As part of our ongoing commitment to promote Chartered Practices and our development of services for clients, we've redeveloped Find An Architect so you can easily update and showcase your best work. The changes will provide you with a better experience, whilst connecting you directly with more potential clients.
Currently, Find An Architect receives over 60,000 visits a month and is an exclusive benefit of Chartered Practice membership.
What’s new?
- Easy to use, allowing you to update your profile in real time
- Accessible via My Account
- Improved search functionality that matches you to potential clients - giving you the choice to express interest in projects and keep track of your leads
- A fresh look and feel to help you proudly showcase your work, with more ways to personalise your profile
How does it work?
In place of the current directory, we're implementing an interactive matching service. We believe this will better help you connect with the right types of clients.
The new functionality (developed as a result of in-depth client-testing) is structured as follows:
- Potential clients will create a short brief by selecting their project type, location, maximum budget and planning restrictions
- Their selections will be matched against the information you have provided on your profile to provide them with their matches. Results will be limited to a manageable list of a maximum of 15 practices
- If your practice is matched, you will receive an email from FindAnArchitect@riba.org containing the project details. You simply need to click a button to let the client know if you’re interested in the project or not. You'll have seven working days to reply, but whenever you respond your interest will be immediately emailed to the client
- At this point, or after the deadline, the client will know which practices are interested and hopefully get in touch
What do I need to do?
There’s no need to start from scratch as we’ll transfer your profile to the new site - however, there are new features which require additional information from you. Without the following, your performance on Find an Architect will be affected:
- Updated projects. Review, edit and add new projects so we can match you to your target clients
- Minimum project value interest. Tell us from what size of budget you are willing to consider new projects. We will use this to match you to the right types of client.
- Local Planning Authority. Add the relevant local authorities to your projects. This will be used to match you to clients looking for experience within a local authority.
- Planning restrictions. Add the details of any specific planning restrictions, for example if the project was within a conservation area. This will be used to match you to clients looking for experience with specific planning restrictions.
- Practice hero image. Upload a main practice image to head your profile. This will be used to represent you when clients search for a practice by name.
- Practice logo. Upload a logo to your profile to illustrate your brand.
- Project hero image. Upload an image to head each of your project pages. This will also be used to represent your practice when you are initially matched to a client, with the most relevant project to the client’s brief being selected to display
- Review your contact email address. Make sure briefs from potential clients are being sent to the right contact.
- Reply to your matches. Sending a response will increase your chances of being approached by the client, however it is also important to let the client know if you can’t take on the project at this time.
View our guidance with ten easy steps to updating your Chartered Practice profile.
Updating your profile will greatly improve your chances of being matched to potential clients. It will also advance your standing within the results as the practice with the most matching projects to the client’s brief will be moved to the top. Those practices who have updated their profile most recently will also be elevated.
What else do I need to know?
- We are prioritising users of the matching service, so your full contact details will only be shown to your matches. We hope this will keep your data safer and encourage clients to contact you directly via the platform
- Clients can still easily search for you by using the find a practice by name facility
- From today all profile updates will be made on the new site only, with the public launch beginning on 29 May
- More information on how to best update your profile can be found in our guidance document
We hope you’ll begin to see the benefits of the new Find an Architect soon. You can ensure you get off to the best start by updating your profile now.
Join as a Chartered Practice if you’d like to add your practice to Find an Architect.
