How to write a website brief — a template an agency can use straight away

Every web project that runs late or over budget shares a common cause in 90% of cases: a poor or non-existent brief. Not because the client is not smart, but because nobody explained what a brief should contain. The agency proceeds on assumptions, the client believes they are aligned, and when the first design iteration arrives — it turns out both imagined something different.

What a good brief must include: (1) Business goal of the site — not 'to have a website', but concretely: 'to generate 20 enquiries per month' or 'to reduce phone calls by 40% by moving to online booking'. (2) Target audience — who comes to the site, what they want to achieve, what stops them from contacting immediately. (3) Scope — which pages, which features (form, calculator, filters, multilingual, login area). (4) Technical constraints — does an existing system need integration, what hosting, who updates content. (5) Competition — three to five sites you consider good and bad in your market, with a short comment on why.

What a brief does not need to include: the exact design, chosen colours, or a specific technology. That is the agency's job. A brief describes the problem and context — the solution comes afterwards. Clients who write 'we want dark green with gold and a font like Nike' into the brief usually get aesthetic preferences, not a site that converts.

A common mistake: scope without priorities. 'We need a forum, blog, webshop, calculators, more than 50 pages, and a mobile app' — with no information about what is the MVP and what is nice-to-have. An agency receiving this brief must assume priorities, which is always risky. Better: 'Phase 1 is a webshop with 20 products and newsletter integration, Phase 2 the blog, Phase 3 the calculator.'

A template you can use right now: company name and industry / URL of existing site / project goal (one sentence) / target audience (three key characteristics) / scope — list of pages and features / integrations (CRM, payment, booking, API) / deadline and indicative budget / who makes final decisions and who participates in approvals. That is enough for the first agency session.

At Feather Studio we always run a discovery session before the proposal — but a brief filled in advance reduces the number of questions and speeds up arriving at a precise scope and price. Book a call or see how our website development process works.