How to write a website brief that gets you the site you need

Why a written brief is worth the hour it takes

A website brief is a short written description of what you want your website to do and why. It is the document you hand to a designer, an agency or a freelancer before they quote or build. Writing it takes an hour or two, and it saves far more than that later. Without one, you tend to describe the site differently each time you talk about it, quotes are hard to compare because everyone is guessing at the scope, and the finished site drifts away from what the business actually needed.

A brief does not need to be long or use technical language. It needs to be specific about the outcome you are paying for. business.gov.au, the Australian Government's business information service, recommends starting from your business plan, marketing plan and target market before you build anything, because the site is there to serve those goals rather than to look busy. The sections below are a practical order to write a brief in, and you can keep the whole thing to a couple of pages.

Start with the goal and how you'll measure it

Start with the single most important thing you want the website to do. For most service businesses that is to turn the right visitors into enquiries or bookings. Write that goal in one sentence, then write how you will know it is working. That might be the number of enquiries a month, the share of enquiries that are a genuine fit, or bookings taken without a phone call. A goal you can measure keeps later decisions honest, because you can ask whether a proposed feature actually moves it.

Be clear about what the site is not for as well. A brochure site that lists your services has a different job from a page built to convert paid traffic, and trying to make one page do both usually weakens both. If you are unsure which you need first, decide the primary action for this build and note the rest as later work.

Keep readingSee what actually makes a site convert

Describe the visitor, then list the pages

Describe the visitor you most want to reach and the question they arrive with. A brief that says 'homeowners in Geelong who need urgent plumbing and want to know we can come today' tells a designer far more than 'the general public'. Note what those visitors need to see to trust you and take the next step, because that shapes the pages and the order of the content.

Then list the pages. business.gov.au suggests planning your site structure as a simple sitemap that shows how the pages relate, and most service sites need a home page, a page per core service, an about page, genuine work examples or results, and a clear contact or enquiry page. A short set of frequently asked questions can head off the objections that stall a decision. Keep the list to what earns its place, because extra pages are extra content to write and maintain.

Say who supplies the words, images and proof

The most common reason a website runs late is content, not code. Decide in the brief who supplies the words, the photos and the proof, and by when. If you want the designer to write the copy, say so and expect to answer questions and review drafts. If you are supplying it, be honest about how much you can realistically write while running the business.

Say what genuine assets you have and what you are missing. Real photos of your team, your work and your premises almost always beat stock images for trust, so note whether a photographer is needed. Gather your logo, brand colours, testimonials you have permission to use, and any licences or accreditations worth showing. Agreeing this up front stops the project stalling halfway through with a half-built site waiting on text.

Spell out what the site has to do

List what the site has to do, not just what it has to show. For most briefs the core is a single enquiry path that works: a form that asks only what you need, sends the enquiry somewhere a person will see it quickly, and shows the visitor a clear confirmation. If you take bookings, note whether the site should connect to a calendar. If you use a CRM or an email tool, say which one so the developer can plan the connection rather than discover it late.

Note anything you need to measure or track, such as which enquiries came from an ad campaign, along with any consent requirements that go with it. Flag integrations early, because a booking system, a payment step or a CRM connection changes both the scope and the price. It is cheaper to describe these now than to bolt them on after launch.

Cover domain, mobile, accessibility and upkeep

A few practical items belong in every brief. You need a domain name and somewhere to host the site. If you are registering an Australian .au domain, auDA, the administrator of the .au namespace, requires the registrant to have a validated Australian presence, shown for example by an ABN, an ACN, or Australian citizenship or residency, and a com.au name is for a commercial entity with an Australian connection such as an ABN or an Australian trade mark. business.gov.au notes a domain typically costs somewhere between $10 and $80 a year through an accredited registrar.

State your expectations for the things that are easy to skip and expensive to retrofit. More than half of web traffic is on phones, so the site must work well on a small screen. Ask for a reasonable accessibility standard: the current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG 2.2, published by the W3C in October 2023, define three conformance levels, A, AA and AAA, and level AA is the benchmark many organisations write into a brief. Include basic security, such as an HTTPS certificate and a plan for keeping the software updated, and agree who looks after maintenance after launch.

Keep readingCheck your website's accessibility yourself

Set a budget and timeline, and define done

Give a budget range even if it feels uncomfortable. It lets a good supplier propose a sensible scope instead of guessing, and it filters out proposals that were never going to fit. Ask for a fixed quote with a clear list of what is and is not included, and check whether ongoing costs like hosting, domain renewal, maintenance and content updates sit inside or outside that number. A cheap build with expensive upkeep is not actually cheap.

Set a realistic timeline with a couple of checkpoints, and write down what 'done' means so everyone agrees when the project is finished. Define done to include the site being live, tested on real devices, and handed over with the accounts and access in your name rather than the supplier's. Deciding ownership and handover before work starts avoids the common and painful situation of not being able to get into your own domain or website later.

Keep readingAgree who owns the finished site

A short worked example

Here is a short example, using a made-up business to show the shape rather than a real client. Northside Plumbing wants more emergency callouts from nearby suburbs. Goal: at least 20 genuine enquiries a month from its service area, measured in the enquiry inbox. Visitor: a homeowner with an urgent problem who wants to know Northside covers their suburb and can come today. Pages: home, three service pages, an about page, real job photos, and a contact page with a short form.

The rest of its brief is just as concrete. Content: Northside writes the service descriptions, a local photographer shoots real jobs, and the designer edits for the web. Must do: a form that emails the office immediately and a click-to-call button on mobile. Practical: keep the existing com.au domain, work well on phones, meet WCAG 2.2 AA, use HTTPS, and set up a monthly maintenance arrangement. Budget and timeline: a stated range, a fixed quote, six weeks with two review points, and handover of all accounts on completion. A brief like that can be quoted accurately and built once.