Most business owners who have had a bad experience with a web design project can point to the same root cause: the brief was not clear enough at the start.
Not because they were being difficult or careless. Most people simply do not know what a good web design brief looks like, because nobody has ever told them. They have a general idea of what they want, they explain it as best they can, and then they are surprised when the result does not match their vision.
A well-written brief solves this problem before it starts. It gives your web designers exactly what they need to produce work that fits your business, your brand and your goals. It also protects you throughout the project, because decisions can be measured against the original brief rather than being left to interpretation.
This guide explains what to put in a web design brief, how to structure it, and what level of detail is actually helpful versus unnecessary.
What Is a Web Design Brief?
A web design brief is a document that describes what you need your website to do, who it is for, what it should look and feel like, and what success looks like once it is live.
It does not need to be long or technical. It does not need design specifications, wireframes, or anything that requires technical knowledge to produce. What it needs is clarity. A two-page brief that is specific and honest is far more useful than a ten-page document full of vague aspirations.
Think of it less like a specification and more like a conversation starter. The brief gives your designer enough to ask the right follow-up questions and build something that genuinely reflects your business.
Why a Good Brief Matters
A strong brief benefits everyone involved in the project.
For you, it means the work that comes back is far more likely to match what you had in mind. It reduces the number of revision rounds, reduces frustration, and reduces the chance of scope creep pushing the cost up.
For the designer or agency, it means they can get started with confidence rather than making assumptions. They can plan the project properly, allocate the right amount of time, and produce work that solves a real problem rather than one they have guessed at.
Projects without a clear brief tend to drift. Decisions get made based on personal preference rather than strategy. The site ends up looking fine but performing poorly because nobody was clear about what it needed to achieve.
What to Include in a Web Design Brief
1. About Your Business
Start with the basics. Your designer needs to understand your business before they can design anything for it.
Include:
- What your business does, in plain terms
- How long you have been trading
- Where you are based and where you serve customers (local, national, international)
- Your key products or services
- What makes you different from your competitors
- Any awards, credentials or trust signals worth highlighting
Do not assume the designer knows your industry. Explain it as you would to an intelligent person who has never heard of your sector.
2. The Purpose of the Website
This is the most important section of the brief. What do you actually need the website to do?
Be specific. “I want a professional website” is not a goal. The following are goals:
- I want to generate enquiries from London-based businesses looking for a monthly accountant
- I want to sell handmade jewellery to customers across the UK
- I want to rank on Google for plumbers in Manchester and get phone calls
- I want to build credibility with potential corporate clients before a sales meeting
The more specific you are about the purpose, the more your designer can build towards it. Every design decision, from the layout of the homepage to the colour of the call-to-action button, should connect back to the goal.
If your website has more than one purpose, list them in order of priority. A site that tries to achieve ten things equally tends to achieve none of them particularly well.
3. Your Target Audience
Describe the people you most want to reach. Your designer needs to understand who the website is speaking to in order to make the right choices about tone, layout, imagery and content.
Cover:
- Who your typical customer is (age range, profession, location, buying motivation)
- What problems they are trying to solve when they find you
- How they typically search for businesses like yours (Google, word of mouth, social media)
- What concerns or objections they might have before they make an enquiry or purchase
- What would make them choose you over a competitor
You do not need to write a formal marketing persona. A few clear, honest paragraphs describing the person you are trying to reach is enough.
4. Your Competitors
List three to five of your main competitors and include their website URLs. Explain what you think they do well and what you think they do poorly.
This is not about copying competitors. It is about giving your designer context for the market you operate in, the visual language of your sector, and where there might be an opportunity to do something better or different.
Also consider including examples of websites from outside your industry that you find well designed or easy to use. This helps your designer understand your taste and what you mean by “modern” or “clean” or “professional,” since those words mean different things to different people.
5. Your Brand
If you have existing brand guidelines, share them. Include your logo files (ideally in vector format: .ai, .eps or .svg), your brand colours with their hex codes if you have them, and any fonts associated with your brand.
If you do not have formal brand guidelines, describe your brand in more informal terms:
- What adjectives describe your brand? Trustworthy? Friendly? Premium? Technical?
- What tone of voice does your business use? Formal and professional, or warm and conversational?
- Are there colours you definitely want to use, or definitely want to avoid?
- Is there an existing visual style you want to build on or move away from?
Being honest here is more useful than being aspirational. If your current brand is inconsistent and you are not sure what it should be, say so. A good agency can help you define it rather than just applying something arbitrary.
6. The Pages You Need
List the pages you expect the website to include. You do not need final headings or copy at this stage, just a list of what needs to exist.
A typical small business website might include:
- Homepage
- About us
- Services (either one page or individual pages per service)
- Portfolio or case studies
- Testimonials or reviews
- Blog
- Contact
If you need something more specific, such as a booking system, a price calculator, a members area, a job board, or an online shop, include those requirements here. Be as specific as you can about how you expect each feature to work.
7. Your Content Plan
Designers need content to work with. A brief should cover where your content is coming from and when it will be ready.
Answer the following:
- Will you write the page copy yourself, or do you need help with copywriting?
- Do you have professional photography, or will you be using stock images?
- Do you have video content, or does that need to be produced?
- Do you have existing content from your current site that can be reused, updated or replaced?
Be realistic here. Many business owners plan to write their own copy and then find it much harder than expected once the project is underway. If there is any doubt, factor in copywriting support from the start rather than discovering the problem mid-project.
8. Your Technical Requirements
You do not need to be technical to answer this section, but it is worth covering a few practical points.
Include:
- Do you have existing hosting you want to keep, or do you need new hosting arranged?
- Do you have a domain name, or does one need to be registered?
- Do you need email addresses set up alongside the website?
- Are there any integrations required, such as a CRM, booking platform, email marketing tool, or payment gateway?
- Does the site need to connect to any third-party systems or APIs?
- Do you have a preference for the platform the site is built on (for example, WordPress)?
If you are not sure about any of these, say so. A good agency will help you work through the answers.
9. Your Timeline
When do you need the website to be live? Is there a hard deadline, such as a product launch, a trade show, or a business opening date, or is the timeline more flexible?
Be honest about urgency. If you genuinely need the site live within four weeks, say so upfront so the agency can tell you whether that is achievable. If you are flexible, say that too. Knowing your timeline helps the agency plan and resource the project properly.
Also consider your own availability. If you are about to go on holiday for two weeks or have a busy period coming up where you will not be able to review work quickly, mention it. Timeline planning needs to account for your availability as well as the agency’s.
10. Your Budget
Many business owners feel uncomfortable including a budget in a brief. They worry it will cause the agency to price up to their limit rather than giving a fair quote.
In practice, the opposite is usually true. Knowing your budget allows an agency to design a proposal that fits what you can spend, rather than coming back with a quote that is either far too high or far too low for what you actually need.
You do not have to give a precise figure. A range is fine. “We are looking to spend between £3,000 and £5,000” gives the agency useful context. If you have absolutely no idea what budget is reasonable, the agency can help guide you, but it is worth doing a little research first so you can have a realistic conversation.
How Long Should a Web Design Brief Be?
There is no fixed length. For a small business website, a well-structured brief of two to four pages covering the sections above is plenty. For a larger or more complex project, it might run to six or eight pages.
What matters is not length but specificity. A brief that says “we want a modern, clean website that reflects our brand values and helps us grow” tells a designer almost nothing useful. A brief that says “we want a five-page WordPress site targeting London-based solicitors looking for a specialist accountant, generating phone enquiries, with a professional but approachable tone” gives them something to work with.
Be direct. Be specific. Do not pad.
What Not to Include in a Web Design Brief
Just as important as what to include is what to leave out.
Do not include:
- Detailed technical specifications unless you are genuinely technical and know what you are writing about. Incorrect technical requirements cause confusion rather than clarity.
- Prescriptive design instructions unless you have a strong, specific reason. Telling a designer exactly where every element should be positioned often produces worse results than describing the goal and letting them apply their expertise.
- Vague aspirational language without supporting context. “We want to be the best in our industry” is not helpful without context about what that means visually or functionally.
- Information about what you do not like without explaining why. “I do not like blue” is less useful than “blue feels too corporate for our brand, we are looking for something warmer.”
How to Share Your Brief
Once you have written your brief, share it as a document, either as a PDF, Word file or Google Doc, rather than pasting it into an email. A document is easier to reference, easier to share within the agency team, and sets a more professional tone for the project.
Include the brief in your first formal conversation with the agency rather than sending it cold. A brief works best as a starting point for discussion, not as a take-it-or-leave-it specification. The conversation around the brief often produces as much useful information as the document itself.
What Happens After You Submit the Brief
A good agency will read the brief carefully and come back with follow-up questions. This is a positive sign. It means they are taking the project seriously and thinking about it rather than just generating a number.
After the initial conversation, they should produce a proposal that reflects what you have described: a defined scope, a clear timeline, and a transparent price. If the proposal does not match the brief, or if significant elements of the brief have been ignored, raise that directly.
From this point, the brief becomes a reference document throughout the project. When a design decision is unclear or a question of direction arises, you can go back to the brief and ask: does this serve the purpose we defined at the start?
A Simple Web Design Brief Template
Here is a straightforward template you can adapt for your own project.
Business overview: What does your business do, who does it serve, and where does it operate?
Website purpose: What is the primary goal of the website? What do you want visitors to do when they land on it?
Target audience: Who are your ideal customers? Describe them in as much detail as you can.
Competitors: List three to five competitor websites. What do they do well and what do they do poorly?
Brand: Describe your brand. Include logo files, colours and any existing guidelines. If you do not have these, describe your brand in your own words.
Pages required: List all the pages you need. Note any specific features or functionality required on each page.
Content: Who is writing the copy? Do you have photography? What existing content can be reused?
Technical requirements: Hosting, domain, integrations, platform preference.
Timeline: When do you need the site to be live? Are there any hard deadlines?
Budget: What is your budget range for this project?
Websites you like: List three to five websites (inside or outside your industry) that you find well designed. Note what you like about each one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a web design brief before contacting an agency?
You do not need a fully written brief before your first conversation with an agency. A rough outline or a clear description of what you need is enough to get started. That said, the more prepared you are before the first conversation, the more productive it will be and the more accurate the resulting quote.
What is the most important thing to include in a web design brief?
The purpose of the website. Knowing what the site needs to achieve, specifically, is the single most useful piece of information a designer can have. Everything else, design, layout, tone, features, flows from that.
How specific do I need to be about the design?
Specific enough to communicate your taste and brand, but not so prescriptive that you are designing the site yourself before the designer has a chance to apply their expertise. Describe the feel you are after, share examples you like, and let the designer propose solutions. That is why you are hiring a professional.
What if I do not know what I want?
That is more common than you might think, and it is not a problem. A good agency can help you work through it during the initial consultation. Come prepared with a clear description of your business, your audience, and your goals. The visual and structural decisions can be developed through the conversation.
Should I include a budget in my brief?
Yes. A budget gives the agency the information they need to propose something realistic and appropriate. You do not need a precise figure. A range is fine. Leaving budget out entirely can lead to a mismatch between expectations and the proposal you receive.
Can DCP Web Designers help me write my brief?
Yes. If you are not sure where to start, get in touch and we can walk you through the key questions in a free consultation. Many clients come to us with a rough idea rather than a finished document, and we are happy to help shape it into something useful.
Summary: How to Brief a Web Designer
A good web design brief does not need to be complicated. It needs to be honest, specific, and focused on what the website is for and who it is serving.
Cover your business, your purpose, your audience, your competitors, your brand, your pages, your content plan, your technical needs, your timeline and your budget. Keep it direct and clear. Share it as a document and use it as the starting point for a proper conversation.
The time you invest in writing a good brief is paid back many times over in a smoother project, fewer revision rounds, and a website that actually performs.
If you are ready to start planning your website and want to talk through your brief with an experienced team, DCP Web Designers is here to help. We have been working with businesses across London and the UK since 2004 and have 300+ five-star Google reviews.
Get in touch today for a free consultation and no-obligation quote.
We are a team of expert web designers in London with over 20 years of experience helping businesses build professional, high-performing websites.
