worries into blog posts.
Everything related to actually working with architects would make great blog posts.
Guidelines on pricing, project management, interviews, and communication with architects – most people are in the dark about all of that, while you should be able to write these blog posts easily.
Every how-to and informational blog post is also a chance to explain why you stand out as a professional.
Year in review and forecasts
Make it clear that your architecture firm has a long history and is prepared for a bright future.
Clients like to be a part of something big, and they want to be in a good company.
A year-in-review post will help them realize how exclusive and quality your work and client list is.
Local architecture reviews
Create some blog posts on local architecture projects that other architects have worked on. Explain the styles and goals, and also mention what you would’ve done differently.
Posts like these help secure a lot of local Google traffic since you would be using street names, area names, and zip codes.
You also get a chance to showcase your taste and authority without having a large portfolio, so these blog posts are great for beginner architects.
Events
Listing architectural events is a great way to embed your brand into the industry as well as grow your site by exchanging links.
Anatomy of a great architecture blog post
Title
Your titles should be descriptive and click-enticing, but at the same time keyword rich.
Please try to use the main keyword at the beginning of your title and after that, there are pretty much no other rules or limitations.
Hook/lead in
The beginning of your blog post is when you explain what it’s going to be about but leave a reason for your readers to read on.
The best way to go about it is to outline a problem the post will be solving and illustrate that you are qualified to solve it. Specific facts and figures work extremely well.
Imagery
Each featured image of your post is a chance to send a branding message for your architecture firm.
Avoid using stock imagery as is – at least add some stylish and consistent graphic elements and branded typography.
Plenty of meaningful text
Generally, the longer your blog post is the better, but do not inflate word count artificially.
Some posts can be short, if they are topically tight and deal with a narrow issue – in that case, make them just as long as necessary to answer the question.
Sub-headings and sections
The posts on your architectural firm blog should be easy to scan. Avoid having a “wall of text”-like blog posts – they are hard to read and rarely convert visitors into clients.
Structure your post into sections, each of them covering a certain sub-topic, and make sure each section has a respective heading.
Call to action
Include a custom and specific call to action in every article. Ask your readers to give you a call, leave an email, request an evaluation, and so on.
Your readers need to be constantly reminded that you’re not only knowledgeable, but you can also do amazing work for them.
Architectural blogging best practices
There is a set of practice-based rules to follow to make sure your architectural blog is effective and adds value to your practice. Remember, each blog post has huge branding and lead generation potential.
Here’s what you need to do to make sure you get the most out of your architecture blog:
Post consistently
No matter how often you post, make sure you’re consistent.
Pick a pace that you can sustain – whether it’s two posts per week, or one post per week, stick to that frequency.
Have a content calendar
Always know what you will be publishing next week and why.
Have a content calendar – you can start with a simple spreadsheet where you outline ideas for future blog posts, the goals each post should have, and how they should be written.
Work with data
Make sure to inspect analytics data for the true interests of your customer audience.
Your blog posts will be picking up a lot of unexpected searches – browse them to understand better who your readers are and how to find clients in that audience.
Architecture blogging tools and resources
These tools will help you find amazing keyword opportunities to centre your blog post around.
Using them you can not only come up with architecture blog post ideas but also pick the best search queries among very similar ones.
Keyword Finder
A quick and easy way to get a dozen or so related phrases to any keyword you enter.
Google Keyword planner
https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/
This tool is mostly intended for Google ads, but you can get a very good idea about the search popularity of architecture-related keywords – use the best ones as topics for your blog post!
Google Trends
https://trends.google.com/trends/
This is an amazing tool to spot topics and searches that are only starting to trend on Google.
Google Trends helps come up with news-like articles and find networking opportunities as well. Very often someone or something goes viral and people start searching for it – it’s your chance to hijack that query with a blog post.
Google Search Console
https://search.google.com/search-console/about
This tool will help you understand what type of search queries your website is getting impressions and clicks on Google. This gives valuable data on your client’s interests and shows you directions to grow.