03 Professional services website design
Professional services website design for firms that sell expertise
Clients of consulting, advisory, engineering, legal and accounting firms buy judgement. Before they call, they check who would do the work, what the firm has written, and whether it understands their sector. We design professional services websites around those checks - and make it easy for your experts to keep them current.
- Services
- scope · approach · typical engagements
- Shows the people who lead it and the latest insights.
- People
- role · expertise · sectors · credentials
- Lists their services, sectors and articles automatically.
- Sectors
- issues · regulation · relevant services
- Brings together services, people and insights for one industry.
- Insights
- author · date · topic · review status
- Appears on the author’s profile and the related service and sector pages.
- Shared taxonomy
- One list of services and sectors, used to tag every page.
01 Client due diligence
What clients check before they call
| They want to know | Where they look | What the page needs |
|---|---|---|
| Do you understand our situation? | Sector and service pages | Specific issues, regulation and decisions - not a list of adjectives |
| Who would actually do the work? | People profiles | Current role, expertise, sectors, credentials, recent writing |
| How do you think? | Insights | Dated, authored articles that take a position |
| Have you done this before? | Experience and matters | Representative work described with client consent, or anonymised |
| How would it work? | Approach and engagement pages | Process, team shape, how fees are structured |
| How do I start? | Contact and consultation pages | Who will respond, what to send, what happens next |
02 Expertise architecture
Services, people, sectors and insights - connected
Professional services sites usually grow as three separate lists - services, people, articles - that never refer to each other. A visitor reading about a regulatory issue cannot see who handles it; a partner’s profile shows nothing they have written.
We model expertise as connected content. Services, people, sectors and insights are tagged from one shared taxonomy, and every page assembles its related content from those tags. When a partner publishes an article, it appears on their profile and on the relevant service and sector pages without anyone editing three pages.
- T1
Service
Scope, approach and typical engagements. Shows the people who lead it, the sectors it serves and the latest insights.
- T2
Person
Role, expertise, sectors and credentials. Lists their services and articles without manual upkeep.
- T3
Sector
The issues and regulation of one industry, and the services, people and insights relevant to it.
- T4
Insight
Author, date, topic and review status. Appears wherever its tags match.
- T5
Experience
Representative work with a publication status, so only cleared items appear.
03 People
People profiles that stay current
Profiles are often the pages clients read most closely - and the pages most likely to be out of date. The template and the rules around it address both.
Name, role, contact
Current title, office or remote, direct contact or booking - kept in sync with your HR or directory data where possible.
Expertise summary
Two or three sentences on the problems this person is called for, written in the client’s language.
Services and sectors
Tags from the shared taxonomy, linking to the matching pages.
Credentials
Qualifications, admissions and memberships - each with a source and a review date.
Recent insights
Pulled automatically from articles they authored.
Representative experience
Only items cleared for publication; consent recorded in the CMS.
- P1
Owned by the person, approved by marketing
Experts update their own summaries and credentials; marketing approves changes before they publish.
- P2
Joiners and leavers handled
A leaver’s profile is unpublished on a date, with a redirect to their practice page - no stale bios.
- P3
Photography standards
A consistent brief for portraits so profiles look like one firm, and a fallback when a photo is missing.
04 Insights
Insights your experts can publish - with review
Authored, dated articles are the strongest evidence of judgement a firm can publish. The workflow makes them easy to write and safe to release.
- DraftRole: AuthorExpert writes in the CMS or submits a document for editing.
- EditRole: MarketingStructure, headline, summary, tags and SEO fields.
- Compliance reviewRole: Risk / legalRequired for regulated topics; comments recorded against the version.
- ApproveRole: Practice leadFinal sign-off for the firm’s position.
- PublishRole: MarketingScheduled; appears on profile, service and sector pages.
- Review dateRole: SystemReminder to check the article stays accurate.
05 Credentials
Credentials, stated accurately
A firm’s website is read by people who check. Every claim it makes should survive that.
- 01
Every claim has a source
Rankings, accreditations and memberships are stored with the issuing body, the date and a link - and expire visibly when not renewed.
- 02
Client names only with consent
Experience entries carry a publication status. Anything not cleared is described anonymously or not at all.
- 03
Numbers are dated
Headcount, offices and years in practice are entered once, dated, and reused across the site, so they do not drift between pages.
- 04
Rules match your profession
Where your regulator has rules on advertising or testimonials, the content model is designed so pages follow them by default.
06 Enquiries
Consultation journeys for serious enquiries
Different enquiries need different questions and different people. Routing them correctly is part of the website, not an afterthought in the inbox.
| Enquiry | Form asks for | Routed to |
|---|---|---|
| New matter or project | Organisation, issue, timing, conflicts information where relevant | Practice intake, with conflict check before reply |
| Specific expert | Short message from the profile page | That person and their assistant |
| Speaking or media | Outlet, topic, deadline | Communications team |
| Careers | Role or practice of interest | Recruitment system |
07 Foundations
Accessibility, privacy and security basics
- B1
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 AA as the working target - many clients and public bodies ask for it in procurement.
- B2
Privacy
Consent management, minimal tracking, clear data handling for enquiry forms.
- B3
Security
Hardened CMS, role-based permissions for many authors, audit trail of who published what.
- B4
Archive and search
Years of insights kept findable with search and filters by service, sector, author and date.
If your firm sells to buying groups with long evaluation cycles, see B2B website design. Replacing an existing firm website? Read about website redesign. The full scope and process are on corporate website development.
08 Questions
Professional services websites - questions
What should a professional services website include?
Clear service and sector pages, current profiles of the people who do the work, authored insights, representative experience published with consent, an explanation of how engagements work, and enquiry routes that reach the right person. The connections between these matter as much as the pages themselves.
What is the best website platform for a service-based business?
One with a structured content model and good editorial workflow. For most firms that means WordPress with custom content types or a headless CMS; the choice depends on the number of authors, approval rules and integrations with directories or CRM. We recommend after mapping your content.
How do we keep partner and staff profiles up to date?
Give each person ownership of their profile with marketing approval, pull role and contact data from your directory where possible, and set review dates on credentials. Leavers are unpublished on a date with a redirect to their practice page.
Can insights go through compliance review before publishing?
Yes. The publishing workflow can require a compliance or legal review for specific content types or topics, with comments and approvals recorded against each version.
Do you work with law and accounting firms?
The approach on this page applies to any firm that sells expertise, including legal, accounting, consulting, advisory and engineering firms. Profession-specific advertising rules are reflected in the content model and review workflow.
Can you migrate our existing articles and profiles?
Yes. Existing content is inventoried, mapped to the new content types and taxonomy, and migrated with redirects from old URLs, so archive articles keep their links and search visibility.
Next step
Tell us about your firm
Your practices and sectors, how many people publish, the approvals you need and what the site runs on today.
Send a website briefA senior lead reads it
Comtau engagements are led by senior people, and the brief goes to them rather than to a sales queue.
Specific questions
Questions about scope, content and platform in writing, or a short call if that is faster for you.
A proposal, or a straight answer
Phases, deliverables, acceptance criteria and price. If Comtau is not the right fit, we say so.