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How to Write a Brief for your new website or rebuild of your old website

Written by TimBerr Website Designs and Solutions on .

TimBerr Designs will need to know a bit about your company in order to get a feel for how they should design your website.

  1. A couple of paragraphs about your company

  2. The products you sell or services you provide

  3. Are you an international company? If so, which countries?

  4. How long have you been established?

  5. Describe the company using five or ten words (e.g. young, vibrant, technology-based etc)

The Old website

If you have an existing web site firstly let the web design company know the URL! (the web address). Then answer the following questions:

  1. What is good about the website?

  2. What is bad about the website? (i.e. old colour schemes, outdated design)

  3. How long ago was it built? and who built it?

  4. What levels of traffic is it currently receiving?

  5. How often do you get a genuine sales lead through the website?

  6. Who is responsible for updating the site?

The New website

What do you need from the new website?

  1. Outline the aims of the website (to increase traffic, increase product awareness,

  2. generate more sales, offer e-commerce, advertise a new product or service)

  3. Who is the target audience?

  4. Is the new website part of a re-brand or a new product launch?

  5. Is there other advertising taking place that the new website should tie in with?

  6. What are the unique selling points for your company, your products, or your services?

  7. List a few competitors web sites.

The Look and Feel of the New Website

The website should be an extension of any offline media, advertising, or branding that you have. It is always helpful to be provided with a brochure, some marketing literature, or the annual report to help get a feel for the company.
It is worthwhile noting three or four websites that you like.
Do you have access to any corporate images?
Another area that is always overlooked is copywriting. Have you got the copy text ready to go into your website?

Promotion

You are proposing spending money on a new website, so you want customers to see it, right? So now consider how you will promote it.

Online Promotion

The online promotion of a website is often overlooked when considering the website brief. The promotion of your website on the internet, both in terms of getting it on the search engines and also building links with other websites is vitally important to the continued success of the site.

You should consider:

  1. Building link partners

  2. Search engine optimization and submission

  3. Search engine paid listings - Google Adwords (the sponsored links you see on the side of your search results)

  4. Email marketing - emails that are branded in line with the website.

  5. Adsense advertising on high traffic volume websites.

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