Website brief template: what to include (copy and fill in)

A website goes wrong most often before any design starts: the brief is a single sentence (“we need a modern website”) and each person involved imagines something different. A good brief takes an hour to write, saves weeks later and gets better proposals back.

Below is a template you can copy into any document. Each section says what to include and why. Short answers are fine. Gaps are fine too, because they show where to ask for help.

Website brief template

Copy everything from here to the end of the template, and fill it in.

1. About the business

• Company name and what you do, in two or three sentences.
• Who buys from you, and what you sell them.
• Where you operate, and the languages you work in.
• What has changed, such as new products, a rebrand or a new market. This is why you need a website now.

2. Why this project, and how you will measure success

• The main goal, in one sentence. For example: get more qualified enquiries, sell online, recruit staff, present the company to partners.
• Three to five measures of success. For example: number of enquiries per month, share of mobile visitors who reach the contact page, orders per week, time to publish a new page.
• What the current site does badly, if there is one. Include the address.

3. Audience

• Primary audience: who they are, what they want, what worries them.
• Secondary audiences: for instance, journalists, recruits, investors.
• How they will arrive: search, social, email, referrals, ads, QR codes.
• Devices: mostly phone, or mostly desktop.
• Languages and regions: including whether you need right-to-left languages such as Arabic.

4. Content and structure

• List of pages you expect (home, about, services, contact, blog, careers, etc.).
• What exists already: text, photos, videos, logos, case studies, brochures.
• Who will write and supply content, and by what date.
• Whether you need photography or video, and who will produce it.
• Content you will keep updating, such as news, products, jobs or events.

5. Features and functions

Tick what you need and add notes:

• Contact and enquiry forms.
• Online shop, with payment methods and shipping.
• Booking or appointments.
• Customer accounts or member areas.
• Search and filters.
• Multilingual switching.
• Blog or news with categories.
• Integrations: CRM, email marketing, payments, maps, chat, analytics.
• Documents and downloads.
• Anything else, such as calculators or portals.

6. Brand and design

• Brand assets you have: logo files, colours, fonts, guidelines.
• Three sites you like, and what you like about each. Add one you dislike, and why.
• Tone: for instance, formal, warm, bold, calm.
• Accessibility needs: contrast, text size, keyboard use, screen reader support.
• Anything that must not change.

7. Technical requirements

• Domain and hosting: what you own now, and who controls it.
• Platform preferences or limits, with reasons.
• Who will manage content after launch, and their skill level.
• Security and data needs: for example, personal data collected, regulations that apply.
• Performance expectations, for example, fast on mobile connections.
• Search visibility: whether you need migration of existing pages and redirects.

8. Budget and timeline

• Budget range, or what you are comparing it against.
• Real deadline and the reason for it.
• Your feedback speed: who reviews, how quickly, how many rounds.
• Phases, if you would like to launch a smaller version first.

9. People

• Day-to-day contact.
• Final decision maker, and whether they will see the brief.
• Other people who need to approve, such as legal, IT or the board.

10. After launch

• Maintenance: who will update, back up and secure the site.
• Training: what your team needs to learn.
• Growth plans: what you would like to add later.

How to fill it in without overthinking

Write quickly, with the person who knows your customers in the room. Mark each answer as “decided”, “open” or “need advice”. Then send it to two or three agencies and see how their questions differ. The ones who ask good questions usually deliver better work.

What to leave out

• Design instructions disguised as requirements. Say what the site must do, and why you like examples.
• Every internal opinion. Gather input first, then write one version.
• Hidden comparisons. If you are comparing agencies, say so.

What happens next

A good agency reads the brief, asks questions, then proposes a scope, a timeline and a cost, often with options. Compare proposals against your goals and success measures. Our guide to how to brief a creative agency covers the wider briefing process.

Send us your brief

If you would like a proposal, paste your answers into the start a project form. Our website development and design teams will respond with questions, options and a plan. A partial brief is fine; we will help fill in the gaps.