A professional services website is the site an architect, surveyor, engineer or consultant uses to be checked and contacted: it says who you are and where you are registered, what work you do and for whom, and how to ask you for a quote. On the 18 architects' and surveyors' practice sites Google showed for three Italian cities, none displayed a professional registration number on the home page, none showed a price, and 12 had no phone number you could tap to call (Visilay survey, 12 November 2026).
This guide covers technical professions and consultants. Lawyers, accountants, payroll consultants, financial advisers and therapists have rules of their own, covered in our guides to the law firm website, accountants' websites, payroll consultants' websites, financial advisers' websites and therapists' websites. Notaries have a guide of their own: how to build a website for notaries.
The same three mistakes keep turning up:
- the client cannot check who you are: no registration number, no link to the register;
- the client cannot see how to ask for work: 16 of the 18 sites had no contact form on the home page, and 13 never invited a quote or a site visit;
- the site does not describe the work you bill for: 10 of the 12 architects' sites had not a single page dedicated to one service.
Do forms and service pages really change anything?
Our clients' numbers say yes. Contesini Consulenze, two energy advice offices near Mantua in Italy, started with a landing page that did not convert and no tracking at all. After rebuilding both, it received 299 enquiries at €7.20 each, and 68% became real sales opportunities. Macropix, an LED wall manufacturer, has had 2,906 enquiries from Google Ads since 2018, with the cost per enquiry down to €39.44 in 2025, by working through its category searches one at a time.
A surveying practice does not sell LED walls, but the mechanism is the same: whoever finds you must be able to check you, see what you do and ask for work in under a minute. Let's start with the data.
What we found on 18 architects' and surveyors' websites (no registration numbers)
On 12 November 2026 we searched "architetto" (architect) and "geometra" (the Italian building surveyor) in Padua, Genoa and Palermo: six desktop searches localised to each city, run with DataForSEO. We read the home page of the 19 practice sites found in the organic results and the map. One would not load, which leaves 18: 12 architects and 6 surveyors.
| What we checked on the home page | Architects (12) | Surveyors (6) | Total (18) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Projects or past work on show | 12 | 4 | 16 |
| City in the title tag or main heading | 7 | 5 | 12 |
| VAT number visible (11 architects' sites readable on this point) | 5 of 11 | 5 | 10 of 17 |
| At least one page dedicated to a service | 2 | 5 | 7 |
| Blog or news | 5 | 2 | 7 |
| Tap-to-call phone number | 5 | 1 | 6 |
| Invitation to request a quote, site visit or consultation | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| Contact form | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Reviews or testimonials | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Professional registration number | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Certified email address (PEC) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Prices or fees | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Architects build portfolio sites, surveyors build service sites. All 12 architects showed their projects, yet only one had a form or an invitation to request a quote. The surveyors averaged around five service pages each (energy certificates, land registry, planning paperwork), often on sites that had not been touched in years: one stated its last update was in 2018.
For "surveyor + city" the first competitor is the professional body, not a rival practice. In Padua the local surveyors' association held 6 of the top 10 results and no practice made it into the organic listings. In Palermo 7 of the 10 positions were directories. Architects fared better: 13 of their 29 organic results were practice sites.
And all six searches showed a Google AI answer that pointed first to the professional register to check the practitioner.
So Google sends your clients to check your registration, and your site does not mention it?
Exactly. And it is not only a matter of trust.
What the law says a professional's website must show (seven details, one footer)
In the UK, regulation 6 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 requires a business website to make certain details "easily, directly and permanently accessible". For someone in a regulated profession they include:
- your name;
- the geographic address where you are established;
- contact details, including an email address;
- the professional body you are registered with;
- your professional title and where it was granted;
- a reference to the professional rules that apply and how to access them;
- your VAT number, if your work is subject to VAT.
Italy has an almost word-for-word equivalent in article 7 of Legislative Decree 70/2003, which also asks explicitly for the registration number and sets fines of €103 to €10,000. Both come from the same EU directive on electronic commerce. That is why the Italian sample is a fair mirror: in it, the VAT number appeared on 10 of 17 sites, the registration number on none, and a reference to the professional code on none.
The fix takes ten minutes: a footer that repeats on every page.
Jane Smith RIBA, Architect · ARB registration no. 000000 (link to the register entry) · 1 High Street, Bristol · VAT no. GB000000000 · [email protected] · Professional rules: ARB Architects Code (link) · Privacy and cookies
(example details, fictitious)
In the UK the word "architect" is itself protected: section 20 of the Architects Act 1997 says nobody may practise or carry on business under a name or title containing it unless registered. On a website that makes the register link the quickest proof you can give.
Would your website pass the seven-detail check?
None of the 18 practice sites we read showed a registration number, while Google sends your clients to look for it on the register. We can review yours together: required details, service pages, phone, form and enquiry tracking.
Book a strategy callThe pages a technical practice needs (one for each job you bill)
The minimum structure for a technical professional's website has five pages: home, about, one page for each service you bill, projects, contact. The one that is almost always missing is the third.
People search for "party wall surveyor Leeds" or "loft conversion architect cost", not "architect". A "Services" page with a bullet list answers none of those searches.
For each service, cover:
- what is included and what is not (survey, drawings, applications, site supervision);
- typical timescales, even as a range;
- what the client needs to prepare;
- a related project or case;
- the price, or how you work it out (more below).
On the about page, state your registration with the number and a link to your entry on the register: it is the fastest proof you can offer.
On project pages, state the role you played (design, planning, contract administration) and get the client's permission before publishing photos of their home. For page architecture and the searches to target city by city, see our guide to SEO for professional services; for the technical decisions to make before launch, see how to build an SEO-friendly website.
Phone, form, quote (12 of 18 sites cannot be called with one tap)
An enquiry from a website arrives in one of three ways: phone, form or messaging app. In the sample the phone number was plain text on 12 of 18 sites, and on two the link was actually broken. One of those two belonged to the practice ranking first in the Palermo map pack, with a 5.0 rating from 176 reviews.
Three fixes:
- a tel: link on every number, at the top and in the footer;
- a four-field form: name, phone or email, property location, type of work;
- a line saying what happens next ("I'll call you back within one working day to arrange a site visit").
Then you need to know how many enquiries arrive. With Contesini this is where the work started: page and tracking first, campaigns second. Without events on calls and forms you cannot tell whether the site brings work or just visits, which is the most common reason a website is not generating leads without anyone noticing.
Prices and reviews: what clients look for and nobody publishes
None of the 18 sites showed a price, and only one showed reviews. Yet Italian rules on professional advertising (article 4 of Presidential Decree 137/2012) expressly allow fees to be advertised, and the surveyors at the top of the map packs had Google profiles rated 5.0 with 18, 33, 125 and 176 reviews that never appeared on their sites.
You do not need a full price list. It is enough to give:
- "from" prices for standard work (energy certificates, measured surveys, simple applications);
- a range for projects, tied to floor area or type of work;
- what is excluded (planning fees, VAT and any third-party costs). If you are VAT-registered, say whether the figure includes it.
For reviews, the starting point is your Google Business Profile: who it should be in the name of, and when it belongs to the individual or the practice, is covered in our guide to Google Business Profile for practitioners. Watch the name: two of the Palermo profiles were called "Geometra Palermo" (Surveyor Palermo) and "... | Preventivo Gratuito" (Free Quote), and the Google Business Profile guidelines ask for the real-world name, without added keywords.
Consultants without a professional body: what replaces the registration number
A management consultant, translator or trainer often has no statutory register. In Italy these "non-organised professions" fall under Law 4/2013, which requires the law to be cited in every written document and dealing with the client. The UK has no direct equivalent, but the e-commerce details above still apply.
Without a register, your cases are the proof. Three rules:
- anonymous but specific cases: "a 40-employee engineering firm in the West Midlands", not "a leading organisation";
- how clients work with you: initial diagnosis, project, ongoing engagement, with the typical length of each;
- verifiable credentials: certifications linked to the body that issued them, and any professional association you belong to.
For consultants the site is often the base of lead generation too. How to bring in enquiries from Google through SEO, your business profile and ads is in our guide to lead generation for professionals; cost per click and budgets are in Google Ads for professional services.
What an AI reads when someone looks for a professional (the register comes first)
When someone searches for an architect or surveyor in their city, Google's AI answer draws on a handful of sources. Across our six Italian searches it cited the local professional bodies, the national architects' register, Houzz, directories, a few practice sites and a few Google profiles. In Palermo it linked the "Geometra Palermo" profile to a practice website through the shared address. ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity work in a similar way: they search the web and cite what they find.
For a professional the rule is consistency: the same name, title, town and registration number on your website, the register and your Google profile. The more often a detail appears identically across sources, the easier it is for an AI answer to use it without confusing you with someone of the same name. Nobody can promise a citation, but a site that does not say where you are registered starts behind the register that does. To see how your practice appears in AI answers locally, start with our guide to local AI visibility and our GEO service.
How much a professional services website costs (template, bespoke and running costs)
A website for a professional costs from a few hundred euros for a template to a few thousand for a bespoke build, plus an annual fee. In our analysis of the 10 Italian pages on Google's first page for "quanto costa un sito web" (how much a website costs), a brochure site ranged from €300 to €5,000. The detail and three-year cost are in how much a website costs.
One public example from Italy: PS Company sells its "Luce" template, aimed partly at professionals and consultants, for €750, with the first year of hosting included and then €400 a year or €40 a month (prices read on 12 November 2026). What the template will not do on its own: service pages, copy built on your cases, the footer with the required details and enquiry tracking.
The right budget starts from the work: if the site brings no enquiries, even €750 is too much. If you want a site built on these rules, that is what our web development service does; and if you first want to size your market, start with marketing for professional practices.
Professional services website: frequently asked questions
It depends: a profile is enough to be found by people using that platform, not to be chosen. Directories took half the top results for "geometra" (surveyor) in Genoa and Palermo, but on a profile you do not control the copy, the service pages or the registration details. On your website you do.
Yes, if your work is subject to VAT. Regulation 6 of the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002 lists it among the details to make easily accessible. The footer, on every page, is the simplest place.
Yes, for regulated professions: the same regulation asks for the professional body, your professional title and a reference to the rules that apply. In our Italian sample of 18 practices none showed a registration number on the home page.
Yes. Nothing in the e-commerce rules stops you, and Italian professional advertising rules expressly allow it. A "from" price with the exclusions written out is the safest format; if you are VAT-registered, say whether VAT is included.
It depends: you need the client's consent, especially for interior photos and recognisable addresses. Always state the role you played, so you never claim other people's work.
Professional services website, in short (and a test for tonight)
Seven details in one footer: name, address, contacts, professional body and number, title, rules, VAT number.
One page for each job you bill, with timescales and a "from" price.
A tap-to-call number and a four-field form.
Projects with your role and the client's permission.
The same name and registration number on your site, the register and your Google profile.
The test takes two minutes: search your profession and your town on Google from your phone and look at who ranks above you. If it is your professional register, it is not a competitor to beat: it is the source your clients and AI tools treat as reliable. Your site should say the same thing as the register, then everything the register cannot say: what work you do, what it costs and how to ask for it.
