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A homeowner who wants to extend their house or convert a barn takes months to decide. They look at completed projects, compare practices, and wonder what an architect costs and what exactly they do. I work on your website so that your projects show up during that period of reflection, and so that the enquiries you receive look like the projects you want to design.
15 years in SEO
4 books on SEO and GEO
200+ sites tracked every day
1M / month visits to my e-commerce site
They trusted me with their visibility
Darty
Eurofins
Cegid
EBP
CNP Assurances
Ingram MicroSeven results, only one practice that has designed here
A couple want to extend their house in Angoulême and are looking for an architect. The first six results are directories, platforms and builders. Your practice, which has designed several extensions in the town, is seventh. Move it up.
Fig. 1. Seven results for an extension. Only one shows projects built in the town. (The other six offer to find you an architect. You are one, and the page didn't say so.)
What this means for you. I give each of your projects a text: the town, the brief, the materials. No platform can publish your work for you.
SEO for an architect is the work that makes a practice visible on Google when an individual, a business or a local authority looks for a designer for a specific project: an extension, the renovation of an old building, a new house, business premises. It relies on project pages described in words, one page per type of commission and an up-to-date Google Business Profile. It takes your profession's communication rules into account. It is judged by the quality of the enquiries received, not their number.
The problem
Your website shows large photos, a project name and a year. It's beautiful, and it's silent. Without the town, the brief, the floor area or the materials written out in full, a search engine can't understand what you have built.
For “architect” followed by a town, you find directories, matchmaking sites, builders and online plan sellers. They capture demand and pass it on. An independent practice only appears as one line among many.
You get calls for a garage plan when you restore old buildings. The website doesn't say what you take on, or from what type of project. Everyone tries their luck, and you spend time saying no.
An audit, for real
The site below doesn't exist, but its flaws do: they're the five I spot most often. Hover over a number.
Inhabiting the place
A sensitive architecture, attentive to context and use.
See the projectsFig. 2. Fictional site, reconstructed. Any resemblance to yours would be a good reason to call me.
What your customers type
Six plausible searches for a practice, to be read as examples. The ones that matter to you, with their volumes, come from the research done on your area and your types of project.
What works
It's the central page of your website. I give it a consistent format: town, year, brief, floor area, materials, commission, then a short text telling the initial request and the response given. The photos stay large. The text lets Google connect the project to the searches that match it.
Extensions, restoration, new houses, business premises, public buildings: each family of projects has its own clients and its own words. One page per family brings together the relevant references and explains how you work on that type of commission.
Many homeowners have never worked with an architect. They don't know what a sketch design or a tender package is. A clear page on the stages of a commission, written without jargon, answers the questions they don't dare ask and prepares a useful first meeting.
It matters for local searches and for people who type your name after a recommendation. I check the category, address and opening hours and add captioned photos of completed projects. A practice run from home can show a service area instead.
A project published in the local press, on a town's website or in a professional journal brings a link and proof. I find the publications that already exist without a link to your site, and those your recent work could justify.
What costs dearly
“House L.” or “Project 14” means nothing to a visitor or a search engine. “Timber extension to a town house in Angoulême” states the brief, the material and the place.
Everything scrolls on one screen, with no address of its own for each project. Google then has only one page to rank, and it can't answer ten different searches.
Architectural photos are large and often published as they are. The website takes several seconds to load on a phone. Some visitors leave before seeing a single project.
Visitors don't know whether to call or write, or what to prepare. Three lines are enough: what information you expect and how quickly you reply.
The method
Four steps. I start with your references, because everything else rests on them.
One-minute test
Five frank questions to find out whether support makes sense in your situation. Sometimes the answer is no, and I'll tell you.
What it brings in
A ranking doesn't pay a salary. What counts is what it brings: enquiries, customers, revenue. Move your page up and see what it could bring in.
Example assumptions, open to challenge: 250 searches a month for an architect in your area, 2% of visitors make an enquiry, one enquiry in three signs (this varies a lot from one trade to another), €12,000 per client. Click-through rates by position are rough orders of magnitude, and they have been shifting since Google started showing AI answers above the results. Rerun the calculation with your own figures
Possible revenue€0
Close to home
In Charente, buildings change from one place to the next. Angoulême has its historic centre on the plateau, and its urban area. Cognac has its merchant houses and its storehouses. The villages and countryside have their limestone houses, barns and outbuildings waiting to be converted. A practice that writes where it has worked, and on what kind of building, is found by people with a similar project.
Charente houses, manor houses, barns: old limestone buildings call for restoration projects. If that's your field, each page needs to name the type of building and what was kept, opened up or added. Those are the words owners type.
Both towns have a historic centre and listed monuments. If you've led a project nearby, tell its story on a page, with the town and the type of building. It speaks directly to those who dread the formalities involved.
Storehouses, wine-making buildings, workshops, village-centre shops: these commissions come from business owners and local authorities looking for comparable references. They should be filed separately from houses, with their brief and their client when the client agrees to be named.
Beyond Google
Future clients now put long questions to an AI like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Mistral. For example: “I want to convert a barn into a home near Angoulême, where do I start and which architect knows this type of building?”. The AI explains the main stages, then sometimes suggests a few practices. The homeowner then contacts you with an already shortened list, or doesn't contact you.
AI doesn't see your photos the way a visitor does. It reads your texts, your Google Business Profile, the profession's directories, the articles about your work. A practice whose projects are described with their town, brief and materials gives it something to answer with. A gallery without captions gives it nothing. I write your project pages with both readers in mind: the person and the machine.
Question asked to an AII want to convert a barn into a house near Angoulême. Which architect knows this type of building?
Three options come up for this project:
Fig. 3. Reconstruction, names hidden. This is the spot we aim for: on the list, with the most precise description.
Three typical cases
These three cases are made up. They show the logic of a plan, not the story of a real practice. Yours will depend on your references.
They have few completed projects and their website mostly shows student work.
It has twenty solid references, all presented with a photo and a code name.
It designs houses and would like to work for businesses and local councils.
In practice
Pricing
The fee depends on four things. I give you a precise amount after a free first thirty-minute conversation.
Fancy a game?
Google doesn't rank Kévin Papot. Kévin Papot ranks Google. Take the coin, slot it into the machine.
INSERT COINSLIDE THE COIN INTO THE SLOT
Fig. 4. Sixteen seconds. The facts are slightly exaggerated.
Together, let's devour your competitors.
One by one, and in order. Every spot gained makes the next one easier to take: that's why it keeps growing. See the method
Who you're talking to
My name is Kévin Papot. More than fifteen years in the job, four co-written books, and the Newp agency, co-founded in Charente. I also run my own online shops, in France and internationally: one of them went from zero to a million visits a month.
Before we talk tags, we talk margin, average basket and profitability. When you book a call, I'm the one who picks up.
FAQ
No. The images keep pride of place. I add a short, structured block under each project: location, brief, floor area, materials, a few sentences. This text takes thirty seconds to read and is enough for Google to understand the page.
Your profession regulates its communication and you know its rules better than I do. Describing your work and explaining your commissions counts as information. You tell me what seems to you to fall outside the framework, and I don't publish it.
You don't have to publish a fee scale. Explaining how a proposal is put together, depending on the commission and the complexity of the project, is enough to reassure people. Visitors understand they will get a figure after a first conversation, and they know why.
First check three permissions: the client's, the photographer's and, for an interior, the occupants'. I only put online the images you tell me are cleared. For a house, the town is enough, with no precise address.
They can bring in contacts when you're starting out. They also send the same request to several professionals. For a few months, note what each source brings you in signed projects. You'll decide with that information.
It can reduce them. When the website says clearly which projects you take and which you don't, some people filter themselves out. The targeted searches change, so the enquiries do too.
Not necessarily. A practice already has its material: its projects. A well-written page for each completed project is worth more than a news article every month. If you like writing about a specific subject, we turn it into a lasting page.
Through your references. Each project located in a town shows you've been there. I then group these projects by area in pages that name the real places, without creating empty pages for towns where you've built nothing.
Expect several months for a restructured website to find its place. Recent project pages are read fairly quickly; their ranking then evolves. I don't commit to any position. I show you the searches your pages appear for.
I write them from what you tell me, in writing or in person, and from your drawings. You review each page, because the vocabulary of a project must remain yours. Nothing goes online without your agreement.
See also
30 minutes · video call · with me
Together we look at where you stand on Google and in AI, and what should change first.
