Writing the brief for your website.

Why write a project brief?

The project brief is the document that describes your project: who you are, what the website must achieve, for whom, with which features. Its first benefit: comparable quotes. Without it, each supplier prices a different project, and the prices mean nothing.

Its second benefit: it forces you to clarify your priorities BEFORE committing a budget. Two pages are enough: completeness is not the goal, clarity is.

The 7-point structure

• 1. The company: business, clients, area, what sets you apart. Five lines.
• 2. The website's goal: generate quotes? Sell? Recruit? One main goal, with a figure if possible.
• 3. The audiences: who visits, and what should each of them be able to do?
• 4. The scope: list of planned pages and features (online quotes, booking, payment, blog...).
• 5. The content: who provides the text and photos? This is THE point that delays projects.
• 6. References: 2 or 3 websites you like and why: the shortest route to your taste.
• 7. Budget and timescale: your range and your deadline. Hiding them wastes everyone's time.

The mistakes that cost a lot

• Putting everything at the same level: without priorities, the supplier decides for you.
• Describing solutions rather than needs: state the problem, and let the professional propose the how.
• Forgetting what comes after: who updates, who maintains, who tracks performance?
• Putting it off: an imperfect brief is better than a forgotten verbal briefing.

How to use it

Send the same document to every supplier you consult, and compare what comes back: the questions you are asked (a good sign), the points ignored (a bad sign), and the way each one turns your needs into a solution. The most expensive and the cheapest quotes can always be explained: ask for the breakdown.

What a project brief is not

Many business owners put this document off because they have the wrong idea about it. Three misunderstandings come up again and again, and clearing them up is often enough to get the writing started.

• It is not a technical document. You do not have to choose a programming language, a database or a host. That is the supplier's job, and a brief that imposes a technology without a business reason closes doors for nothing.
• It is not a contract. It commits no one until it is attached to a signed quote. You can change it between two meetings without consequence.
• It is not a doorstop. Four to six pages are enough for a showcase website. Beyond that, the document stops being read, including by you.

What it is, on the other hand: the only document that allows three suppliers to price the same thing. Without it, you are not comparing prices, you are comparing interpretations.

Writing each point, in practice

The seven-point structure above is the skeleton. Here is what to put in it, point by point, with the expected level of detail.

• Who you are. Three to five lines: your business, your area of operation, your size, what sets you apart from your direct competitors. Write it as if you were explaining it to a new client, not like a brochure.
• Who you are speaking to. The point most often rushed, and the most decisive. Describe one or two real audiences: their job, what triggers their search, what they want to check before calling you. A homeowner comparing three heating quotes and a technical director looking for a subcontractor do not read the same page.
• What the website must produce. Not an adjective, a result. Qualified quote requests, booked meetings, job applications, sales. If you cannot say what you expect, nobody will be able to design something to achieve it.
• The planned content. List the pages you have in mind, with one line on the role of each. Above all, specify who writes: you, your supplier, or a mix. This is the line that makes quotes vary the most.
• The features. Form, booking, client area, payment, multilingual, blog. For each one, state whether it is essential at launch or desirable later. That distinction is worth several hundred euros.
• The technical context. Do you already have a domain name, hosting, an existing website, software to connect? A website to redesign changes everything: there are URLs to keep and search rankings to protect.
• The framework. Your budget, even approximate, and your deadline, with the reason behind it. A trade show in March is not the same constraint as a vague wish to start the year off properly.

On budget, a point that rarely reassures at first: stating a budget does not make you pay more. It allows the supplier to offer you the best scope within that budget, instead of guessing and pricing off the mark.

How much time to spend on it

A brief for a showcase website takes two to four hours to write, spread over a few days. Breaking it up helps: a first session for your business and your audiences, a second for the pages and features, and a final one to reread it with fresh eyes.

The trap is wanting a perfect document before contacting anyone. A brief that is 80% there is more than enough to start the conversation. The remaining 20% gets clarified during the scoping session, in response to the supplier's questions, and that is normal.

If you are stuck on it for more than a week, it is often a sign that the project itself has not been decided. In that case, an early conversation will be more effective than a blank page.

The same document to three suppliers

The most practical benefit of the brief appears when you send it. Send exactly the same document to three suppliers, and look at what comes back.

• Prices become readable. Three quotes on the same scope can be compared line by line. Three quotes on three different scopes cannot be compared at all.
• The questions asked tell you something. A supplier who comes back with questions about your audiences, your deadlines or your content has read the document and thought about it. A supplier who sends a price without asking anything has sent a price list, not a proposal.
• The gaps reveal the assumptions. If one quote is significantly cheaper, look for what it has left out: content, SEO, training, revisions. That is almost always where the difference lies.

A quote that does not use your vocabulary or reflect your context is a standard quote. It will be renegotiated along the way, and rarely downwards.

Adapting the document to your type of project

The outline works for every project, but the effort does not go in the same place depending on what you are having built. Here is where to focus your attention.

• Showcase website. Most of it comes down to the audiences and the list of pages. One page per service, one page per area if you work in several towns, and a references page. The rest is decided quickly.
• Redesign. Add a whole chapter on what already exists: the number of current pages, those that bring you visits, those that receive external links, and what you want to keep. Without this chapter, no supplier can price the migration work.
• Online shop. The size of the catalogue, how product information reaches you, delivery options and payment methods. Also specify who will manage orders day to day, as this changes the design of the admin interface.
• Business tool or client area. Describe the user profiles and what each one must be able to do, in simple sentences. An accountant views invoices, a salesperson creates a quote. That is more useful than a list of features.
• Multilingual website. State the languages, who provides the translations, and whether the content is identical from one language to another or adapted by market. The answer to that last question sometimes doubles the workload.

In every case, one rule holds: a short, precise document about your business is better than a long, vague one. The supplier fills in the technical gaps, but cannot fill in the gaps about your business.

A skeleton you can copy

If the blank page stops you, copy this outline and fill it in order. Each heading matches a question you can already answer.

• Introduction: our business, our area, our headcount, what sets us apart.
• Audiences: who we want to reach, and what they want to check before contacting us.
• Purpose of the site: what we want it to deliver, and how we will know it works.
• Planned pages: the list, with the role of each one and who writes it.
• Features: essential at launch, then nice to have later.
• What already exists: domain, hosting, current site, tools to connect.
• Constraints: indicative budget, deadline and the reason for it, a single point of contact on the company side.
• What we don't want: three examples of sites or approaches you reject.

The last point is the most underrated. Saying what you don't want saves a whole round of mock-ups, because it rules out from the start directions the provider might have explored in good faith.

Once the quotes arrive

The specification keeps working after you send it. It is your reading grid for going through the replies without being impressed by the presentation.

• Go back to your seven points and tick those that each quote covers explicitly. A point that isn't mentioned isn't included, however friendly the conversation was.
• Spot the additions. A provider who suggests something you hadn't asked for, and explains why, is adding value. A provider who adds things without justification is inflating a quote.
• Spot the omissions. A cheaper proposal that has quietly dropped the copywriting or the SEO is not answering the same request.
• Attach the signed document. Once you have chosen a provider, the specification should be attached to the quote. That is what makes the scope binding on both sides.

Finally, keep it. In two years, when you develop the site or change contact, this document will explain why the choices were made as they were. It is often the only written record of the project.