What to Include in a Website Brief: A Small Business Template

Describe the job the website needs to do

A useful website brief explains the business problem before the preferred colours or animation style. Describe the customers you want to reach, the service you want them to understand and the action you want them to take. “More enquiries” becomes a clearer goal when you specify the type of enquiry and what makes someone a suitable customer.

For a hypothetical commercial cleaning business, the goal might be quotation requests from office managers within its genuine service area. The site would need to explain office-cleaning scope, answer procurement questions and make arranging a site visit straightforward. That example is a planning exercise, not a claim about a ZentroWeb client.

List pages and customer journeys separately

Start with a page list, then explain what visitors should be able to do. A contact page and a functioning quotation journey are related but different requirements. State whether a form only sends an email, saves enquiries in an admin system, uploads files or connects to another service.

Separate essential launch requirements from later ideas. If online booking is optional, say so. This lets a designer estimate the core project without quietly including a complex integration in a simple brochure-site quote. Existing URLs, useful articles and downloadable documents also belong in the brief if you are replacing a website.

Make content responsibilities explicit

Identify who will supply and approve the text, logo, photographs, service information and any published customer evidence. List what is ready, what needs editing and what must be created. If you need help writing copy, include that as an explicit requirement rather than assuming it is part of the design fee.

Gather facts that can be checked. Prices, coverage, opening hours and turnaround times should come from the business. Customer quotes and project outcomes need permission and evidence. A designer can improve how a claim is presented, but should not invent the claim to fill a space in the layout.

Copy this brief outline

Use the headings below in a document and add short answers. “Not decided” is a useful answer where it highlights something to discuss. Avoid filling an unknown with a guess that later becomes part of the project scope.

• Business and audience: what you offer, who buys it and where you genuinely operate.
• Main goal: the action a visitor should take and how you will judge enquiry quality.
• Pages: proposed pages plus existing URLs to retain or redirect.
• Features: forms, booking, payments, uploads and integrations, split into essential and later.
• Content: available assets, writing responsibilities, approval owner and missing evidence.
• Design references: examples you like and the specific feature you find useful.
• Budget and timing: available range, desired launch and any fixed external deadline.
• Handover: account access, editing needs, support expectations and acceptance checks.

Explain how you will accept the finished work

Agree a short launch checklist before the build starts. Include mobile navigation, accurate service details, forms arriving at the intended destination and access to the accounts you are meant to control. If SEO setup is included, name the deliverables: page titles, crawl checks, a sitemap or redirect mapping, for example.

Choose one person to collect feedback from stakeholders. Record which decisions are approved and identify new requests that change the scope. This helps both sides distinguish a correction to agreed work from an additional feature. It also makes the launch date easier to plan around real dependencies.

Use the brief to compare proposals

Send the same brief to the suppliers you are considering. Ask them to explain exclusions, assumptions and ongoing charges. You can then compare how each proposal solves the same problem, instead of comparing headline prices for different projects.

If you are discussing a website with ZentroWeb, the website-design and contact pages are starting points for that conversation. Bring the brief and your unanswered questions; there is no need to pretend that every technical decision has already been made.

Related services and guides

• Discuss your website requirements
• Compare proposals against the same scope
• Plan redirects and launch checks for a redesign

Further reading

• Google: SEO foundations to discuss during planning