The Website Brief Worksheet
Fill this in before you talk to anyone. It turns a vague idea into a brief any firm can quote against, including firms that are not us.
The guide
Work down it with a pen. Print it, or save the page.
Most website quotes are wildly different because most website briefs do not exist. Three firms are asked “what would a new site cost” and each one imagines a different project, prices that, and is then compared on the total.
Fill this in first. It takes about an hour, most of it thinking rather than typing, and it does three things: it gets you quotes for the same job, it surfaces the decisions that would otherwise stall the project in week six, and it is yours to send to anyone.
Work through it with a pen. Write the awkward answers rather than the tidy ones.
1. The business
What do you sell, in the words a customer uses?
Not your trade body’s words. If a customer would say “walk in shower,” write that, not “accessible bathing solutions.”
Who is the customer?
One or two sentences. If you have two very different customers, say both, because that usually means two paths through the site.
Where do you work?
Named towns and counties. Not a radius. If you charge extra past a point, note where that point is.
What do you not do?
The most useful line in the whole worksheet. It stops the wrong calls, and it tells a designer what to leave off.
2. The problem with the current site
What is wrong with what you have now?
Be specific. “It looks dated” is a feeling. “I cannot change the prices without calling someone” is a requirement.
What do customers call and ask that the site never answers?
These are your missing pages. Write down five.
Which pages currently bring in work?
Check your analytics rather than guessing. This is the list nobody looks at, and it is the list that stops a rebuild deleting the one page that was earning.
What must not break?
A page that ranks. A form that feeds something. A link printed on a flyer. Anything with a phone number on a van.
3. What the site has to do
Tick what applies, and write a sentence next to each.
- Describe services and get people to call
- Take a form and route it somewhere
- Take a booking against real availability
- Take a payment
- Let customers sign in and see something
- Sell products
- Something the business does internally
The first two are a website. The rest are software, and they are priced differently. Being honest here is the single biggest thing you can do to get comparable quotes.
The one thing you want a visitor to do:
If you named more than one, put them in order.
4. Content
Who is writing the words?
Circle one: us, them, or a mix. This is the question that decides your timeline. Website projects run late on content, not design.
What already exists that is worth keeping?
What photography do you have?
Real photos of your work, your building, your team. If the answer is none, that is a task with a date on it, not a detail.
What do you have that nobody else has?
Job photos, a specific method, a piece of local knowledge. This is the part of the site that cannot be copied.
5. The page list
Write out every page you think you need. Name it, and in one line say what it is for and what the visitor does there.
| Page | What it is for | Next step |
|---|---|---|
Most small business sites are between eight and fifteen pages. If your list is forty, some of those are sections of other pages. If it is three, you probably have services that deserve their own.
6. Practical constraints
Budget range. A range is fine. “I do not know” is fine too, but then say what the job is worth to you, because that is the number that matters.
Date it needs to be live, and why. A trade show, a season, a lease. If there is no reason, say so, and everyone relaxes.
Who approves the work? One name. Not a committee.
What do you already pay for? Hosting, domain, a booking tool, a mail tenant. Some of it will carry over and some will be replaced.
7. Access
Find these before the project starts, not in week six. This list has added a month to more projects than any design disagreement.
- Domain registrar login
- Current hosting login
- Google Business Profile, and which account manages it
- Analytics and Search Console, if they exist
- Who runs your email
- Any tool the site connects to
Every business has at least one thing running through a former employee’s personal account. Find yours now, while that person still answers the phone.
8. What you expect at the end
Write down what you expect to own and be able to do. Then ask for it in writing before work starts.
- The domain is registered in our business name and we can log in
- We can edit these specific things ourselves: ________________
- Copy, images and templates made for us transfer to us on final payment
- We receive the logins, the files, and a written note of what lives where
- We know what the first year costs in total, including hosting and care
Using this
Send the filled-in version to whoever you are asking. You will get quotes for the same job instead of three different imaginations, and the conversation starts at the second question rather than the first.
If a firm cannot answer against this, that is useful information. If they push back on section 8, that is more useful still.
You are welcome to send it to us, and just as welcome to send it to someone else.
The Website Brief Worksheet · Strataveo · strataveo.com/guides/website-brief-worksheet
Keep a copy
Nothing here sits behind a form. Take it, use it, send it to whoever you like.
This one lives on the page rather than in a download. It is laid out to print: the site chrome drops away, the checkboxes come out as boxes you can tick, and it fits on paper you can write on.
If you would rather we sent it to you, or you want it adapted for your trade, use the contact form and say which guide.
Tell us what you need built.
No pitch deck and no discovery fee. Most engagements start with a single site, and we add the rest only when it earns its place.
- Send a short brief, or just a link to the site you have now.
- We reply within two business days with questions, or a time to talk.
- You get scope, sequence and a price range in writing before anything starts.