How do I write a website brief?

What to include

• About the business. What you do, for whom, and what makes you different.
• The goal. One primary outcome, like “more booked consultations”.
• Audience. Who visits, what they’re worried about, how they find you.
• Pages and features. A rough list, marked “launch” or “later”.
• Content. What exists, what needs writing, who’s doing it.
• References. Sites you like, with reasons.
• Practical details. Timeline, budget range, decision-maker, current platform and domain.

Add anything off-limits too, like a competitor’s style you want to avoid or claims your industry regulator won’t allow.

Be specific where it counts

“Modern and clean” describes almost every website brief ever written. Better: “We’re a boutique law firm. Clients are anxious and want to feel in good hands. The site should feel calm, plain-spoken and senior, not salesy.” That gives a designer something to work with. The same goes for goals. “More leads” is vague. “Fewer price-shoppers and more estate planning enquiries” shapes the copy, the forms and the page structure.

Specific problems with your current site are just as useful. “People keep calling to ask our hours” tells a designer exactly what to fix.

Why a budget range helps you

Many owners hold back their budget, worried it will be used against them. In practice, a range lets a designer propose the right scope instead of guessing. Without it, you get quotes for different projects that can’t be compared. If you have no idea where to start, the free website project estimator gives you a grounded figure to put in the brief.

A range also helps you. If every proposal comes back well above it, you learn quickly that the scope needs trimming, rather than finding out after weeks of meetings.

I don’t ask clients for a formal brief, because most of it comes out naturally in a good discovery call. But owners who arrive with a page of notes get a sharper quote and a faster project. The two lines I value most are the primary goal and the one or two sites they like, with reasons. Those tell me more about taste and priorities than a long specification. If I had to pick one thing to add, it would be the questions customers ask most on the phone.