Federal procurement vendors face a different set of website requirements than private-sector businesses: TBS Standard on Web Accessibility, Official Languages Act bilingual posture, ITSG-33 cyber posture signals, and RFP technical-scoring expectations. We build NCR-credible, accessibility-compliant, bilingual corporate websites for vendors selling to PSPC, DND, CRA, RCMP, CSE, SSC, and the broader Government of Canada.
If your buyer is a federal contracting authority, your website is being evaluated against expectations that don't exist anywhere else in the Canadian B2B market. Procurement officers look at three things in 90 seconds: do you have credible NCR-area presence, is your site accessibility-compliant, and is your French parallel real or machine-translated. Get any of those wrong and your technical score drops before they read your proposal.
Most vendor websites are built for the private-sector buyer journey — clear pricing, demo CTA, slick brand video. Federal evaluators don't want any of that. They want a serious team page, a public capability statement, named references, security-cleared-personnel signaling, and a French version that reads like it was written, not translated. We build for that buyer.
1. **Bilingual corporate website (EN + FR)** — full /fr/ parallel with hreflang annotations, French content written by native French-Canadian writers (not machine translation), and matching information architecture.
2. **WCAG 2.1 AA-compliant front-end** — semantic HTML, AA-contrast colour system, full keyboard navigation, screen-reader-tested forms, accessible PDFs, and a published accessibility statement.
3. **Procurement-credible team page** — named senior personnel with clearance levels (where disclosable), short bios highlighting government-relevant experience, and verifiable LinkedIn URLs.
4. **Capability statement and past-performance references** — public capability statement (downloadable PDF, accessible-tagged) and a structured past-performance section evaluators can verify.
5. **NCR-vendor SEO positioning** — geographic and topical targeting for procurement-officer search behaviour: NAICS-aligned service descriptions, plain-language scope statements, and content tuned for the queries federal evaluators actually run.
**Treasury Board Standard on Web Accessibility (SWA)** — applies to GoC sites; vendors are expected to demonstrate the same standard on their own corporate sites.
**WCAG 2.1 AA** — the working baseline for the SWA and for the Accessible Canada Act expectations on federally-regulated entities.
**Official Languages Act (OLA)** — drives the EN/FR parity expectation; if the contracting authority designates the file as bilingual, your bilingual web posture is part of the technical evaluation.
**Communications Policy of the Government of Canada** — the plain-language and visual-identity expectations that filter into how evaluators perceive vendor capability.
**ITSG-33 / ITSP.40.111** — the cyber posture standards. Your website should not actively contradict your cyber posture (no expired certs, no leaked admin pages, no http endpoints in 2026).
**IT services contractors** holding ProServices, TBIPS, TSPS, or PSO standing offers selling into PSPC, SSC, CRA, DND, ESDC.
**Management consulting firms** holding the SBIPS or PSAB-track vehicles selling advisory work into CRA, ESDC, IRCC, and central agencies.
**Engineering and architecture firms** bidding on PSPC real-property and infrastructure files.
**Cyber and digital-services firms** bidding on SSC, CSE, and DND digital-modernization work.
**Defence and security industrial-base firms** bidding on DND and PSPC defence files.
**Indigenous-owned and -controlled businesses** leveraging the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business (PSIB) — we have specific positioning playbooks for PSIB-eligible vendors.
**Week 1-2:** Accessibility audit (current site), bilingual posture audit, procurement-credibility audit, NCR-SEO baseline. Deliverable: a 25-30 page report you can show evaluators interim.
**Week 3-6:** Remediation or rebuild — depends on audit findings. WCAG 2.1 AA fixes, French parallel build, team page rebuild, capability-statement design.
**Week 7-12:** SEO positioning — NAICS-aligned service pages, vehicle-specific landing pages (one per standing offer / supply arrangement you hold), and the procurement-officer-targeted content layer.
**Ongoing:** Quarterly reaccreditation reviews against SWA + WCAG updates, French content refreshes, and ongoing SEO.
Federal-contractor engagements are scoped, not packaged. A typical baseline:
- Audit-only: CAD $7,500 - $14,500 (one-time) - Audit + bilingual rebuild + accessibility remediation: CAD $35,000 - $90,000 (one-time) - Ongoing SEO + content + quarterly accessibility recheck: CAD $4,500 - $14,000/month
Pricing scales with site size, language count (EN+FR baseline; some vendors add a third language for diaspora-market positioning), and how many vehicles you hold. We publish a defensible CAD range up-front; no opaque-quote sales motion.
Yes. The Treasury Board Standard on Web Accessibility (SWA) requires Government of Canada websites to meet WCAG 2.0 AA at minimum, and the federal Accessible Canada Act expects vendors to be moving toward WCAG 2.1 AA. If your corporate site isn't compliant, evaluators flag it during RFP technical scoring — even when the contract itself isn't a web build.
Yes — almost every federal RFP technical evaluation includes a 'corporate capability and references' section, and evaluators will visit your website to verify your team page, security clearances claim, prior project references, and accessibility compliance. A poorly maintained website can lose a competitive bid before you ever submit a price.
If you're bidding on contracts where the contracting authority designates the file as bilingual (which is common for any contract serving the public or for departments with bilingual service obligations), then yes — your corporate site should have a French parallel under /fr/ with hreflang annotations. Most non-Quebec vendors skip this and lose points.
AODA is Ontario's provincial accessibility law. SWA (Standard on Web Accessibility) is the federal Treasury Board standard for Government of Canada websites. The Accessible Canada Act (2019) is the federal accessibility law that applies to federally-regulated entities (banks, telcos, transportation, federal contractors). Federal vendors care about all three depending on jurisdiction; SWA + WCAG 2.1 AA is the safe baseline.
For a typical 30-50 page corporate site with no major architectural problems, a full audit + remediation cycle is 3-6 weeks. Sites with PDFs, complex forms, or video content add 2-4 weeks. We deliver an audit report in week 1 so you can share interim status with procurement evaluators.
Ottawa SEO Inc. is a Canadian-controlled, NCR-based vendor positioned to serve federal contractors and their subcontractors. We are not currently a directly listed standing-offer holder — our business is helping vendors who hold those vehicles win and renew the work, not competing against them on the same vehicles.