How to Write a Website Brief Before Hiring a Designer

A website brief gives a designer the information they need to understand your business, your customers and what you need the new website to achieve. It does not need to be technical or cover every detail before you make contact.

A useful brief gives both sides a better starting point. It helps the designer understand the likely scope, ask the right questions and prepare a proposal based on what your business actually needs.

My Web Design Guide covers the wider decisions involved in creating a business website. Here, I will focus specifically on what to include in the brief before the project begins.

Key Takeaways

What Is a Website Brief?

A website brief is a practical overview of the website you want to create or redesign.

It gives the designer enough background to understand the project before getting into detailed planning. This normally includes information about the business, its customers, the purpose of the website, likely pages, required functionality, available content and any important constraints.

A good website design brief is not the same as a finished website specification.

You do not need to know which WordPress plugins should be used, how the navigation should behave on mobile or exactly how each page should be laid out. Working out those details is part of the designer’s job.

Your role is to explain the business problem and what you need the website to do.

That gives the designer a much stronger starting point than a request such as, “We need a new five-page website.”

Start With the Business and Its Customers

Before explaining what you want the website to look like, give the designer some context about the business itself.

This does not need to become a company history. A few clear paragraphs can usually provide enough information to start a useful conversation.

Explain What the Business Does

Describe what you sell or provide, where you operate and the main services or products you want to promote.

If there is something important that makes the business different, include that too.

For example, a holiday cottage business might want people to understand that it offers more than accommodation. Its facilities, location and activities may all influence why someone chooses to book.

A vague request for a “modern website” does not give a designer much to work with. Understanding what the business needs to communicate makes it easier to decide what the website should contain.

Describe the People You Want to Reach

Explain who your typical customers are and why they visit your website.

Are you selling to consumers or other businesses? Do you mainly work locally, across the UK or internationally? Are customers usually ready to buy, or do they need plenty of information before making a decision?

Think about the questions customers regularly ask you.

If several people ask the same thing before buying or making an enquiry, that information may deserve a clear place on the website.

Mention Your Competitors

Competitor websites can give a designer useful context, particularly when you explain what you think they do well or badly.

You might like how one competitor presents its services but find another website difficult to navigate. You may also notice information competitors repeatedly fail to explain.

The aim is not to copy them.

A designer needs to understand the market while still creating something appropriate for your own business, customers and brand.

Define Your Website Goals

Your website goals are one of the most useful parts of the brief.

Instead of starting with features or page numbers, explain what you want the website to help the business achieve.

Identify the Main Goal

A service business may want to generate more suitable enquiries. A holiday business may want more direct bookings. An ecommerce website needs to help customers find and buy products.

Other businesses may need a website that explains complicated services more clearly or gives potential customers enough information before they contact the sales team.

You can have more than one goal, but it helps to establish what matters most.

That gives the designer a clearer basis for decisions about page structure, navigation, content and calls to action.

Think About What Visitors Should Do

Once the broader goal is clear, think about what visitors need to do on the website.

Someone may need to complete an enquiry form, request a quote, make a booking or buy something directly. In other cases, the immediate next step may simply be reading a detailed service page or viewing a case study.

Different actions create different website requirements.

A business that needs online bookings will require a different customer route from one where most new work starts with a telephone conversation.

Decide How You Will Judge the Website

It is also useful to explain what a successful website would look like from your perspective.

You may care about enquiries, direct bookings, online sales or search visibility. You may simply have an existing site that creates confusion and want the new version to explain your services more clearly.

Be realistic here.

A new design cannot guarantee a specific number of enquiries or Google rankings. What it can do is create a stronger foundation for people to understand the business and take the next step.

Explain the Pages You Think the Website Needs

You do not need a completed sitemap before contacting a designer, but it helps to explain any pages you already know are important.

This gives the designer the beginnings of a website plan.

List the Essential Pages

A small service website may need a homepage, individual service pages, an About page and a Contact page.

Another business may need case studies, portfolio pages, locations, guides, booking information or an online shop.

Treat this as your starting point rather than a fixed instruction.

Once I understand the business and carry out the planning work, I may suggest that two pages are combined or that an important service deserves its own page.

Identify Your Important Services or Products

Tell the designer which parts of the business matter most.

If you offer ten services but three generate most of your work, that is useful information. Those services may need greater prominence within the navigation and content.

SEO can affect this too.

Different services may deserve separate pages when customers search for them with different intentions. Slight variations of the same service do not necessarily need their own pages.

When thinking about the overall structure, Google recommends a logical site structure with important pages linked from other relevant pages. That is useful for visitors and also helps search engines understand how the website is organised.

Leave Room for the Structure to Change

The designer should be able to question the initial page list.

Perhaps one broad Services page needs to become three individual pages. A proposed page may duplicate something already covered elsewhere. You may also discover that an important customer question deserves its own resource.

My Website Planning Guide goes into more detail about deciding which pages you need and how they should connect.

Once the brief has been agreed, my guide to the website design process for small businesses explains what happens next, including planning, wireframes, Figma design, WordPress development, testing and launch.

Describe the Website Functionality You Need

Page numbers only tell part of the story.

Two websites can both contain ten pages while requiring very different amounts of work. The difference is often the website functionality required within those pages.

Explain What Visitors Need to Be Able to Do

Think about what visitors need to accomplish beyond reading the content.

A website may need an enquiry form, appointment booking, online payments, customer accounts or searchable information. An ecommerce store needs product selection, basket and checkout features.

You do not need to explain how these features should be built.

Simply describe what the customer needs to be able to do. The designer can then recommend an appropriate technical setup.

Mention Existing Systems and Integrations

Tell the designer about any existing systems the website needs to work with.

This might include a booking platform, CRM, mailing system, payment provider or another piece of software used by the business.

It is much better to raise this during the briefing stage than discover halfway through development that an important part of the business relies on a system the website needs to connect with.

Integrations can affect the project scope, timescale and cost, so they need to be considered early.

Separate Essentials From Future Ideas

You may have a long list of features you would eventually like.

That does not mean all of them need to be included in the first version.

Explain what the business needs for launch and which ideas could potentially be added later. This gives the designer more flexibility when discussing scope and budget.

A good website can develop over time. Trying to include every possible future feature in the first build can add unnecessary cost and complexity.

Be Clear About Who Is Providing the Content

Content is one of the areas that can easily slow a website project when responsibilities are unclear.

Your brief should explain what already exists and who will be responsible for anything that still needs to be produced.

Decide Who Will Write the Copy

Do you already have website copy? Will you write it yourself? Do you expect the designer to edit existing text or help create the content?

Do not assume copywriting is automatically part of a web design project.

If I am helping with content, I need to know that before the layouts are finalised. The amount and type of copy affects the structure of each page.

My article about website copy that converts explains how useful copy can help visitors understand an offer and decide what to do next.

Identify the Images and Other Assets

Tell the designer what visual material you already have.

That may include logos, professional photography, videos, brochures, downloads or existing brand files.

If new photography is required, it helps to know before the design begins. A layout designed around strong landscape photography will need to change if the only available images are small portrait photographs.

Knowing what is available also helps identify gaps before they become delays.

Think About Proof

Consider what evidence you can provide to back up what the website says.

This might include testimonials, customer reviews, qualifications, project examples, case studies or photographs of completed work.

You do not need to decide exactly where each item will appear. Simply make the designer aware of what is available so it can be considered when the pages are planned.

Include Your Branding and Design Preferences

A website brief should give the designer some visual direction without trying to make every design decision in advance.

Share Existing Brand Guidelines

If you already have brand guidelines, logos, colours or typefaces, provide them.

Even without formal guidelines, you may have existing materials that need to remain consistent, such as printed brochures, signage or social media graphics.

If the business has no established visual identity, say so. That may change what needs to be included within the project.

Share Websites You Like and Dislike

Examples can be useful when you explain why you have chosen them.

Perhaps you like a website because the navigation is simple. Another might use photography particularly well. You may dislike a competitor’s site because important information is buried behind several clicks.

That feedback tells the designer much more than simply providing five links and saying, “I like these.”

Avoid Designing the Website in the Brief

Try not to prescribe exactly where every button, image and section needs to go.

You are hiring a designer to work out how the requirements should be presented.

The brief should communicate the business needs, important information and any genuine constraints. The detailed layout comes later through wireframing and visual design.

Include SEO in the Brief

SEO should be discussed before the website has been designed and built.

If attracting visitors through search engines matters to the business, include that in the brief so search requirements can influence the structure and content from the beginning.

Explain Whether Search Visibility Matters

Tell the designer which services, products or locations you would particularly like the website to be found for.

You do not need to carry out your own keyword research first.

The important part is explaining what areas of the business matter. Proper keyword research can then determine how people actually search for those services and which pages should target them.

Page titles are another part of this work. Google recommends descriptive and concise title text that accurately describes each page, rather than vague titles or pages overloaded with repeated keywords.

Mention Existing SEO Information

If you already have a website, tell the designer about any SEO work that has been carried out.

Access to Google Analytics and Search Console can be useful. You may also know that particular pages attract search traffic or have links from other websites.

This matters because redesigning a website should not mean ignoring everything the existing site has built up.

Protect Existing Pages During a Redesign

Existing URLs should be reviewed before they are changed or removed.

If an old page is being replaced by a new one, the project may need a redirect. When URLs change during a site move, Google recommends creating a mapping between the old and new URLs and setting up redirects to the appropriate new locations.

You do not need to work out the redirect plan yourself. The important thing is making sure SEO and existing website performance are part of the project discussion before the old site disappears.

Give the Designer a Realistic Budget and Timescale

Budget and timing can feel awkward to discuss at the start, but both help define what is realistic.

Be Open About the Budget

Providing a budget does not mean a designer should automatically quote the maximum amount available.

It gives them a framework.

If the proposed website would normally require more work than the budget allows, the scope can be discussed. Some functionality might be simplified, certain features could move into a later phase or the number of custom pages may need adjusting.

You do not need to know exactly what a website should cost before making contact. My guide to how much web design costs explains the main factors that affect pricing.

Explain Any Important Deadline

Mention any date the website genuinely needs to be ready for.

Perhaps you are opening a new business, launching a service or attending an important event.

A deadline also needs to account for your side of the project. Content, imagery, feedback and approvals all take time.

If a website needs to launch in six weeks but nobody can approve the designs for the first month, that creates an obvious problem.

Identify Who Makes the Decisions

Let the designer know who needs to approve the project.

Feedback becomes difficult when several people provide conflicting instructions independently.

That does not mean only one person can have an opinion. It helps when there is a clear person responsible for collecting feedback and making the final decision.

What You Do Not Need to Put in a Website Brief

One reason businesses delay writing a brief is that they assume they need to understand web development first.

You do not.

You do not need to choose the WordPress theme, decide the page builder, specify mobile breakpoints or work out which plugins should be installed.

Unless your business has a genuine technical requirement, those are implementation decisions for the designer or developer.

Your job is to describe what needs to happen.

For example, “Customers need to book an appointment and pay a deposit online” is useful. Trying to specify which booking plugin and payment integration should be used may unnecessarily limit the solution before the project has been reviewed.

The initial brief does not need to answer every question either.

Discovery is part of my web design process, and it gives us a chance to discuss anything that is unclear before the structure and wireframes are created.

Compton Pool Case Study in Practice

Compton Pool Holiday Cottages is a family-run holiday complex in Devon offering self-catering cottages alongside facilities including an indoor swimming pool, fishing, tennis, a gym, games room and outdoor space.

The project involved both a website redesign and SEO, making it a useful example of why the initial brief needs to cover more than appearance.

The Problem

The existing website did not present the full Compton Pool experience as clearly as it could.

The cottages were important, but they were only part of what guests could enjoy. The facilities, countryside setting, nearby beach and local attractions also influenced what made the destination appealing.

The new website therefore needed to do more than give the old design a visual update. It needed to organise and present those different parts of the business more clearly.

The Method

The project requirements helped shape the website structure and content before the finished design was built.

The cottage information needed clear routes, but the facilities and local area also deserved proper attention. On-page copy and page targeting were refined as part of the SEO work, while the wider structure was adjusted to help visitors explore what was available with less friction.

This is exactly why a website brief needs to explain the business rather than simply list the number of pages required.

If the initial request had only been “redesign our holiday cottage website”, much of the context that made Compton Pool distinctive would have been missing.

The Successful Results

The finished website presents the cottages, facilities and location in a clearer and more polished way.

Visitors can move through the accommodation and supporting information more easily, while the content gives a better overall picture of the holiday experience. The project also strengthened the site’s SEO foundations through clearer targeting, revised copy and a more focused structure.

The outcome came from understanding what needed to be communicated before deciding how the website should look.

Website Brief Checklist

You do not need to produce a lengthy document before speaking to a designer. Covering these areas is enough to start a useful discussion.

The designer can then ask follow-up questions, challenge anything that needs reconsidering and turn the initial information into a more detailed project scope.

Final Thoughts

A useful brief does not need to answer every technical question or describe exactly what the finished website should look like.

The purpose of a website brief is to give your designer a clear picture of the business, customers, goals and requirements before the detailed planning begins. That is also how I start projects through my web design agency in Bristol, using the initial information as the basis for planning, content, wireframes, design and development.