Send five agencies a vague brief and you will get five proposals you cannot compare. One quotes a brochure site, one a lead generation engine, one a full rebrand.
A good brief fixes that. It does not need design language or technical detail. It needs straight answers to twelve questions about your goals, your buyers, your content and your constraints, so that every agency prices the same project.
Answer each question in the box under it as you read. Your answers are saved in this browser, and at the end you can copy or download them as a finished brief, ready to send.
The short answer
A useful website design brief answers twelve questions: the goal and how you will measure it, who your buyers are, what visitors should do, what works today, what content you need and who writes it, what proof you have, how the site should look, what it connects to, who runs it later, what rules apply, your budget range and timeline, and how you will decide.
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1. What must the website achieve in the next 12 months?
Agencies quote very different projects when the goal is unclear. A brochure site, a lead generation site and a sales tool can look alike in a design file and cost very different amounts to build and run.
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- The business goal the site supports: more qualified enquiries, shorter sales cycles, a new market
- How you will measure it: enquiries, demo requests, quote requests or applications
- Where you are today, if you know it
- Any date that drives the project, such as a launch, an event or a funding round
Avoid
- Goals no one can measure, such as "a modern look"
- A list of ten goals with no order of importance
2. Who are your buyers, and what do they need to decide?
A website is a sales conversation without a salesperson. It can only answer the questions you know buyers ask, so ask the people who talk to buyers every day.
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- Job titles in the buying group, and who signs off
- The five questions sales hears most often
- What buyers compare you on, and who they compare you with
- The languages and regions you sell into
Ask sales
- Why did the last three deals choose you?
- Why did the last three lost deals go elsewhere?
3. What should a visitor do next?
Every page needs one clear next step. If you cannot name it, the design team has to guess, and you end up with a site full of buttons that all say "Learn more".
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- The main action: an enquiry form, a demo booking, a quote request or a call
- Smaller steps for people not ready yet, such as a guide or a newsletter
- What happens after a form is sent: who replies, and how fast
- Which form fields sales needs, and which it never uses
Worth knowing
- Every extra field is one more reason to give up, so ask only for what sales uses.
- Plan spam protection now. Our guide on how to stop junk leads on your website explains the options.
4. What works on your current site, and what does not?
A redesign that ignores today's site can throw away the pages that bring your enquiries, and the search rankings that bring visitors to them. Start with what to keep.
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- Your top landing pages, and where their visitors come from
- Pages that rank in search and must keep their URLs
- Known problems: speed, mobile layout, pages that are hard to edit
- What customers and sales say about the current site
Protect
- URLs that rank or attract links. Plan a redirect for every one you change, as in our guide to redesigning without losing SEO.
5. Which pages do you need, and who will write them?
Content is often what holds a launch back. A design can be approved in a few weeks while the copy waits for someone with time to write it. Decide now who writes what, and by when.
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- A first list of pages, grouped into sections
- Which existing content can be reused and which needs rewriting
- Who writes, reviews and approves each page
- Photos, video, diagrams and translations you need
If nobody has time
- Budget for a writer now rather than after the design is done. Our SEO content writing team works from interviews with your experts, so the copy still sounds like you.
6. What proof can you show?
B2B buyers look for evidence that you have solved their problem before. Proof collected at the last minute tends to be thin, so start gathering it while the site is being designed.
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- Case studies you have permission to publish
- Client logos you are allowed to show
- Certifications, standards, awards and memberships
- Reviews on independent sites, and results you can verify
Keep it honest
- Use only real names, real logos and real numbers, with the client's permission.
- A dated result with its context beats a big claim with none.
7. How should it look and sound?
Taste is hard to brief. Examples with reasons are easier for a designer to act on than words like "modern" or "clean", which mean something different to everyone.
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- Brand guidelines, logo files, fonts and colours
- Three websites you like, and what you like about each
- Three you do not like, and why
- The tone you want: formal, plain, technical or warm
Check early
- Brand colours against contrast rules. Pale greys and bright yellows often fail; our website accessibility checklist has a free contrast checker.
8. What must the website connect to?
Integrations are where budgets slip, because they are often discovered late. A form that does not pass data properly loses leads without anyone noticing. FlowEazy's old enquiry form, for example, was silently dropping two key fields, so sales received leads with half the information missing.
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- Your CRM and email platform, and who owns each account
- Analytics, tag manager, ad platforms and your consent tool
- Booking, chat, payment or product data feeds
- Exactly which form fields must reach which system
Ask every agency
- How will you test that every form reaches the CRM with every field?
- Who maintains each integration after launch?
9. Who will run the site after launch?
The cheapest site to build can be the most expensive to own if every small change needs a developer. Describe the life of the site after launch, not just the launch.
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- Who edits pages, and how often
- What your team must be able to change without help
- Hosting, backups, security updates and support
- Who owns the domain, the hosting account, the code and the design files
Get in writing
- That you own the code and the content.
- What the support plan covers, and what it costs per month or per hour of work.
10. What technical and legal requirements apply?
Requirements raised after a design is approved cost the most to add. List them now, including the ones that feel obvious to you.
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- Speed expectations, and the devices your buyers use
- An accessibility standard, usually WCAG 2.2 level AA
- Privacy, cookie consent and data storage rules for your markets
- Languages, security reviews and any rules specific to your industry
More than one language?
- Settle the URL structure before design starts. Our international SEO checklist explains the choices.
11. What budget range and timeline are you working with?
Without a range, agencies guess, and their proposals cannot be compared. A range is not a commitment: it lets each agency show what it would do for that money, and say so if the money will not stretch.
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- A range for the build, and a separate one for running costs
- Fixed dates, and the reason behind each one
- What the budget includes: content, photography, SEO, training and support
- What can wait for a second phase
Watch for
- Proposals far below the others. Check what they leave out.
- Timelines that skip content, testing or training.
12. Who decides, and how will you choose?
Projects stall when a senior person sees the work for the first time at the end. Name the people who decide, and agree how you will compare proposals, before the first one arrives.
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- Who approves the brief, the design and the launch
- How you will compare proposals, and how much each factor counts
- When you want proposals, and when you will decide
- Questions you want every agency to answer
Comparing agencies?
- Our checklist for choosing an agency lists the questions that separate a good partner from a good pitch.
Your brief is ready to share
Copy it into an email or download it as a text file. Questions you skipped show as "Not answered yet", so you can see what is left.