AEC Websites that Recruit and Retain Talent

AEC Websites that Recruit and Retain Talent

Sites Featured in Presentation or Admired

Architecture or Landscape
https://www.sasaki.com/
https://www.som.com/
https://coarchitects.com/
https://www.rios.com/
https://hga.com/
https://populous.com/
https://www.kpf.com/
https://www.bsbdesign.com/
https://waremalcomb.com/
https://raptstudio.com/
https://www.bnim.com/
https://www.seradesign.com/
https://mithun.com/
https://www.hdrinc.com/

Engineering or Environmental
https://www.arup.com/
https://ascent.inc/
https://www.stantec.com/en
https://ascent.inc/
https://www.arcadis.com/
https://www.wsp.com
https://www.burnsmcd.com/
https://www.burohappold.com/
http://www.aecom.com
https://www.umci.com/
https://psomas.com/
https://www.rmconsult.com/
https://www.stantec.com/en

Contracting
https://www.bergelectric.com/
https://www.sellen.com/
https://www.dpr.com/
https://www.pcl.com/
https://www.scbuildersinc.com/

 


Slide Deck Presentation

View, or download from Slideshare

 


Presentation Colophon
Hardware: Apple Macbook Pro, Keyspan PR-EZ1 wireless presenter
Software: Apple Keynote using dissolve, cube, and magic move transitions
Typography: Adobe Garamond Pro and Trade Gothic from Adobe Fonts

AEC Websites That Win Work

AEC Websites That Win Work

Sites Featured in Presentation or Admired

Architecture or Landscape
https://www.sasaki.com/
https://www.som.com/
https://coarchitects.com/
https://www.rios.com/
https://hga.com/
https://populous.com/
https://www.kpf.com/
https://www.bsbdesign.com/
https://waremalcomb.com/
https://raptstudio.com/
https://www.bnim.com/
https://www.seradesign.com/

Engineering or Environmental
https://www.arup.com/
https://www.stantec.com/en
https://ascent.inc/
https://www.arcadis.com/
https://www.wsp.com
https://www.burnsmcd.com/
https://www.burohappold.com/
http://www.aecom.com
https://www.umci.com/

Contracting
https://www.bergelectric.com/
https://www.sellen.com/
https://www.dpr.com/
https://www.pcl.com/

 

 


Slide Deck Presentation

View, or download from Slideshare

 


PDF Handout with story outline template
Click here to download
Story outline template


Presentation Colophon
Hardware: Apple Macbook Pro, Keyspan PR-EZ1 wireless presenter
Software: Apple Keynote using dissolve, cube, and magic move transitions
Typography: Adobe Garamond Pro and Trade Gothic from Adobe Fonts

LecoursDesign Goes 3 for 3 at National Awards

LecoursDesign Goes 3 for 3 at National Awards

LecoursDesign teamed with our client Murraysmith to enter three submissions for the national SMPS Marketing Communications Awards. What happened? We won all three!

Best Corporate Identity/Rebrand

Murraysmith rebrand before and after logo

Jurors said they loved the fun, engaging, impressive impact on recruitment and retention. It was comprehensive in approach and implementation. Another stated “Great job! Logo and materials look great, and the entry was very responsive.”

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Best Website

Jurors enjoyed this new site and their graphic approach “the visuals are fresh and unique”.  Great research and planning, tied nicely to strategic plan! They clearly set out to rebrand their website as a recruitment/retention tool – did a good job at each stage. Outstanding results!

View the Site

 


Best Print Recruitment and Retention Promotion

Murraysmith Core Values

One juror stated “What a great award submission – it made me want to work for MurraySmith! It’s clear that a lot of time and effort went into developing and refining each core value. And this set of coasters was a creative, perfectly executed way to help communicate your firm’s personality.

See More


View the Case Story

 

It must have been the lucky socks (that we designed).
““David Lecours

AEC Firm Website Best Practices

AEC Firm Website Best Practices

Resources and links from David Lecours’ SMPS Southwest Regional Conference and SMPS Pacific Regional Conference session on Innovative Websites: A/E/C Best Practices.

Program Description
In 2017 the SMPS Foundation published this study: How A/E/C Clients Use Websites to Find and Vet Services Providers. In 2018, David Lecours published research on best practices of ENR 20 and 20 progressive firm websites. Merging these two studies, David will share data, and what we can learn about the effectiveness of top A/E/C websites. You’ll learn the latest tactics that firms are using to attract and convert great clients and talent.

 


Slide Deck

To download the slides, click the LinkedIn logo (“˜in’ square above). Within Slideshare, click “Download” button under the title.


ENR 20 Websites

http://www.aecom.com
http://www.jacobs.com
https://www.ch2m.com
http://www.fluor.com
http://www.tetratech.com
https://www.cbi.com
http://www.amecfw.com
https://www.hdrinc.com
https://www.kbr.com/
https://www.stantec.com
http://www.bechtel.com
https://www.parsons.com
https://www.arcadis.com
https://www.wsp.com
https://www.bv.com
https://www.burnsmcd.com
https://www.gensler.com
http://hntb.com
https://www.golder.com
https://www.kimley-horn.com

 


Progressive 20 Websites

http://populous.com
https:lmnarchitects.com
https://www.burohappold.com
http://array-architects.com
https://www.arup.com
https://www.lakeflato.com
https://www.sellen.com
http://syska.com
http://millerhull.com
http://www.bergelectric.com
https://www.lpainc.com
http://www.waremalcomb.com
http://clarkconstruction.com
https://raptstudio.com
https://www.nv5.com
https://www.bnim.com
http://mithun.com
http://www.swagroup.com
http://www.pae-engineers.com
http://seradesign.com

 


Watch the Program

 


SMPS Foundation Study
Pull Marketing in Action: How A/E/C Clients Use Websites to Find and Vet Service Providers

Other SMPS Foundation Research & White Papers


Featured Websites Designed by LecoursDesign
randalllamb.com
lsa.net/about
murraysmith.us
bergelectric.com
psomas.com
smps-sd.org
smps-oc.org


Website Articles

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David Lecours to Co-Host PSM Podcast

David Lecours to Co-Host PSM Podcast

PSM: Professional Services Marketing

David Lecours and Josh Miles begin co-hosting PSM: Professional Services Marketing podcast with episode 102. Episode 101 covers how and why David and Josh accepted the offer from Brad and Scully to adopt the show.

PSM: Professional Services Marketing was one of two podcasts that Andrew Sculthorpe (Scully) and Brad Entwistle founded. Brad and Scully, Principals of ImageSeven, an Australia-based marketing communications firm continue producing SMC: School Marketing Communications podcast.

“We’re excited to serve the PSM audience with juicy marketing ideas to help firms attract great clients and talent,” said David Lecours. “Josh is a seasoned podcaster, and highly persuasive. So when he asked me to join him in co-hosting PSM, it was an easy yes!”

In Episode 102, Josh and David discuss their plans for the show. Mentioned in the episode:

  • What have we done Brad and Scully?
  • Who is new host David Lecours?
  • Who is new host Josh Miles?
  • Who is our intended audience?
  • Upcoming topics and features of the show
  • Our new website: www.psm.show
  • The many options for website domain extensions
The AEC Firm Website Development Process

The AEC Firm Website Development Process

 

Timeline for Website Development

A great AEC firm web­site doesn’t just hap­pen. It needs a defined process with each phase informing the next. LecoursDesign was hon­ored with win­ning the Best Web­site Award at the SMPS Awards Gala for Randall Lamb’s site. We repeated the win, at the next Gala, for Bergelectric’s site. Cre­at­ing award-winning web­sites requires vision­ary clients and a process of spe­cific phases to ensure smooth project deliv­ery. To help you with your next web­site project, I summarize each phase below.

Plan­ning (2″“4 weeks)
First, we estab­lish goals and tac­tics for your new site. Every new client and employee will pass through your website. So we con­sider how your new site will be a hub for your firm’s offline and online mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives. We review your cur­rent site’s ana­lyt­ics to see where users go on your site, how long they stay, and how they find your site (key­word search and refer­ring sites). We review sites you admire, including your competitors to evaluate their online presence.

Archi­tects call this phase pro­gram­ming. In web­site devel­op­ment, we call it plan­ning. In both cases, it’s about gain­ing clar­ity on the why, what, and when of your new site. Even more impor­tant, it’s about who; the user and their needs. We develop three “per­sonas” for the tar­geted user arche­types who will be vis­it­ing the new site. These “per­sonas” are a com­pi­la­tion of demo­graphic infor­ma­tion and user pro­fil­ing at the three buy­ing stages: researcher, eval­u­a­tor, and pur­chaser. It may sound silly, but I rec­om­mend giv­ing each per­sona a name and a photo so they seem as real as possible.

This phase focuses on infor­ma­tion archi­tec­ture: what sections/pages to include in the new site and how will the user find her way to the infor­ma­tion she seeks. This results in a Site Map: an out­line of all the pro­posed pages orga­nized by nav­i­ga­tion but­tons and page titles.

Deliv­er­able: Findings & Recommendations, Strate­gic Brief (2″“3 page doc­u­ment out­lin­ing why, what, when, who, goals and scope of the new site), Personas, Keyword/SEO Research, Site Map

Pro­to­typ­ing (2″“4 weeks)
After approv­ing the Site Map, we cre­ate greyscreen pro­to­types of the key page tem­plates. Greyscreens, also called wire­frames, are sketches of con­tent on each key page tem­plate. They are grey because color at this point is dis­tract­ing. The goal in this phase is to focus on con­tent, not design. We used to present printed greyscreens, but now prefer digital. To really under­stand how a user expe­ri­ences nav­i­gat­ing from one page to the next, these greyscreens need to be on screen and click­able within a browser environment.

Know­ing all page titles, you must begin wran­gling con­tent. This means gath­er­ing case stories, blog content, project descrip­tions and pho­tos, people stories and photos, and about the firm infor­ma­tion. A deter­mi­na­tion must now be made for a writer and pho­tog­ra­pher or illustrator to create content you’ll need for the new site. We can help you with all this.

Deliv­er­able: Greyscreens

Design Explo­ration (2 weeks)
We bring the greyscreen key tem­plates to life with design by intro­duc­ing color, typog­ra­phy, pho­tog­ra­phy, illus­tra­tion, back­grounds, graphic ele­ments, but­tons, etc. We present two design explo­rations of the Home, About, Project Gallery and Project page tem­plates. If the new copy and photography isn’t ready, we use place­holder photos and copy.

Deliv­er­able: Sta­tic Screen­shots pre­sented on screen.

Design Refine­ment (4″“8 weeks)
We refine the design by adding actual copy­writ­ing and imagery to the ini­tial key tem­plates. Upon approval, we apply the cho­sen design to all the remain­ing page tem­plates. Inter­ac­tive ele­ments like rollovers or motion are shown as sto­ry­boards. If the site fea­tures respon­sive design (opti­mized for desk­top, tablet and mobile), and it should, then we fine tune the design for dif­fer­ent sized screens. Design refine­ment con­tin­ues through the cod­ing phase, and even after launch. A great website is never “done.” There are always opportunities for improving the user experience.

Deliv­er­able: Sta­tic .jpg Screen­shots pre­sented on a lap­top and smart phone

Cod­ing (4″“8 weeks)
Except for the greyscreens, pages so far are sta­tic. Cod­ing brings the pages to life by mak­ing them inter­ac­tive, and fully func­tion­ing within mod­ern web browsers. We code sites by cre­at­ing a Con­tent Man­age­ment Sys­tem (CMS) frame­work to allow clients to take over main­te­nance of key sec­tions of their sites.

Deliv­er­able: Coded site view­able within a web browser

Con­tent Man­age­ment Sys­tem (CMS) and Search Engine Opti­miza­tion (SEO) Train­ing (1 day)
After cod­ing the first key tem­plates, we hold a train­ing ses­sion with you on how to use your shiny new CMS. We share best prac­tices for adding and updat­ing con­tent so your site stays fresh with­out hav­ing to hire an out­side coder every time you want to make changes. We can also hold a training session for you to opti­mize each page of your site for search (SEO).

Con­tent Pop­u­la­tion (4″“6 weeks)
Newly trained on your CMS, you can now pop­u­late your entire site with all the copy and imagery you have gath­ered since the Pro­to­typ­ing phase. This helps you learn the CMS in a “real envi­ron­ment” with a safety net of the site not being live yet. Plus, you’ve got an avail­able expert (us) should you run into roadblocks.

Browser Test­ing & Launch (1 week)
We test your site on major browsers (both desk­top and mobile) and oper­at­ing sys­tems (Mac, PC, iOs, and Android). Once ready, we pre­fer to go live with the new site as a soft launch where you don’t make a big announce­ment for at least a week. This let’s us all fine tune any quirks (there will be some). Then you announce that you are live and launch a pro­mo­tion to drive vis­i­tors to your new site.

Obvi­ously I’m biased, but I rec­om­mend you hire a web con­sul­tant focused on Architecture, Engineering and Construction (A/E/C) firms to help you with your next web­site. With the guide above, you’ll be an informed part­ner in the process. Who knows, it may lead to your next site being awarded “Best Website.”

Resources
ran”‹dal”‹l”‹lamb”‹.com
bergelectric.com
A Web­site That Works by Mark O’Brien
The Strate­gic Web Designer: How to Con­fi­dently Nav­i­gate the Web Design Process by Christo­pher Butler

* A / E / C = Architecture, Engineering, & Construction (but you already knew that)
© LecoursDesign 2023