Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Website input?
Can I pick your brains for a second? My firm is looking to revamp our website (which hasn't been done since 2004 - SAD). We're meeting on Wednesday to talk about what we think should be on the new website.
SO, with that said, if you were looking to hire a residential architecture firm to either build a new house or remodel an existing house...what would you want to see on the website? Text? Photos? Sketches? Before and after shots? Would you be interested in our green building philosophies? Employee bios? LEED certifications?
Any input would be appreciated big time. :-)
THANKS!
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Re: Website input?
Photos for sure. I think that before/afters are also very impactful. I would really like little articles or stories where a renovation "story" was told. Maybe with quips from the homeowner and the architect? Show floorplans and layouts as well as photos.
To me that would highlight that it's a collaboration between homeowner and your company which would appeal to me! It would seem like there was a focus on that relationship with the completed renovation being an impressive result.
Hope that helps!
My blog: Lake Girl Loves
That helps a lot! Thanks!!! :-)
Definitely photos! A gallery of before/after photos would be great. Employee bios could be a nice feature--anything that gave the potential clients a sense of trust in the company.
I'm probably not a typical consumer, but I personally would be very positively impacted by anything that demonstrated a committment to the environment (e.g. LEED certifications), to the local community (e.g. donations, volunteer services etc.), and to the well-being of the company's employees. I like to support companies who clearly demonstrate values that are important to me... in addition, of course, to providing the high quality services and products that I'm looking for.
i'm a website marketer, search engine optimization person and total web junkie, so i could go on for hours... but I'll just say this:
i'm guessing your audience are people in their 40's to 60's, so you need to focus on them, their needs, their age, lifestyle, expectations. social media should be considered as part of the web overhaul, a e-newsletter or blog because I'm sure you get people who takes years to decide to finally do it, probably consider collecting emails for "events" - really you could have a whole new series of marketing events where former clients host (ya'll pay them) wine and cheese in their home...that is very attractive to the older group, it's very smart to be IN actual client remodels (or new homes). (older folks ARE heavly on FB so you get former clients to "fan" you on FB, they help spread, you display blog links on there, events upcoming, etc etc.)
Tons of ideas. I love Sarah Susanka so yeah. Phew, I'm jealous of your team!
We are thinking about doing a Facebook page with tons of photos and then weekly updates. I was thinking we could put up links to great articles, products, events etc. so it's not always about US, but it keeps our page "fresh" in our fans minds.
I've been checking out the websites of some of our "competitors" and some are awesome while others are NOT awesome. I gravitate towards the sites with lots of big beautiful pictures and less text. Pictures are worth 1000 words right? :-)
The idea of hosting an event is intriguing. We normally have a home in an annual home tour but we aren't doing it this year. The website will be our big marketing push this year.
Thanks everyone!
I agree 100% with this, both because I support companies whose values match mine and because we want to build a "green" house.
We're always on the lookout for interesting architects. I like to see pictures of projects, floor plan layouts and a description of their design philosophy and how they work with clients. I also think it's important to include information about the firm/architect's design philosophy and how they work with clients. Another big one for us is how approachable and down to earth they are. We're average joe's so we don't want an architect that's unapproachable. I'm not sure how this fits in but we've met architects at the living green expo and the Homes By Architects tour. We get a sense of their philosophy, how they work with clients and how approachable they are through talking with them so that info on their website is far less important to us.
As far as the pictures go, I think it's important to show a good representation of the projects you do instead of having a lot of projects that look alike (unless that's what you focus on, of course). I generally pass by the ones where all the projects are similar. I think people hire an architect because they want something that reflects who they are and how they live instead of going with a cookie cutter house in your standard suburban subdivision. A firm that shows projects with the same style over and over again make me question whether they will actually listen to what we want or whether our house will be none of us and all of them.
The other thing with pictures, at least for me, are the details. I remember one house on the tour was off center in strange ways and the flow was bad. I looked at their website and you could see these overlooked details in all their projects. Now I'm always aware of it when I look at other websites.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
I'm curious which house you are referring to where you didn't like the flow. Will you e-mail me the firm name? :-)
I think there are two types of firms. The first being one that has made a reputation for themselves based on a very specific design style where people seek them out because of that style (less common). The second being one that is able to do ALL styles and really adapt designs for each client but definitely stick to a high standard of quality (more common). My firm is most definitely the second. I interned at a place that fell into the first category. Actually, if I was going to build my "dream" house I'd probably pick that architect's brain, he does beautiful work.
We are ALL about the details here. Probably too much sometimes.
My boss is about the most down to earth person you'll ever meet. She can make friends with just about anyone. Clients love her and it is easy to see why. I do hear you thought about some architects not being very approachable. I've met a few at the AIA convention and various other events that made me not want to talk to them again. I call a lot of them the "good ol' boys". A female architect?? Say it ain't so! :-) There is definitely a more old school movement in architecture but I think that is slowly going away. I wish I wasn't so shy...I hope people don't see me as "snooty." :-/
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Thanks for your input everyone! This is all very helpful!
I sent you a pm.
I doubt you come across as snooty - although I'm shy so I know the worry. I have a feeling that once you start talking to people about what you do, you're fine.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.