A clearer brief for a better website project.

Most website redesigns go wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with design: unclear goals, content nobody owns and a launch that quietly breaks search traffic. A good brief prevents all three.

Copy the sections below into a document, answer them with your team, and share it with any agency or developer you are considering.

1. Business goal

• What should the website achieve in the next 12 months? (For example: qualified enquiries, product demos, applications, support deflection.)
• How will you know it worked? Pick one or two measurable outcomes.
• What is wrong with the current site, specifically?

2. Audiences

For each important audience, write:

• Who they are and what they already know about you.
• The question they arrive with.
• The action you want them to take.

If you list more than three primary audiences, prioritize.

3. Content

• Which pages exist today, and which will be kept, rewritten, merged or removed?
• Who writes and approves new copy? Content is the most common cause of delays.
• What evidence can you publish — case studies, team profiles, certifications — and do you have permission to use it?

Avoid placeholder testimonials, stock logos or unverified claims. They erode trust and can create legal risk.

4. Structure and SEO

• Export the current URL list and search performance data before changing anything.
• Keep existing URLs wherever the content survives. Where a page moves or merges, plan a one-hop permanent (301) redirect to the closest equivalent.
• Decide one canonical URL per topic, and avoid near-duplicate pages.
• Plan titles, descriptions and structured data for each key page.

5. User experience and accessibility

• What is the primary navigation, and what is the one call to action on each key page?
• Commit to a recognized accessibility standard such as WCAG 2.2 AA, and include keyboard and screen-reader checks in testing.
• Consider dark mode, reduced-motion preferences and readable text sizes on small screens.

6. Performance

• Set targets using Google’s Core Web Vitals “good” thresholds: Largest Contentful Paint at or under 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint at or under 200 ms and Cumulative Layout Shift at or under 0.1, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits.
• Agree on an image strategy (modern formats, correct sizing) and a limit on third-party scripts.

7. Technology and ownership

• Who will edit content after launch, and how technical are they?
• Where will the site be hosted, and who controls the domain, DNS and hosting accounts?
• Who owns the code and design files at the end of the project?

8. Measurement

• Which events matter: form submissions, calls, email clicks, downloads?
• How will consent be handled for analytics?
• Who reviews the numbers, and how often?

9. Timeline and budget

• Is there a fixed launch date, and why?
• What budget range are you working within, including post-launch support?

Using the brief

A completed brief lets vendors give comparable proposals and lets your team make faster decisions during the project. Expect a good partner to challenge parts of it — that is a sign they have read it.

If you would like feedback on your brief, send it to us.