What to Prepare Before You Build a Website: A Simple Website Brief Template

The best websites start long before any design or code. They start with a clear brief: a short document that explains who you are, who your customers are and what the website needs to do.

A good brief does three things for you. It gets you a more accurate quote, because the agency knows what it is pricing. It saves time, because fewer things get missed and redone. And it gets you a better result, because the design is built around your goals instead of guesses.

You don't need to be technical to write one. Answer the questions below in simple sentences. One or two pages is plenty.

1. About your business

Start with the basics, in your own words.

• What does your business do, and for whom?
• Where do you serve customers: one city, the whole country or worldwide?
• What makes you different from your competitors? Think about speed, quality, experience, price or service.
• How do customers usually find you today?

2. The goal of the website

This is the most important part of the brief. Pick one main goal and, at most, two smaller ones.

• Get phone calls or WhatsApp messages
• Get quote requests or bookings through a form
• Sell products online
• Build trust, so people who hear about you can check you out
• Recruit staff or attract partners

Then write down what success looks like. For example: "Ten quote requests a month from people in our city."

3. Your ideal customer

Describe the person you most want to reach. What problem do they have when they search for you? What questions do they ask before they buy? What would make them trust you? The answers shape the words on every page.

4. Pages you need

List the pages you think you need. A typical small business site has these:

• Home
• About
• One page for each main service or product line
• Work, portfolio or results
• Blog
• Contact

Don't worry about getting it perfect. A good agency will suggest changes. Separate service pages are usually worth it, because each one can rank on Google for its own searches.

5. Features

Note anything the site must do beyond showing information:

• Contact or quote forms
• WhatsApp or call buttons
• Online booking or appointments
• Online payments or a shop
• Live chat
• More than one language
• A members' area or customer login
• Connections to tools you already use, such as a CRM, email marketing or accounting software

6. Content: who provides what?

Content is the most common reason website projects get delayed. Decide early who will write the text and who will supply photos, logos and videos. If you have an existing website, note which content can be reused. Real photos of your team, your work and your premises nearly always beat stock images.

7. Look and feel

Share your logo and brand colours if you have them. Then list three to five websites you like, and one or two you don't, with a sentence on why. "I like how clean this looks" or "this feels too busy" is exactly the kind of feedback a designer needs.

8. Your existing website

If you already have a website, include its address and tell the agency what works and what doesn't. Mention whether it already gets visitors from Google. If it does, the new site must be planned carefully so you keep those rankings. Our 10-step redesign checklist explains how.

9. Domain, hosting and email

Note whether you already own a domain name, where it is registered and who has the login. Do the same for hosting and email accounts. This avoids delays at launch.

10. Budget and timeline

Share a realistic budget range and any deadline, such as a product launch or an event. A range helps the agency suggest what is possible, instead of quoting for something you don't need. If you are not sure what is realistic, our website cost guide is a useful starting point.

A copy-and-paste brief template

Copy these headings into a document and fill them in:

1. Business: what we do, for whom, where
2. What makes us different:
3. Main goal of the website: and what success looks like
4. Ideal customer: their problem and their questions
5. Pages:
6. Features:
7. Content: who writes the text, who supplies images
8. Websites we like and dislike: with reasons
9. Existing website, domain, hosting and email:
10. Budget range and deadline:

Not sure about some answers?

That is completely normal. You don't need a perfect brief to start a conversation. At Kingpinweb.codes, every project begins with a free discussion call where we work through these questions together, then come back with a wireframe and an itemised proposal. Send us what you have so far, even if it is only a few lines.