The quality of a website depends a lot on the quality of the brief. Send three designers a vague request (“we need a new website, modern, not too expensive”) and you will get three quotes you cannot compare for three different projects. Send them a clear brief and you get comparable prices and a site built for your real needs.
This website brief template works for any business, from a sole trader to a company with a marketing team. Copy the sections, answer the questions in plain language and you will have a document that saves time, money and misunderstandings.
The website brief template, section by section
| Section | Questions to answer |
|---|---|
| 1. About the business | What do you do, where, for whom? How long trading? What makes you different? Who are your main competitors? |
| 2. Customers | Who buys from you? How do they find you? What do they worry about before buying? What do they ask on the phone? |
| 3. Goals | What should the site achieve: calls, quotes, bookings, sales, recruitment? How will you measure success? |
| 4. Current site | What works, what does not, what do customers say about it? Any data on visits and enquiries? |
| 5. Pages | Which services, products, areas and information pages do you need? |
| 6. Features | Forms, booking, payments, shop, customer accounts, blog, reviews, maps, integrations? |
| 7. Content | Who writes the words? What photos, logos, videos and reviews exist? |
| 8. Look and feel | Existing branding? Sites you like and why? Sites you dislike and why? |
| 9. Technical | Domain, email, hosting, who owns what, who will update the site? |
| 10. Legal and access | Selling online, special data, accessibility needs, regulated profession? |
| 11. Budget and timing | Budget range, upfront or monthly, deadlines and why they matter |
| 12. People | Who decides, who supplies content, who is the day-to-day contact? |
Write about problems, not solutions
The most useful briefs describe the problem and leave the solution to the designer. “Customers keep ringing to ask if we cover their village” is more helpful than “add a map”. The designer might suggest an area list, a postcode checker, area pages or all three, each with different benefits for search and conversion.
Likewise, “we lose bookings in the evening because nobody answers the phone” points towards online booking, while “we want a chatbot” may or may not solve it. You know your business; a good designer knows websites. The brief is where the two meet.
Goals: make them measurable
“Look more professional” is a valid feeling but a poor goal, because nobody can tell whether it has been achieved. Tie it to something you can count: more quote requests from the website, more online bookings in the evenings, fewer phone calls asking about prices, better ranking for a specific service in your town, or applications for a job vacancy.
If you do not currently track enquiries, say so. Setting up tracking should then be part of the project.
Examples: say what you like and why
Send three to five websites you like and a couple you do not, from any industry. For each, write one line on why. “I like how this one shows prices clearly” or “this one feels calm and uncluttered” is useful. A list of links with no comment leaves the designer guessing which part appealed to you.
Be careful not to ask for a copy of a competitor’s site. Aside from the legal issues with copying, a site built to look like theirs will not help customers choose you.
Content: be honest about who writes it
Content is the most common cause of delay in website projects. Designs sit waiting for words and photos that the business owner never has time to produce. Your brief should say plainly whether you will provide the text, want it written for you, or want help editing what you have.
List what already exists: logo files, brand colours, photos of your work and team, reviews, accreditations, price lists. If you have no decent photos, say so; it may be worth budgeting for a photographer or a guided phone shoot.
Technical and ownership questions
- Who is your domain registered with, and in whose name?
- Who provides your business email, and must it keep working throughout?
- Is there an existing site with rankings to protect?
- Do you need to update the site yourself? How often, and what?
- Will you own the design, content and code at the end, or is it licensed as part of a plan?
- What happens if you want to leave the provider later?
- Which other systems must it connect to: booking software, accounting, CRM, email marketing?
Budget, timing and decisions
Many people leave budget out of a brief in the hope of getting a lower quote. It usually has the opposite effect. Without a range, designers either quote for the most expensive interpretation or the cheapest, and neither may be what you need. A range lets them tell you what is realistic for the money, and what they would leave out.
Also say how you prefer to pay: a one-off project fee, a monthly plan, or a mix. That changes which providers are a fit.
Include running costs in your thinking, not just the build. Hosting, domain renewal, maintenance, security updates, backups and small changes all cost something each year, whether they are bundled into a monthly fee or billed separately. Ask every provider to set out what is included after launch, so you are comparing the whole cost of the website rather than just the headline figure.
If you have a real deadline, such as a new premises opening, a seasonal peak or a trade show, say what it is and why. A designer can then plan backwards from it, or tell you honestly that it is not realistic. Also say who signs off each stage. Projects slow down most when the person approving designs is not the person who wrote the brief, or when several people each give different feedback. Name one decision-maker, and agree how many rounds of changes are included.
A copyable brief checklist
At Nerdsharks the brief is a conversation rather than a form: we ask these questions on a call and write the brief up ourselves, then the design and every word of copy are built from it. Whoever you work with, answering these questions first will make the quotes you receive far easier to compare.
- Business summary in three sentences.
- Who your customers are and their main worries.
- Two or three measurable goals.
- What works and does not on the current site.
- List of pages and features.
- Who writes the content, and what photos and assets exist.
- Examples of sites you like and dislike, with reasons.
- Domain, email and hosting details, and ownership expectations.
- Legal needs: selling online, sensitive data, regulated profession.
- Budget range, payment preference and deadline.
- Decision-makers and main contact.