ERA Planning

Planning and environmental consultancies win work through reputation and relationships. But when a prospective client or government body looks you up and finds nothing, even a strong reputation takes a hit. ERA Planning and Environment launched with a clear vision and no website to back it up.

The client

ERA Planning and Environment is a Tasmanian consultancy founded by Emma Riley, covering town planning, environmental approvals, and community engagement. The practice works across both the private and public sectors, taking on projects that range from development approvals and planning scheme amendments through to strategic policy work. Over the past decade, the ERA team has built strong relationships across Tasmania’s planning and regulatory networks, and has worked on some of the state’s most complex and high-profile projects.

The challenge

Professional services firms in planning and environment tend to rely heavily on networks and referrals. But that model has a ceiling, and it has a vulnerability. When a new contact checks you out online before returning a call, or a procurement panel looks up your credentials before shortlisting, the absence of a website creates doubt that a strong track record alone can’t immediately resolve.

ERA needed a site that could do what a good professional profile does: establish credibility quickly, communicate the breadth of the practice’s expertise, and signal that this is a serious, established consultancy, even as a business building its public presence from scratch.

What we built

A custom WordPress site built for a professional services audience

We built the site on WordPress with a fully custom theme. Planning and environmental consultancies occupy a specific professional register: authoritative without being corporate, technically credible without being impenetrable. The design reflects that. Clean layout, considered typography, and a structure that puts ERA’s expertise and team front and centre rather than leading with services as an abstract list.

The team profiles carry particular weight on a site like this. In professional services, clients are often choosing people as much as they are choosing a firm. Making it easy to understand who ERA’s practitioners are, what they bring, and what kinds of projects they have worked on was a priority in how the site was structured.

Built to communicate depth across a broad practice

ERA works across a wide range of project types, from development at the approvals end through to strategic planning and policy. That breadth is a genuine strength, but it needs to be communicated carefully. A site that lists every service area without context can read as unfocused. The approach here was to frame ERA’s range around the outcomes they deliver for clients, practical advice, evidence-based solutions, strong stakeholder relationships, rather than a taxonomy of service types.

The content also needed to work for two quite different audiences: private sector clients like developers and landowners who need planning approvals, and public sector bodies engaging consultants for policy or strategic work. The site serves both without drawing a hard line between them, reflecting how ERA actually operates across those sectors.

The result

ERA Planning and Environment launched with a web presence that matches the standing of the practice and the calibre of the work they take on. For a consultancy built on reputation, having a site that reflects that reputation accurately, from the first visit, removes a friction point that no amount of word-of-mouth referral can fully cover.

Working on something similar?

If you’re launching a professional services practice and need a site that establishes credibility from day one, get in touch and we can talk through what that might involve.