In 2025, having a website for construction companies, contractors, mass builders, architecture offices, and even building material sellers is no longer a “luxury”; it’s a vital sales tool. But the biggest mistake is thinking that designing a construction website is like designing an e-commerce site, a general corporate site, a medical site, or an educational one. Construction clients make decisions worth hundreds of millions to billions of tomans, their searches are local and urgent, and before any contact, they want to “see” what you’ve done.
In this article, I, Reza Hojati, will examine exactly 5 fundamental and decisive differences in designing websites for construction companies compared to other industries, and for each, I’ll provide real examples from the Iranian market and practical implementation solutions. These differences are the very reasons why some construction companies in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Mashhad get 50–80 real leads monthly (calls, in-person visits, or contracts) through their sites, while others with expensive and beautiful sites are still waiting for their first contact.
First Difference: “Project-Oriented” Design Instead of “Product-Oriented” or “Service-Oriented”
On e-commerce sites (like Digikala) or general corporate sites, the homepage is usually filled with advertising sliders, discount banners, company slogans, and “Buy” or “Contact Us” buttons. But construction clients are looking for “real portfolio samples,” not slogans.
In successful construction website designs:
- 60–80% of the above-the-fold space on the homepage is dedicated to a gallery of featured projects.
- Each project is displayed with before/after photos, square footage, execution duration, approximate cost (or range), and location.
- With one scroll, users can see 8–12 diverse projects (luxury, economical, renovations, villas, etc.).
Real Example: The “Moein Construction Group” company, after redesigning their site to be project-oriented, increased user dwell time from 45 seconds to 4 minutes and multiplied monthly leads by 3.2 times. In contrast, old sites that still have “We are the best” sliders have bounce rates over 85%.
Practical Solution:
- Use page builders like Elementor or Visual Composer to create a “Featured Projects” section with filters (area, type, structure type, region).
- Display at least 10–15 recent projects with 30–50 high-quality photos on the homepage.
- Place a “View Project Details” button under each project card that leads to a separate page with a full gallery and video.
Second Difference: Mobile-First + Loading Speed Under 2 Seconds
Over 88% of construction searches are done on mobile (2024 Google Analytics Iran stats). Clients are often at the project site, in a car, or during a visit to a building under construction. Therefore, the site must be 100% Mobile-First designed.
On desktop-oriented or typical e-commerce sites, a 3–4 second speed is acceptable, but in the construction industry, even a 0.5-second delay can kill 20% of conversions.
Essential Mobile Design Features for Construction Sites:
- Simple hamburger menu with one-tap access to phone number, WhatsApp, and map.
- Compressed WebP images under 100 KB.
- Readable Iranian fonts (Iran Sans, Vazir, Shabnam) with at least 16px size.
- Large, spaced buttons for fingers.
Real Example: A contracting company in western Tehran, after optimizing site speed from 6 seconds to 1.7 seconds, increased organic mobile traffic by 270% and WhatsApp leads from 8 to 43 per month.
Practical Solution:
- Use Iranian cloud hosting with low ping (like Host Iran, ParsPack, or Abr Aras).
- Install image optimization plugins (Smush or Imagify) and caching (WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache).
- Test speed with PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix, aiming for a mobile score above 95.
Third Difference: Visual and Professional Trust-Building from the First Second (Heavy Trust Signals)
Construction clients are entrusting you with their money and family’s safety. They need to “feel secure” before contacting. On typical sites, trust-building with a few logos and a “We have 20 years of experience” text is enough, but in construction, it’s not.
Mandatory Trust-Building Elements in Construction Website Design:
- Display the Engineering Organization logo and membership number in the header and footer.
- A “Certificates and Awards” section with real document photos.
- “Executive Team” page with staff photos, resumes, and each engineer’s Engineering Organization number.
- Customer reviews with real person photos + project photos (not dry text reviews).
- Live stats display: “168 Projects Delivered, 19 Years Experience, 4.9/5 Satisfaction.”
Real Example: The “Arco” architecture office in Tehran, by adding a team page + Engineering Organization numbers, increased visitor-to-lead conversion from 1.2% to 6.8%.
Practical Solution:
- Use plugins like Testimonial Rotator or similar for displaying real reviews.
- Place short videos of satisfied clients (with permission) on the homepage.
- Highlight logos like “Member of Mass Builders Association” and “Licensed by Engineering Organization.”
Fourth Difference: Heavy Visual Content + Virtual Tours and Videos (Visual Heavy Content)
On educational or news sites, long text and blogs are enough. On e-commerce sites, product photos from various angles. But on construction sites, clients need to “feel like they’re inside the project.”
Essential Visual Elements:
- 360-degree virtual tours of at least 5 featured projects.
- 1–3 minute time-lapse videos of execution stages.
- Galleries with at least 40–60 4K photos per project.
- 3D plans and realistic renders.
Real Example: A villa construction company in Lavasan, by adding virtual tours to their site, increased average user dwell time to 7 minutes and got 64% of leads from users who viewed the tours.
Practical Solution:
- Use tools like Kuula or Panoee for virtual tours.
- Place videos on project pages and also on YouTube/Aparat (for image SEO improvement).
- Use schema markup for Project and VideoObject types.
Fifth Difference: Local Landing Pages + Quick and Local Calls to Action
General corporate sites usually have one contact page. But construction clients want to know “Have you worked in my area?”
In successful construction website designs:
- A separate landing page for each region/city with projects from that area.
- Google Map with precise pins for office and projects.
- Strong, quick calls to action: Floating WhatsApp button + click-to-call phone number.
- Short form (name, number, region, square footage) with auto-send to CRM.
Real Example: A renovation company in eastern Tehran, by creating 12 regional landing pages (Tehranpars, Narmak, Pirouzi, etc.), increased organic traffic by 480% and reduced lead acquisition cost from 800,000 to 180,000 tomans.
Practical Solution:
- URL structure: example.com/tehran-shargh or example.com/villa-shomal.
- Optimize each page with photos of local projects and local H1 titles.
- Use Contact Form 7 + WhatsApp integration plugin.
Conclusion: Construction Website = Your Company’s 24/7 Digital Showcase
Designing a construction company website shouldn’t just be “beautiful”; it should be a “salesperson.” The 5 differences we examined (project-oriented, mobile-first with high speed, heavy trust-building, rich visual content, and local pages) are exactly why leading companies get dozens of multi-hundred-million projects monthly just from their sites.
If your current site still has large sliders, long text, and stock photos, today is the time for change. A professional construction site in 2025 should convey “This company is reputable and has worked in my area” from the moment the user enters.
Companies that have implemented these 5 differences no longer need heavy advertising; their site has become a 24/7 salesperson.
