Website for a freelance structural engineer
A structural engineer with 12 years of experience and a 2016 WordPress site he was embarrassed to show prospects. Full rebuild in 3 weeks.
Representative scenario based on real engagements. Names, figures and contexts have been adapted for confidentiality reasons.
The problem
12 years of experience in structural engineering firms, 3 years freelance. Loyal clients, solid network. But when a new prospect searches his name online, they find a WordPress site with a default theme, stock photos, and a contact page that hasn’t worked since 2022.
The problem wasn’t a lack of real credibility - it was that his website didn’t reflect who he actually was. Solid projects, sharp technical expertise, a rigorous way of working. None of that came through.
He’d almost rebuilt the site himself twice. He’d looked at Squarespace, Wix, a €60 WordPress theme. Nothing quite worked and he didn’t have the time to deal with it properly.
What we built
A 5-page site, built to convince project owners and architects - not to impress other engineers.
The angle: not a service catalogue, but a demonstration of how he thinks. Completed projects at the center, with technical context, constraints, and decisions made. The kind of content that shows the level before anyone picks up the phone.
The structure:
- Homepage with a clear, direct value proposition
- Projects page with 4 detailed case studies (site photos, structural drawings, outcomes)
- Short services page, no filler
- About page focused on expertise and method, not academic history
- Contact page with a direct number and a stated response time
Technical: Astro, deployed on Cloudflare Pages. Load time under 1 second. Local SEO optimized for “structural engineer [city]” searches. Zero external dependencies, zero recurring hosting costs.
The challenge: he had almost no project photos. We worked with the drawings and site photos he had on his phone. A constraint that ended up producing something more authentic than polished professional visuals.
Results
- 3 inbound inquiries in the 6 weeks after launch, via the contact form - versus zero in the 6 months before
- Two of those inquiries led to signed projects
- He now shares his URL at every networking event
Stack
- Astro 6, deployed on Cloudflare Pages
- Custom design, zero template
- Local SEO (structured data, hreflang, sitemap)
- Delivery time: 3 weeks from first conversation to launch