How to write a website brief that gets better work

A website brief is not a shopping list of pages. “Home, About, Services, Contact” describes almost every brochure site on the internet and tells a design team very little about what yours needs to achieve. A useful brief gives the project a reason to exist and makes the important decisions visible early.

Start with the change, not the deliverable

Explain what is happening in the business that makes a new website necessary now. Perhaps the company has outgrown its positioning, the sales team keeps answering questions the current site should handle, or the best work is hidden behind a dated presentation. This context is more valuable than a preferred menu structure.

Complete this sentence: “Six months after launch, this project will have worked if…” Keep the answer observable. Better-fit enquiries, fewer repetitive questions, easier recruitment or a cleaner route to purchase are useful outcomes. “A modern website” is not.

Describe the people making the decision

Demographics alone rarely help. Instead, describe what a visitor already knows, what they are uncertain about and what would make them trust the business enough to take the next step. A procurement lead comparing three suppliers needs different proof from a founder buying specialist help for the first time.

Include the questions prospects ask in sales conversations and the objections that slow a decision down. Those are content requirements, even if they never become standalone pages.

Be honest about content

Say what already exists, who can approve it and where the gaps are. Photography, case studies, service detail and legal copy often become the real schedule risk because nobody owns them. A studio can help shape the material, but only if that work is visible in the scope.

“We need help deciding what the site should say” is useful information, not a weakness in the brief.

Set constraints without prescribing the answer

Share the real launch date, budget context, technical dependencies and decision-makers. Include systems the site must connect to and any accessibility or governance requirements. Then leave room for the studio to recommend the shape of the solution.

References are helpful when you explain what you respond to: the pace, clarity, editorial confidence or interaction—not “make ours look like this.” The goal is a site specific to your business, not a collage of somebody else’s decisions.

A brief can be one page

The essentials are simple: why now, what must change, who the site is for, what they need to believe, the action that matters, the content available, the constraints and how success will be judged. That is enough to begin a much better conversation.