How to Write a Website Development Brief

A website brief is the foundation of a smooth build. It tells the team who the site is for, what it must achieve and what counts as done. The clearer the brief, the better the estimate — and the fewer surprises at launch.

What a website brief should cover

Audience and business goals

• Who visits the site and what they are trying to do
• The business goals the site must support — enquiries, sales, information
• How success will be measured

Pages, content and enquiries

• The pages and page types you need
• Who writes the content and what already exists
• The enquiry journeys — forms, contact paths and next steps
• Product information and whether a catalogue is required

CMS, integrations and launch

• Who will edit the site and what they need to change
• Integrations — analytics, CRM, payments, forms
• Existing URLs and redirects to preserve
• Performance, accessibility and launch acceptance criteria

A working example

Here is a clearly hypothetical manufacturing website brief, condensed to show the shape.

• Audience: buyers and specifiers researching a supplier
• Goals: more qualified enquiries and clearer product information
• Pages: home, products, capabilities, about, case examples, contact
• Content: company supplies product copy and photography
• Enquiries: product-specific enquiry forms routed to sales
• CMS: marketing team edits pages without developer help
• Integrations: analytics and enquiry-to-email
• Redirects: preserve all existing product URLs
• Acceptance: every enquiry journey works end to end and the site is fast on mobile

Assets the client should supply

• Logo and brand assets in usable formats
• Product photography and media
• Final copy or a clear plan for who writes it
• Access to any accounts the site must integrate with
• A list of existing URLs that must keep working
• One person with authority to approve decisions

Why this improves the build

A good brief reduces assumptions and rework. It also gives the team a shared definition of done, so the launch is judged against agreed criteria rather than changing expectations.

Conclusion

Take the time to document audience, goals, pages, content and acceptance before development starts. It is the cheapest way to improve both the estimate and the final website.

• Read: How Much Does a Business Website Cost to Build?→
• Explore the Durafoam case study→