Siana Directory · Methodology
How we review the Siana Directory
Seven categories, each scored from 0 to 10, with the rule behind every point and the evidence we accept.
We score each category from documented evidence. Editors set the final order. Every firm gets a score in each of the seven categories, and each score comes with the evidence behind it. We don’t add the categories into a total, and a firm’s place on a list isn’t a sum of its scores. Our editors read the scores and the evidence, then decide the order.
The Palm Beach interior design list uses this structure from October 2026. The other lists move to it as we rebuild them.
01 - the seven categories
All scores run from 0 to 10, rounded to one decimal. Architects and interior designers face the same categories; only the award tiers and the credentials we count change with the field. Digital presence depends on the city, so a firm on a Palm Beach list and a Miami list gets a separate digital score for each. Florida presence covers the whole state, so it reads the same on every list.
| Category | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Portfolio | How much work the firm documents, and how much of it earned outside recognition |
| Editorial | Books, magazine features and expert quotes |
| Awards | Juried awards and lists, by tier, with firm-stated awards marked |
| Reputation | Who hires the firm (brands, hotels, developers, notable houses, public clients) and its Google reviews |
| Credentials | Schools, licenses, certifications, memberships and training at notable firms |
| Florida presence | Florida offices, documented Florida projects in any county, and years practicing in Florida |
| Digital presence | Website quality, technical SEO and search rank, and visibility in AI search |
02 - portfolio
Score = depth points + standout points, capped at 10.
Depth. We count the distinct projects a firm documents on its own site: project pages in its sitemap and links from its portfolio page. We leave out landing and SEO pages, portfolio indexes, in-progress and other listing pages, press and contact pages, theme galleries, coming-soon pages, dead links and products. Several pages for one property count once; separate commissions at one address, such as two units in one tower, count as separate projects. If a site blocks our crawler, we count its portfolio page by hand.
| Documented projects | Points |
|---|---|
| 41 or more | 6 |
| 21 to 40 | 5 |
| 11 to 20 | 4 |
| 6 to 10 | 3 |
| 1 to 5 | 1.5 |
| 0 | 0 |
Standout projects. 1.5 points for each named project that won an award or got its own editorial or book feature, up to 4 points. Showhouse rooms and the designer’s own home don’t count.
Score guide
| Score | Typical record |
|---|---|
| 10 | 41 or more documented projects and at least three with outside recognition |
| 7 | 21 to 40 projects with one or two recognized, or 11 to 20 projects with two |
| 4 | 11 to 20 documented projects, none with outside recognition |
| 1 | A handful of projects (1 to 5) and no recognition, or a holding page |
03 - editorial
| Item | Points |
|---|---|
| Book (a monograph, or a book that features the firm’s work) | 1.5 |
| National or international editorial feature | 1 |
| Regional or city magazine feature, or a showhouse in the press record | 0.4 |
| Expert quote or roundup mention in a national title | 0.25 |
| Editorial directory mention | 0.2 |
Every item counts once. Score = points × 10 ÷ 8, capped at 10.
Score guide
| Score | Typical record |
|---|---|
| 10 | 8 points or more: a book and seven national features, or two books and five national features |
| 7 | About 5.6 points: five national features and a couple of regional ones |
| 4 | About 3.2 points: three national features |
| 1 | About 0.8 points: two regional features |
04 - awards
Each award earns points by tier. Points count in full (1×) when the issuer or independent press confirms the award, and at 0.8× when only the firm reports it with the issuer and year named. We mark those awards firm-stated wherever they appear. We add up the firm’s best 8 awards. Score = points × 10 ÷ 12, capped at 10.
| Tier | Points | Interior design examples | Architecture examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1 | 4 | National top honor (AD100) | AIA National Honor Award; Cooper Hewitt National Design Award |
| T2 | 2.5 | National list or state top honor (ELLE Decor A-List) | AIA Florida Firm of the Year, Gold Medal or Medal of Honor for Design; Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Prize; Architectural Record “Record Houses”; Architectural Review House Awards |
| T3 | 1.5 | Juried national, state or peer award (ICAA Florida Addison Mizner Award, LUXE Gold List, AD New American Voices, Interior Design Best of Year, Sight Unseen Hot List, Luxe RED national win) | AIA state and chapter design awards; chapter Firm of the Year or Gold Medal; ICAA Florida Addison Mizner Award; Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach Ballinger and Schuler awards; Dade Heritage Trust; Miami Design Preservation League; LUXE Gold List; Luxe RED national win |
| Global winner | 1 | Global category winner of an international juried competition (SBID International Design Awards category winner; design et al “Global” category winner). Regional wins and shortlists don’t qualify. | Same rule: global category winner of an international juried competition |
| T4 | 0.75 | Regional or entry-fee competition (ASID and IIDA South Florida chapter awards, DCOTA, Luxe RED regional win, MUSE, SBID finalist, Florida Design Seaglass, Modern Luxury lists) | Regional, trade or entry-fee competition or commercial list (Luxe RED regional win, Golf Inc., ASID chapter, South Florida Business Journal, Architizer A+, Forbes lists, Ocean Home) |
| T5 | 0.25 | Platform badge or low-selectivity competition (Best of Houzz, A’ Design Award) | Platform badge or low-selectivity competition (Best of Houzz, A’ Design Award) |
A global category win at an international competition earns 1 point: more than a regional win or a shortlist place, less than a juried national or state award. Each award counts once, so a project that wins two levels or categories in the same program counts once. A Luxe RED project named both a regional and a national winner counts once, as a national win.
Score guide
| Score | Typical record |
|---|---|
| 10 | 12 points or more: AD100, a national list and several juried awards |
| 7 | About 8.4 points: AD100, a national list, a juried award and a regional award |
| 4 | About 4.8 points: AD100 and a regional award, or three or four juried awards |
| 1 | About 1.2 points: one confirmed juried award, or a few entry-fee awards |
05 - reputation
Score = client points (up to 7) + Google review points (up to 3), capped at 10.
Clients. We count named clients: brands, hotels and restaurants, developers, notable houses (a landmark, or a house by a named architect) and public clients. A client confirmed by a third party (a publisher, the client itself, an award issuer) earns 2 points. A client named only on the firm’s own site earns 1 point and carries a firm-stated mark. Private clients named by first name or initials don’t count.
Google reviews. We use Google listings that show a review count. Small samples move toward 4.0: adjusted rating = (n × rating + 5 × 4) ÷ (n + 5), where n is the number of reviews. Rating points = (adjusted rating − 3.5) ÷ 1.5, held between 0 and 1, times 1.5. A firm with no Google listing gets 0 review points, and its profile says so.
| Google reviews | Volume points |
|---|---|
| 50 or more | 1.5 |
| 20 to 49 | 1 |
| 10 to 19 | 0.75 |
| 3 to 9 | 0.5 |
| 1 to 2 | 0.25 |
| 0 | 0 |
Score guide
| Score | Typical record |
|---|---|
| 10 | Four or more confirmed name clients and 50 or more strong Google reviews |
| 7 | Three confirmed name clients, or two confirmed and several firm-stated, with a modest review record |
| 4 | One or two confirmed name clients and few reviews, or several firm-stated clients |
| 1 | No name clients on record and a handful of Google reviews |
06 - credentials
We add up credential points across the firm’s named principals. Score = points × 10 ÷ 7, capped at 10. A credential counts only when a licensing board, a school or a published bio confirms it.
| Interior design | Points |
|---|---|
| NCIDQ certificate or state registration | 3 |
| Interior design or architecture degree | 2 |
| Another degree, or design coursework | 1 |
| Honorary doctorate from a design school | 1.5 |
| LEED AP | 0.5 |
| Architecture | Points |
|---|---|
| Licensed architect, or full AIA member | 3 |
| FAIA | 3 |
| NCARB certificate | 1 |
| Architecture degree | 2 |
| A second or graduate degree | 1 |
| LEED AP | 0.5 |
| Professional engineer (PE) | 0.5 |
| Both fields | Points |
|---|---|
| Professional membership (ASID, IIDA, ICAA, IFDA, AIA) | 1 each, up to 2 |
| Years on staff at a notable named firm | 1.5 each, up to 3 |
| A design or architecture degree from a top-ranked program | 1 more, once per principal |
Top-ranked programs. A principal earns 1 more point when their interior design or architecture degree comes from a program in the top 10 of the latest national ranking in the school’s country, or in the top 50 of the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for Art & Design. For France we use L’Étudiant’s 2025 ranking of interior architecture schools, based on recruiter citations. For the US we use DesignIntelligence’s 2019-20 “most admired” lists, its last edition with a national ranked list, at the level of the degree. Non-design degrees don’t qualify, whatever the school.
Unknowns. A degree that no school, licensing board or published bio confirms scores 0 as unknown. We add it once the record turns up.
Score guide
| Score | Typical record |
|---|---|
| 10 | A licensed or NCIDQ-certified principal with a design degree and two memberships, or several credentialed principals |
| 7 | About 5 points: a design degree and NCIDQ certification |
| 4 | A design degree and a membership, or coursework and two memberships |
| 1 | A non-design degree only |
| 0 | No degree, license or certification on record. Self-taught designers score 0 here; the other categories carry their record. |
07 - Florida presence
This category measures a firm’s footing in Florida as a whole: Palm Beach County, Miami-Dade, Broward and every other county. We apply the same rule to every firm on every list. Score = office + Florida projects + years in Florida, capped at 10.
| Office in Florida | Points |
|---|---|
| Main office: the firm’s headquarters or its principal’s home base is in Florida | 3 |
| Branch office: a Florida office, with the firm’s home base elsewhere | 2 |
| None | 0 |
| Documented Florida projects | Points |
|---|---|
| 20 or more | 4 |
| 10 to 19 | 3 |
| 5 to 9 | 2 |
| 3 to 4 | 1.5 |
| 1 to 2 | 1 |
| 0 | 0 |
A project counts when the firm’s own project page or a third party places it in Florida. Several pages for one property count once; separate commissions at one address count as separate projects. Coming-soon pages, showhouse rooms and projects with no named place don’t count.
| Years practicing in Florida | Points |
|---|---|
| 30 or more | 3 |
| 15 to 29 | 2 |
| 5 to 14 | 1 |
| Under 5 | 0.5 |
| No Florida office | 0 |
We count years from the year the Florida office opened, or the year the firm started in Florida. If a firm states only a figure of its own, such as “30 years”, we use that number and say “about”.
Score guide
| Score | Typical record |
|---|---|
| 10 | A main Florida office for 30 years or more and 20 or more Florida projects |
| 7 | A main Florida office for 5 to 14 years with 10 to 19 Florida projects, or for 15 to 29 years with 5 to 9 |
| 4 | A recent main office with a few Florida projects, or a branch office with some |
| 1 | No Florida office and one or two Florida projects |
08 - digital presence
Score = 0.4 × website + 0.3 × search + 0.3 × AI search. Each part runs from 0 to 10.
Website
We run Google Lighthouse on the homepage in mobile mode and add four checks of our own. The parts sum to a maximum of 10.
| Part | Points |
|---|---|
| Lighthouse performance | performance × 3 ÷ 100 (up to 3) |
| Lighthouse accessibility | (accessibility − 50) ÷ 50 × 2, held between 0 and 2 |
| Lighthouse best practices | best practices ÷ 100 (up to 1) |
| A contact link on the homepage | 1 |
| A phone or email link | 1 |
| The city named in the homepage text | 1 |
| Mobile-ready: a viewport tag and no sideways scrolling | 1 |
We cap a placeholder or coming-soon site at 3. A measurement we couldn’t take counts as 0.
Search
Five technical checks on the homepage, 1 point each:
- Keyword title. The page title names a service or place (architect, interior, design, Palm Beach, Miami and similar) beyond the firm’s own name.
- Meta description. The page has one.
- One H1. The page has one main heading, and only one.
- Business schema. The page marks itself up as an Organization, LocalBusiness, ProfessionalService, HomeAndConstructionBusiness, Corporation, InteriorDesigner, Architect or GeneralContractor.
- Sitemap. The site’s sitemap lists at least one URL.
A noindex tag on the homepage sets all five to 0. We then run 13 local searches per city and count the searches where the firm’s own site appears in the top five results.
| Searches with the firm’s site in the top five | Points |
|---|---|
| 6 or more | 5 |
| 4 or 5 | 4 |
| 2 or 3 | 3 |
| 1 | 2 |
| 0 | 0 |
The 13 searches are three short searches plus the ten AI questions below. Interior design: interior designer [city]; [city] interior design firm; luxury interior designers [city] FL. Architecture: architect [city]; [city] architecture firm; luxury architects [city] FL.
AI search
We ask ten questions per city and score 2 points for each answer that names the firm, capped at 10. A firm named only as another designer’s former employer counts as half a mention.
Interior design questions
- best interior designers in [city]
- who are the top interior designers in [city]
- recommend a high-end interior designer in [city]
- top luxury interior design firms in [city or Palm Beach County] list
- most acclaimed interior designers [city]
- best interior designers [city] 2026
- famous interior designers based in [city]
- who should I hire as an interior designer in [city]
- [city] interior designer recommendations
- leading interior designers [city, or Miami Beach and Coral Gables]
Architecture questions
- best architects in [city]
- who are the top architects in [city]
- recommend a high-end residential architect in [city]
- top architecture firms in [city or [city] County] list
- most acclaimed architects [city]
- best architecture firms [city] 2026
- famous architects based in [city]
- who should I hire as an architect in [city]
- [city] architect recommendations
- leading architects [West [city] and Jupiter, or Miami Beach and Coral Gables]
Rerun each month. We rerun the AI search test every month with the same ten questions per city and list, and we update each firm’s count when the answers change. The counts in this edition come from the October 1, 2026 run for interior design and the October 6, 2026 run for architecture.
Which AI tool. Each run uses one AI search tool that writes an answer over live web results, from one location, on one day. We don’t run the questions in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews. Each month’s result is a point-in-time sample.
Score guide
| Score | Typical record |
|---|---|
| 10 | A fast, accessible site that passes every check, ranks for most local searches and appears in most AI answers |
| 7 | A solid site that passes most checks, ranks for a few local searches and appears in a few AI answers |
| 4 | A middling site that passes some checks, with little search or AI visibility |
| 1 | A slow or holding-page site with no search or AI visibility |
09 - evidence rules
What counts
- An award confirmed by the issuer’s own page or by independent press, at full points.
- An award the firm reports with the issuer and year named, at 0.8 of its points, and a client named only on the firm’s site, at 1 point instead of 2. Lists and profiles mark both “firm-stated”.
- Editorial press with a publisher link, or a scan of the article on the firm’s site.
- Credentials confirmed by a licensing board, a school or a published bio.
- Projects documented on the firm’s site or named by a third party.
Left out
- Advertorials, sponsored posts and pay-to-feature lists.
- Pieces the firm wrote or submitted itself, such as contributed articles and guest posts.
- Paid reviews, testimonials on the firm’s own site and review aggregators we cannot verify.
- Clients named on the firm’s site with no project page or other trace.
- Award claims that the issuer’s own page contradicts, and award claims with no issuer named.
- Paid award entry fees, advertising spend, paid placements, sponsorships and affiliate or referral deals. None of these is an input.
- Whether a firm is a Siana Marketing client.
Anything we cannot verify scores the lowest value, and we note the gap. A firm with an unpublished record scores lower until someone documents it.
Independence
Siana Marketing runs SEO and AI-visibility work for building and design firms. No firm pays to appear in the directory or for a correction. We score every category from documented evidence, using the rules on this page. Editors set the final order.
10 - review date and corrections
This edition reflects evidence we gathered between September 30 and October 8, 2026. We review every list once a year; the next review is due in October 2027.
If you see an error or hold a record we missed, send it through our contact page with a link to the source. We check every request against the rules above and update the profile when the evidence holds up. Corrections are free.