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A website brief is a short document that tells a web designer what you sell, who buys it and what the site must do. Send one before any work starts and you will get more accurate quotes, fewer revisions and a faster launch. One to two pages is enough.
Why a website brief saves money
Most delays and extra charges come from missing information. If the designer has to guess your pages, your products or your tone of voice, they will guess wrong at least once, and each correction costs time. A clear brief removes most of that guesswork.
It also makes quotes comparable. When three agencies price the same written brief, you can see what each one includes instead of comparing three different guesses.
Website brief checklist: what to include
1. About your business
- What you sell, in two or three sentences.
- Where you work: one town, one country, or several.
- How customers find you today.
2. Your goal for the site
Pick one main goal. It might be phone calls, form enquiries, bookings or online orders. A site trying to do everything usually does none of it well. Say what a successful month would look like in your own words, without inventing targets you cannot measure.
3. Your customers
Describe who buys from you and what they usually ask before they buy. Those questions often become your page headings and your FAQ section.
4. Pages you need
List them. A small service business often needs a home page, services, about, contact and perhaps a gallery or reviews page. A shop also needs product pages, a basket, checkout, delivery and returns information.
5. Content: who supplies what
- Text: will you write it, or do you want help?
- Photos: do you have your own, or will you need stock images?
- Logo and brand colours: send the original files, not screenshots.
Say who is responsible and by what date. Late content is one of the most common reasons a launch slips.
6. Features
Mark each feature as essential or nice to have. Common ones include contact forms, WhatsApp chat, online booking, payment, a blog, multiple languages and a map. If you sell online, say which payment methods your customers expect.
7. Examples you like and dislike
Send three or four links to sites you admire and say what you like about each. Add one or two you dislike. This tells a designer more about your taste than any description.
8. Your existing site and accounts
If you already have a site, say where it is hosted and who holds the domain. Check that the domain is registered in your name before the project starts, because changing this later can be awkward.
9. Timeline and budget
Give a launch date if one matters, and explain why. Share a budget range if you can. A range helps the designer suggest options that fit instead of quoting something you cannot use. Remember that quoted starting prices from any supplier usually cover a defined package, and extra pages or custom features change the figure.
10. Who decides
Name one person who gives final approval. Feedback from five people at once is slow and often contradicts itself.
A simple template you can copy
- Business and what we sell
- Main goal of the website
- Our customers and their common questions
- Pages required
- Content we will supply, with dates
- Features: essential and nice to have
- Example sites we like and dislike
- Domain, hosting and current site details
- Launch date and budget range
- Name of the decision maker
Common mistakes to avoid
- Being vague about the goal. "We want a modern site" is not a goal.
- Leaving out maintenance. Ask who looks after updates and security once the site is live.
- Forgetting search. If you want to be found on Google, say so up front, so the structure is planned with that in mind.
- Skipping legal pages. Ask what privacy, cookie or terms pages your business needs in the places where you sell, and check the wording with a qualified adviser.
What a good designer does with your brief
A good designer will read it, then ask follow-up questions. They may suggest dropping a feature or reordering your pages. That is a good sign. If a supplier sends a quote without any questions at all, they probably have not read it closely.
If you are choosing between platforms, our comparison of WordPress and Shopify for online stores sets out how the two differ.
Ready to write yours? Send it to us through the contact form, or read about our website development service first.
Common questions
How long should a website brief be?
One to two pages is enough. Clear goals, pages, content responsibilities and a budget range matter more than length.
Do I need a budget in the brief?
A range helps. It lets the designer suggest options that fit, instead of quoting something you cannot use.
Ammar Sohail is the founder and CEO of Wolf Tech Agency, a web development and digital marketing team in Faisalabad, Pakistan. A full stack developer, Ammar enjoys building websites and web apps that solve practical business problems.
