How to Write a Website Brief: What Your Agency Needs to Know

A website brief is a short document that tells an agency what the site has to do for your business, who it is for, what has to go on it, and what limits it has to work within. A good one takes a few hours to write. It saves weeks later in the project, and it is the main reason two agencies quoting the same project send you numbers you can compare.

We read a lot of briefs. Some are one line in a contact form ("we need a new website"), some are 30-page tenders, and length tells you little about how the project will go. A brief works when it answers the questions that change scope, timeline and cost. This guide covers those questions, in the order we ask them in our own discovery.

What is a website brief?

A website brief describes the problem a new or redesigned site needs to solve and the conditions it has to meet. The look of the site comes later, when the agency turns your brief into a site map, wireframes and a design. Your part is the business context they cannot guess.

People also call it a website design brief, a project brief or, for larger organisations, an RFP (request for proposal). The format changes but the core is the same.

Why a website brief saves time and money

Almost every delay we see on web projects traces back to something that was not said at the start:

• Content nobody owned. The client assumed the agency would write the pages, and the agency assumed the client would supply them. That gap alone can stall a project for a month.
• A second language that appeared halfway through. Adding a language after the structure is built means reworking menus, URLs, forms and SEO settings.
• An integration nobody mentioned. Payment gateways, ERP stock feeds, booking systems and CRMs all carry approval steps and testing time outside the agency's control. Greek bank payment gateways in particular can take weeks to approve.
• Rankings that were not protected. A redesign of a site that already ranks needs a redirect plan. If the brief does not mention that the current site brings in leads from search, the redirect work may not be in the quote.

Each of these is easy to plan for in week one and expensive to discover in week ten.

The 9 sections every website brief should cover

You can write a good brief without a template if you give real answers in these nine areas. Bullet points are fine.

1. Your business in one paragraph

What you sell, to whom, and what makes you different from the three competitors a customer would also look at. Keep it short. We can read your current site and your brand guidelines, but we have no way of knowing how you describe yourself when a customer asks.

2. Why you need a new site now

This is the most useful sentence in any brief. "Our site looks old" leads to a very different project than "we are launching a B2B line and dealers cannot find spec sheets" or "we spend on ads but the landing pages do not convert". The reason tells the agency what to prioritise when time or budget gets tight.

3. Goals you can measure

Pick two or three: more leads from the contact form, more online orders, fewer support calls about the same questions, more time on product pages, better visibility in Google and in AI answers. If you already track numbers in Google Analytics, include the current baseline so everyone knows what "better" means.

4. Who the site is for

Skip the demographics and describe the people. What do they need to find, what do they worry about before buying, and what device are they on? A clinic's patients reading at night on a phone need something different from procurement managers comparing suppliers on a desktop.

5. Pages and features

List the pages you think you need and any features beyond standard content: e-shop, booking, member area, configurators, multilingual content, search, forms that feed a CRM. Mark each one as must-have or nice-to-have. That split lets an agency propose a phased plan instead of an all-or-nothing quote.

For a redesign, add your current traffic and any pages that bring in search visitors or leads today. Those pages need to survive the move.

6. Content: who writes, who supplies, by when

Say clearly who will write the copy, who supplies photos and video, and whether anything needs translating. In our proposals we set a content deadline at the end of the wireframes phase, because a design built around placeholder text often has to be redone when the real text arrives. If you know content will be slow, say so and we can plan around it.

7. Technical and integration requirements

Note anything the site has to connect to: payment providers, courier services, stock or ERP systems, newsletter tools, booking platforms, analytics and consent tools. Mention where your domain and email are hosted and who has access. If you have accessibility obligations (many EU businesses now do under the European Accessibility Act), include them here.

8. Timeline and fixed dates

Give the date you want to launch and say whether it is fixed (a trade show, a product launch, a season) or a preference. A fully custom site usually takes three to four months from kickoff to launch; a site built on a ready design system can be done in about six weeks. If your date is earlier than that, it is better to find out from the brief than in week ten.

9. Budget range

Most people leave this section out, and it saves the most time. A range is enough. It tells the agency whether to propose a custom build, a theme-based site, or a phased plan, so you get comparable proposals instead of a quote for something you would never buy. If you are not sure what a realistic range looks like, our guide to what drives website cost explains the main factors.

What to leave out of a website brief

A brief gets weaker when it tries to design the site. Skip:

• Colour and font choices, unless they are fixed brand rules. Share your brand guidelines instead.
• "Make it like this site" without the reason. Links to sites you like are useful, but add one line on what you like about each: the navigation, the photography, how the product pages are laid out.
• A full feature wishlist with no priorities. Twenty equal-weight features read as a bigger budget than you probably have.

How we turn a brief into a plan

Our process starts with what we call Kickoff with Coffee: two discovery sessions with the client and an intake form that fills any gaps the brief left. On one recent engineering project the client returned the intake form the same day as the kickoff, which let us move straight into structure work.

From there we build a brain map (how the business, audiences and content connect) and the site map, then wireframes, and only then move to UI design and development on custom WordPress, without page builders. Every project runs on its own Monday.com board so feedback and approvals stay in one place.

A clear brief shortens discovery, though we would still run it, because that is where we question assumptions on both sides. With a brief in hand, that conversation starts from the real problem.

Put search and AI visibility in the brief

If people find you on Google today, or you want them to find you in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews tomorrow, say it in the brief. It affects the site structure, the content plan and the technical setup from day one: clean headings, structured data, fast pages, and pages that answer real customer questions directly. Retrofitting it after launch costs more. Our article on GEO vs SEO explains what changes when AI engines become a traffic source.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a website brief be?

For most small and mid-sized businesses, two to five pages is enough. Length matters less than covering the goals, audience, features, content ownership, timeline and budget. Large organisations running a tender may need more, but agencies will still look for those same answers first.

Should I include a budget in my website brief?

Yes, at least as a range. Without one, agencies guess, and you end up comparing proposals for very different projects. A range lets each agency show you the best site they can build for it, or tell you plainly that it does not fit.

Can the agency write the brief for me?

Partly. A good agency will run discovery sessions and an intake form that turn a rough idea into a full brief. Only you know the business reasons, the internal constraints and the budget, though, so start with even a one-page draft. It makes the first meeting far more productive.

Is a website brief the same as an RFP?

They overlap. An RFP is a formal request sent to several agencies, usually with selection criteria and deadlines for proposals. A website brief is the core content inside it: what you need and why. Smaller businesses rarely need a formal RFP; a clear brief sent to two or three agencies works well.

Ready to start?

If you have a draft brief, or only the reason you need a new site, send it to us through our contact page. We will tell you what is missing, what it changes, and how we would approach it.