Website Brief | ©Mr Daniel M. Fisher | How to Maximise Your Presentation Skills.
- ©Mr Daniel M. Fisher
- Dec 23, 2025
- 5 min read
There are so many reasons why your business or organisation might need a new website brief and each reason can have an impact on the resultant product – i.e. How the new site looks and functions or maybe you are looking for your very first website or the bottom line is your current digital presence needs improving.
Your website is not designed to address one single issue it is meant to stand for your organisation entirely, and not simply to complete a sale, booking, donation, or enquiry, your website is the most important digital representation of your organisation and the most valuable digital marketing tool at your disposal.
You need something that shows who you are, what you need, and why you need it. Starting with a good brief is the only way to ensure your new website performs like you need it to for years to come. I will talk you through the process of writing a strong brief to take to a web agency, and everything you’ll need to include in that brief to achieve a website design of your dreams.
What you see here is based on delivering websites for my business – from people who have their new website strategy already mapped out by their marketing team, to my very first website where I had no idea of where to begin. A web brief will help you to find the right solution for the job, meeting your budget and requirements. A brief is not a fixed contract, but something that will naturally change and develop depending on how you work. But does form the basis of any website project and shows any non-negotiables if you have got any.
When the brief is a true and honest reflection of what you want, you will be able to set your expectations for the agency you work with, so you can both fully understand your organisation and what you’re aiming to achieve, they come in all different shapes and sizes, and the best ones always have certain things in common.
Give yourself a clear aim for the project by splitting your brief into sections, you can deal with each point one at a time. While your brief may be the first time anyone has ever heard of you, take a step back and ask yourself if the brief would make sense to someone outside of your organisation who doesn’t know how you run things.
Planning, designing, building, and populating a new website takes time and hard work, and the bigger and more complex your project is, the longer it will take to complete. This means you should be realistic about the budget needed to achieve your organisation’s goals.
It’s also important to be realistic about yourself – who you are and where you sit in your industry – as this will also have an impact on the best website strategy for you. Things that work for one organisation will not always apply to another, so be up-front about what you want. You will get the best response if people know exactly what criteria they are trying to meet, so don’t hide any key information, this is the best way to get a result that meets your expectations.
Fixed budgets or deadlines are key! And it is commonly understood that creative briefs should be short and to-the-point, but if you organise things clearly, there’s no such thing as too much detail! If you include all your requirements, you can know whether you can deliver what you need.
In-depth briefs also mean you have a far more correct goal as the most overlooked element of a great brief is that it should make people excited to collaborate with you. By sharing your long-term goals and plans within your industry, you will find people who share your vision and values. And even if you know exactly what you want from your website, other people will always have ideas that you would of never have considered. Hence, giving a little space to stretch those creative wings will always see you receive a more involved and innovative response.
Having a good brief can help both you and your audience. Here’s how…
If you don’t create a brief, building your website will have to develop by itself, and your audience cannot read your mind so there will be some back and forth as they try to find a solution that ticks all the boxes you have in your head. Save everyone time by telling them what you have in mind at the start, because saving time means saving costs!
When you understand the projects aims, it’s easier to see if the website has achieved what you asked of yourself, as by setting expectations at the start, you can measure the success of the project over a timescale. Because a proper brief means there won’t be any dispute as to whether your effort has delivered or not and provides a bit of security and confidence for both you and your public, which is something extremely valuable in a creative project.
To create a website involves a highly technical as well as artistic process. That’s a fancy way of saying that it’s a balancing act, one that blends your industry ability, and understanding of your audience, with web design and search engine best practice. Basically, you get out what you put in. So, if any of those factors are missing, the finished project will be lacking.
If you start with a brief that fully captures your vision and goals, your website will reflect that, and every other part of the project may change other parts of the job. This is why verbal briefings are best avoided because details get missed, and these might change the overall project result. So put everything in writing to keep a record of the projects progress.
In certain scenarios a verbal brief is a convenient way of working, but a web project is such a massive undertaking that it is also best to have a record of who has requested what, and when they’ve made that request. This will make meeting your needs and measuring project success after launch, a much easier process.
Once the project is underway, it may be that the brief must change to best meet your goals. And that is fine as the brief should never limit a project or prevent current ideas from being discussed. Explain clearly and specifically what you want to change, rather than a vague “make it more this-or-that”. As it is important to know that what seems like a small change can have a major impact on web development, especially if it comes a bit later down the line, and the time needed to make these changes might not be covered by the initial estimate.
You will want to find the solution that gives you exactly what you want, first time, and may also have some alternative solutions that achieve the same thing in a different way, while keeping costs down for you, but whatever happens, communication is the most important thing!
Give an overview of your organisation, any core values you have, and how you fit into your industry or market, because any good agency will conduct in-depth research into your company before collaborating with you. But they can only use information that’s publicly available, so share any key information that isn’t, so be honest and realistic about your position in your industry, too.
©Mr Daniel M. Fisher, of ®All Seasons Art Studio, 2025
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