Often businesses rush into website projects without clear goals, leading to delays, miscommunication, budget over-runs, and missed opportunities. The solution? A well-structured, strategic brief that sets out clear expectations, empowers your web agency to do their best work, and ensures your website delivers on time, on budget, and on brand.

Having spent all of my career on one or other side of the client-agency relationship, here’s my checklist of everything you need to include in a website brief to get the best results from the briefing process..

Start with a Written Brief

The very exercise of writing the brief helps to articulate the purpose of your website, why you’re developing or re-designing it now, and what you want it to achieve for your business. 

What to include in the brief

Start by including everything that you think is relevant and work on the basis that the agency is not familiar with your business. Even if you have worked with them before it never hurts to refresh everyone’s knowledge and understanding.

Website Objectives

Set out the goals for the website and be specific as possible. Common objectives include:

• Increase traffic to the website
• Drive enquiries and/or online sales from prospective clients or customers
• Deliver Specific Services Online
• Improve user experience (UX)
• Enhance brand presence and credibility
• Automate Certain Business Functions
• Add customer service capacity with self-service options

Always link your main KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) to the objectives to measure the impact of the new site e.g. conversion rate, bounce rates, forms completed, average time on site.

Background & Context

Briefly outline the history of your business especially if heritage is an important part of your brand story. 

Detail your offering (services, products, brands), and outline your sales/service channels - online, ecommerce, stores, offices, distributors, mix – and how the sales/delivery strategy relates to this new website. 

List out your main competitors and where your business is positioned versus others in the market. Are you market leader, new entrant? Highlight websites of competitors that you like and why.

Target Audience(s)

This is a crucial element of the brief because ultimately the website must appeal to and work for your customers so it’s essential that the agency have a deep understanding of who they are. Include demographic details (age, income bracket, geographical location, lifestage), their needs & pain points (what problem is your product/service solving) and the customer journey. Be sure to include any customer research, client feedback or target audience personas that have been developed.

Functional requirements

This section defines what the website should do in terms of functionality be that contact forms, lead captures, ecommerce, client login areas (the "client portal"), integrations with other systems (including API), accessibility, multi-lingual capabilities and so on. 

Business and brand owners can sometimes feel out of their depth when it comes to technical specifications. The agency doesn’t expect you to be a technical expert, that’s their job, so my advice is to describe what you need the site to do in non-technical language or show examples of functions on other websites that you like. 

If you are replacing or upgrading an existing website, It’s always useful to list what you like and don’t like on your current website, as well as a note on whether you already have a content management system or have a particular one in mind. Note any issues you have with your current site or CMS, or any pet hates you may have around it. If you’re not sure, your web agency can make well informed recommendations on CMS choice as well as on any other functionality and apps you might wish to build or integrate, and should be able to provide you with a demonstration of their benefits.

Brand 

Your website is one of your brand’s most valuable assets so it’s important that it fully reflects the brand visually, tonally and experientially. If you have a set of brand guidelines (logos, colour palate, typography) then certainly include it with the brief. Even if you don’t have guidelines, you can share examples of previous marketing campaigns that will help your agency to get a good feel for your brand. Again, here is a good plan to list out other websites that you like and explain why.

Timelines & Budget

Setting out timelines and milestones for presentations, reviews and approvals makes for a much more pleasant project. Agree expectations and key dates with your agency to keep everyone on track. A defined budget (or budget range) is also essential.

Ways of Working

Creative projects work best when there is a collaborative approach between the agency and the client. I wholeheartedly recommend in-person meetings for the initial briefing and for key presentations as it builds rapport and mutual understanding across the full team. Some agencies will have their own processes and methodologies which can truly enhance your overall project management.

Communicraft practices an agile-based approach that breaks down large projects into smaller, manageable iterations called sprints. They also utilise tools and well-proven methodologies to guarantee the best UX and customer experience. These best practice techniques ensure the highest quality, secure, and robust solutions to your web brief.

Final Thoughts: 

The Better the Brief, the Better the Build

Investing time upfront in a clear, strategic brief saves time, money, and stress later. It sets the foundation for a smooth process, strong creative work, and a website that drives real business value.

So don’t rush it. Build your brief like you want your website to be built: thoughtfully, collaboratively, and with your goals front and centre.

Olive Fogarty is Brand & Marketing Strategy Associate with Communicraft, and is a proven leader in growing businesses, building brands and leading teams across a range of sectors including Marketing Services, Media, Telcos, Financial Services, FMCG, Technology, Healthcare and Public Sector. At Communicraft, Olive leverages over 30 years of brand and marketing experience. A natural problem-solver, she combines critical thinking, commercial acumen, pragmatism, and energy to drive success in every project.