Planning Your Website
What to put in a website design brief, what to leave out, how long it should be, and a free template you can copy. A better brief means a better quote and a faster build.
A website design brief is a short document that tells a web designer what your business does, who the site is for, what it has to achieve and what you already have. A good one fits on two pages. It gets you a more accurate quote, a first design that is close to right, and fewer rounds of changes. This guide explains what to put in it, what to leave out, and gives you a free template to copy.
A website design brief is the starting document for a website project. It sets out your business, your customers, the job the site needs to do, the pages and features you expect, the look you are after and any deadline. The designer uses it to quote, plan and design. It is not a technical specification. You do not need to know how websites are built to write one.
Because everything downstream depends on it. A designer quoting from “we need a new website” has to guess, so quotes from different agencies end up miles apart and hard to compare. Our guide to reading a website design quote shows how much of that gap comes from vague scope.
A clear brief also speeds up the work. When Erinvale Group, a construction business, sent their brief through our onboarding form on 17 September, they were looking at a finished homepage design the next day. EBSA Hub answered the same questions on 18 September and had a homepage preview six days later. Neither of those is possible when the first two weeks are spent working out what the site is for.
Ten sections cover almost every small business website. Answer each one in plain words. Bullet points are fine.
What you do, who for and where. “We fit uPVC and aluminium windows and doors for homeowners across Thanet” tells a designer more than a page of history. Add how long you have been trading if it helps your case.
This is the most important line in the brief. Pick the main job: get phone calls, get enquiries through a form, take bookings, sell products online, or simply look credible when people check you out. Most small business sites have one main job and one or two supporting ones. If you are unsure, say so. A good designer will recommend one based on how your customers buy.
Homeowners or businesses? Local or national? What do they usually ask before they buy? What worries them? The answers shape the wording, the order of the pages and the proof the site needs to show.
List them, with a line or two on each. Mark the ones that bring in the most money or the work you want more of. Those are the ones that deserve their own pages. If you sell online, give a rough product count, because 20 products and 2,000 products are very different builds.
A rough list is enough: home, services, about, reviews or past work, FAQs, contact. Our guide to brochure websites explains the standard set and when you need more.
Only the ones you actually need: a contact form, click to call, a WhatsApp button, a gallery, a quote request form, online booking, a shop, a newsletter signup. Each feature adds build time, so this list has a direct effect on the quote. Leave out anything you are adding “just in case”. It can be added later on a site built properly.
Logo files, brand colours, fonts, photos of your work, reviews, accreditations and any existing wording. Say what is missing too. Missing a logo or photos is normal, and it is better that the designer knows from the start.
Words like “modern” and “clean” mean something different to everyone. Links work better. List two or three websites you like, from any industry, and say what you like about each: the colours, the photos, how simple it is. Then list one you dislike and why. That single “not like this” link often saves a full round of changes.
Which towns or regions you cover, and what you think customers type into Google to find a business like yours. This feeds straight into page titles, headings and the wording on each page. Our guide to SEO web design explains why that matters at the build stage.
Your deadline and whether it is fixed, who signs off the design, whether you own your domain and where it is registered, and where enquiry emails should go. If you already have a website, include its address and say what you want to keep.
Three things make a brief longer without making it better.
One to two pages for a small business website. A few lines per section is enough. The brief we ask clients for is deliberately small: the structure of the site, your services or products, colours, a logo if you have one, any specific features, and a few example sites you like. Anything we still need, we ask on a short call, and we write the website content from your notes, so you do not have to arrive with every word ready.
Copy this into a document or an email and fill in what you can. Leave a line blank if you do not know the answer yet.
| Section | Your answer |
|---|---|
| Business name and one line description | What you do, who for, where |
| Main job of the website | Calls, enquiries, bookings, online sales or credibility |
| Your customers | Who they are and what they ask before buying |
| Services or products | List them, and mark your most important ones |
| Pages | Home, services, about, reviews, FAQs, contact, others |
| Features | Contact form, click to call, WhatsApp, gallery, booking, shop |
| What you already have | Logo, colours, photos, reviews, accreditations, wording |
| Sites you like, and why | Two or three links with a line on each |
| A site you dislike, and why | One link |
| Areas and search terms | Towns you cover and what customers type into Google |
| Domain and current site | Who registered the domain, current web address |
| Deadline and sign off | Date, whether it is fixed, who approves the design |
| Anything to avoid | Colours, wording or styles you do not want |
A good designer reads it, asks a few questions, and comes back with a fixed price and a timeline in writing. If they quote without asking anything, they are guessing, and the guess usually shows up later as extra charges. Our guide to choosing a web designer covers the other questions worth asking.
When we build a small business website, the brief becomes a homepage design first, with two rounds of changes, before the rest of the site is built. The full sequence is in our web design process guide, and how long it takes to build a website explains where the time goes.
The ten sections above are the same questions we ask every new client through our onboarding form, refined over the projects we have run this year. The dates quoted come from those projects’ own records. We are an agency, so we benefit when you hire one, which is why the template works just as well if you send it to someone else.
Say what you do, who for, what the site has to achieve, what you already have and what you like the look of. Keep it to two pages. Leave the technical decisions to the designer and judge them on the questions they ask back. When your brief is ready, send it to us and we will come back with a clear price and a plan.
A website design brief is a short document that tells a web designer what your business does, who the site is for, what it has to achieve, the pages and features you expect, the look you are after and your deadline. The designer uses it to quote, plan and design. You do not need any technical knowledge to write one.
Cover ten things: your business in two sentences, the main job of the site, your customers, your services or products, the pages you expect, the features you need, what you already have (logo, photos, reviews), sites you like and dislike, the areas and search terms you care about, and practical details such as deadline, domain and who signs off.
One to two pages is right for a small business website. A few lines or bullet points per section is enough. A longer brief is not a better one, and anything the designer still needs can be covered on a short call.
Leave out technical instructions you are not sure about, long company history and a fully drawn design. Describe the outcome you want and let the designer recommend how to get there. Example sites you like are far more useful than a finished layout.
Not usually. Many agencies, including us, write the website content from your notes. The brief only needs the facts: what you do, who for, where, and what makes you the right choice. Your own wording for reviews and accreditations is still useful to include.
Because features and page count drive build time. A vague request forces the designer to guess, so quotes vary widely and extra charges appear later. A clear brief lets every agency quote for the same thing, which makes quotes comparable and keeps the final price close to the first one.
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