What happens when a developer, a school board or a homeowner types your firm’s name into Google after a referral? If the answer is a scattered set of directory listings, an old Houzz page and a map pin with three reviews, you have already lost ground to the firm that shows up with a clean panel on the right side of the screen: logo, founding year, principals, notable projects and a link to the website.
That panel is a Google knowledge panel. It is not an ad and it cannot be bought. Google builds it when its Knowledge Graph decides your firm is a distinct, verifiable entity, and it pulls the facts from sources it trusts. For architects, whose work is judged on reputation long before a first meeting, the panel acts like a portfolio cover page that Google writes for you.
The process below is the one we use for design and professional services firms. It is built around a model we call the Four-Source Entity Stack: your own website, your Google Business Profile, a structured data source such as Wikidata, and independent coverage. When all four tell the same story, panels tend to appear. When they disagree, they tend not to. Getting a Google knowledge panel for architects is mostly a matter of making those four sources agree, then giving Google enough independent proof to trust them.
Step 1: Decide which entity you are building
Start by choosing whether the panel is for the firm, for a principal, or for both. They are separate entities in Google’s eyes, and mixing them up slows everything down.
Most small and mid-size practices should start with the firm, because clients search for the practice name after a referral. Firms built around one well-known designer, where the principal’s name is the brand, should consider starting with the person. Larger firms often need both, plus clear links between them.
Write down the exact name you will use everywhere. “Hollis & Grant Architects,” “Hollis Grant Architecture” and “HGA” may all feel like the same firm to you. To an entity system, they are three candidates that might or might not be one thing. Pick a single legal or brand name and use it, character for character, on every profile you control.
Do an audit before you change anything. Search the firm name, the most common abbreviation, and each principal’s name, and write down every profile, directory and article that appears on the first two pages. That list is your starting map. In our experience, most firms find at least one old listing with a former address, a dead phone number, or a name the firm stopped using years ago. Those stale records are the reason many firms never get a panel: they are telling Google two different stories, and Google declines to pick one.
Step 2: Fix your website’s About page
Your website is the anchor of the stack, and the About page is where Google looks first for basic facts. It should state, in plain sentences, the firm’s full name, the year it was founded, the city it is based in, the names and titles of the principals, the types of projects you do, and any licenses or professional memberships.
Many architecture sites skip this. They lead with full-bleed photography and a one-line philosophy statement, with the facts buried in a PDF or missing entirely. A beautiful site that never says “founded in 2009 in Denver by Maria Hollis, AIA” gives the Knowledge Graph almost nothing to work with.
Write those facts as text, not as images or captions on a slideshow. Search systems read text reliably. They do not reliably read the words baked into a hero image. A short paragraph that reads like a fact sheet does more work for your Google knowledge panel for architects effort than any amount of design polish.
Give each principal a dedicated bio page with a headshot, credentials, education, and links to any outside profiles. These pages become the anchor for personal panels later.
Step 3: Add structured data
Structured data is code that tells search engines, in a fixed vocabulary, what your page is about. For the firm, add Organization markup from schema.org to the homepage or About page. Include the official name, URL, logo, founding date, address, founders, and a sameAs list linking to every official profile you control: LinkedIn, Instagram, your Google Business Profile, and your Wikidata entry once it exists.
For each principal, add Person markup to their bio page with their name, job title, the organization they work for, alumni information, and their own sameAs links.
The sameAs list matters more than any other field. It is how you tell Google that the firm on your website and the firm on LinkedIn and the firm in a design magazine are the same entity. Test the markup with Google’s Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator before you move on.
Step 4: Claim and complete your Google Business Profile
The Google Business Profile powers the local panel that shows your address, hours, map location and reviews. It is not the same as an entity knowledge panel, but it is one of the strongest signals feeding it.
Use the exact firm name from step one. Choose “Architect” as the primary category, which Google offers for this kind of business, and add secondary categories only if they truly describe your services, such as interior design. Write a description that repeats the core facts from your About page. Upload project photos with descriptive file names.
Then ask past clients for reviews, steadily rather than all at once. A practice with 40 thoughtful reviews spread across three years looks very different from one with 40 reviews posted in a single week.
Step 5: Build a Wikidata entry
Wikidata is a free, structured database run by the Wikimedia Foundation, and it is one of the sources Google’s Knowledge Graph draws on. Unlike Wikipedia, it does not require a long article or extensive press coverage. It requires facts with references.
Create an item for the firm with its official name, instance of (architectural firm), country, headquarters location, inception date, official website, and founders. Add a reference for every claim, ideally pointing to an independent source such as a news article or a licensing board record. If principals qualify, create items for them as well, and link them to the firm.
Do not pad the entry with marketing language or claims you cannot cite. Wikidata editors remove unsupported statements, and an entry that keeps getting edited down is a weaker signal than a small, solid one.
Step 6: Get listed where architects are verified
Architecture has a set of sources that confirm a firm is real and a designer is licensed. Google treats these as trustworthy because they are hard to fake. Make sure your firm and principals appear correctly in each one that applies to you.
That includes your state licensing board’s public lookup, the American Institute of Architects member directory if you are members, NCARB certification if your principals hold it, and any regional AIA chapter listings. If your firm is a certified minority-owned, women-owned or small business, the certification directories count too. Check that the name, address and website match what you set in step one. A licensing record that still lists a former office is one of the most common sources of conflicting facts in a firm’s search results.
These listings rarely send traffic. Their job is corroboration: independent records that agree with what your website says.
Step 7: Earn independent coverage
This is the step that separates firms that get panels from firms that do not. The Knowledge Graph wants to see your firm described by sources you do not control. For architects, the best of these are design and trade publications, local business press, and award programs.
Submit finished projects to the platforms that publish architecture regularly, such as ArchDaily, Dezeen and Archinect, following each site’s submission guidelines. Enter regional AIA design awards and building-type awards that fit your work. Pitch local business journals when you win a significant commission or complete a public project. Offer your principals as sources for stories about housing, zoning or sustainable building in your city.
Each piece of coverage should use your exact firm name and, where possible, link to your website. Ask editors politely for both. A dozen articles that all name “Hollis & Grant Architects” and link to the same domain do far more than fifty scattered mentions with inconsistent names.
For firms that want to move faster, this is the part we handle through placement programs at Instant Press, but the principle is the same whether you earn coverage yourself or with help: consistent names, real outlets, and links back to the anchor site.
Step 8: Claim the panel once it appears
When a panel shows up for your firm or principal, claim it. At the bottom of the panel, Google shows an option to claim it. You will be asked to verify through an account connected to an official presence, such as the Google account that manages your Search Console property, your YouTube channel, or other official profiles Google recognizes.
Once verified, you can suggest changes to the panel’s description, featured images and social profiles. Google reviews each suggestion against its sources, which is why the earlier steps matter. A suggested change that matches your About page, Wikidata entry and press coverage is far more likely to be accepted than one that contradicts them.
Step 9: Maintain it like a project record
A knowledge panel is not a one-time win. Principals retire, firms rebrand, offices move, and every change creates a chance for your sources to drift out of sync. When something changes, update the website first, then the Google Business Profile, then Wikidata, then the professional directories, in that order.
Set a calendar reminder to search your firm name every quarter in a private browser window. Check the panel, the local listing, and the first page of results. If a stale fact appears, trace it back to its source and fix it there.
Firms that treat their Google knowledge panel for architects work like a project record, with a clear owner and a regular review, keep clean panels for years. Firms that set it up once and forget it often find, two years later, that Google is describing a version of the firm that no longer exists. The work is not glamorous. It is the same kind of careful documentation architects already do on every set of drawings, pointed at how the world finds you.