Website brief checklist, with a worked example

Start with a business goal

Explain why you need a new website now. A redesign prompted by an unclear offer is a different project from a booking flow that loses customers at checkout. Choose a primary action, such as a qualified enquiry, purchase or reservation, and explain how your team will recognise success.

If you have existing data, share it with the project team. Separate measured results from assumptions: “we receive ten enquiries a month” is a baseline; “the new site should double them” is a target that needs a plan, not a promised outcome.

Describe the people and their tasks

Name the main audiences and what each needs to find or do. For a service business, a visitor may need to understand the offer, compare relevant work and contact the team. An existing customer may be looking for support instead. These tasks help decide the structure.

• Who are the main visitors?
• What question brings each visitor to the site?
• What information do they need before taking action?
• Which languages, devices or accessibility needs should the team consider?

List content and who owns it

Create a first list of page types, then note what already exists: copy, product information, photographs, brand files and case studies. Identify who will write, review and approve each part. Content delays can hold up a launch even when the design and code are ready.

If your team will edit the site, explain how often and what they need to change. Updating articles calls for different controls from maintaining prices, inventory or event schedules.

Explain the important connections

List forms, payment services, booking tools, CRM systems and other integrations. Say whether an account already exists and who manages it. Share credentials only through an agreed secure channel, not in the brief.

Mention any pages that already receive search traffic. A migration needs a plan for preserving useful URLs, redirecting moved content and checking that the new pages remain discoverable.

Make the constraints explicit

Give a budget range and say whether it includes writing, photography, hosting and ongoing support. Explain the reason for a deadline and who will provide feedback. If requirements are flexible, identify what must be ready at launch and what could follow later.

• Preferred launch date and the reason for it
• Budget range and included costs
• Decision-maker and content approvers
• Required launch features
• Hosting, domain and maintenance owner

A worked brief for a small service business

This is a fictional planning example, not a client project. It shows the level of detail that turns a request for “a modern website” into a scope a team can discuss. Replace the assumptions with facts about your own business.

• Goal: help prospective customers understand our three services and send a relevant project enquiry. We have not yet measured our current enquiry rate.
• Audience: business owners comparing providers on a phone. They need to see the service scope, relevant work, location and next step.
• Pages: home, services overview, one page for each of three services, work index, reusable project page, about and contact. Legal pages must be agreed separately.
• Content: we supply approved brand files and project photographs. The quote should state whether copywriting and content entry are included.
• Editing: our team needs to add projects and change service copy. Ask for a CMS demonstration before agreeing the content model.
• Functionality: an enquiry form with validation, delivery monitoring and a success message. No payments, booking or customer accounts in the first release.
• Migration: preserve useful existing URLs and map every moved page. Agree who checks the redirects and Search Console after launch.
• Constraints: provide our real budget range, launch reason, decision-maker and feedback dates. Ask the team to separate build costs from hosting and ongoing support.

Adapt the brief for an architecture or interiors studio

Fictional studio example: an independent interiors practice needs prospective clients to understand its residential work, service area and design process before enquiring. The scope could use one reusable project template, service pages, an about page and contact, with the number of populated projects agreed separately.

For each project, supply the brief, location at an appropriate level of privacy, scope, status, photographs and credits. Record permission to publish and distinguish finished work from renders. Agree who adds projects, whether filters are useful and which enquiry questions are necessary.

For remote delivery, include the project currency, time zones, content approver and review dates. This is a planning example, not an Exovio client case or a fixed-price package.

Use the brief as a starting point

The next step is a scoping conversation. Ask the team to state assumptions, exclusions, dependencies and what counts as acceptance. That turns an initial list of wishes into work that can be priced and delivered.

Use the downloadable checklist to collect goals, audiences, content, integrations and constraints. Then discuss your brief with us or explore our website design and development service. An early outline is enough to begin scoping.