How to write a website brief: a 10-point checklist

This is the checklist we use ourselves. When someone reaches out to Locomotive, our project assistant walks them through these same points, because they're exactly what we need to give a useful answer quickly. Below, each item comes with why it matters and a weak answer side by side with a useful one.

For most organizations, a brief is all it takes to start talking with agencies. A formal request for proposals is heavier to write and to answer, and mostly makes sense when procurement rules require one. If that's your situation, read how to write a website redesign RFP; the brief below still makes a solid first draft.

1. Project overview

Your goals, your audiences, and what sets you apart from competitors. Everything else gets read through this lens: the same site map means something very different for a startup raising funds and for an institution recruiting staff.

• Weak: "We want a modern website that reflects who we are."
• Useful: "We sell to facility managers at mid-size hospitals. Our main goal is qualified demo requests. Our competitors take months to install; we take days, and the site never says so clearly."

2. Digital requirements

What isn't working with the current site or digital presence, any related projects, and a rough site map. Problems give us something to solve, and a site map shows the size of the job.

• Weak: "The current site is outdated."
• Useful: "Visitors can't find pricing, the blog and product pages live on two platforms, and a customer portal launches next spring. Rough site map attached: about 40 pages, plus 300 articles."

3. Content strategy

Whether you have a content strategy, and whether your team will write and produce the content or needs a hand. Content is one of the most underestimated parts of a website project, and it's often the thing that pushes a launch back.

• Weak: "We'll provide the content."
• Useful: "Our marketing team will rewrite the main pages. We need help with structure, a product photo shoot and translation of 30 pages."

4. Brand and design

Your brand guidelines, any design requirements, and whether a brand refresh is part of the project. A site designed around a brand that's about to change will need rework.

• Weak: "Clean and modern, like Apple."
• Useful: "Guidelines attached. The logo and colours stay, but the typography and photography no longer feel right. We're open to a light brand refresh as part of the project."

5. Technical specifications

Your CMS preference, hosting, the APIs and third-party tools the site must connect to, and whether it needs to be multilingual. These details move an estimate more than almost anything else.

• Weak: "Must be easy to update."
• Useful: "No CMS imposed; our team uses HubSpot for marketing. The site must sync products from our ERP, be in English and French, and pass IT's security review. We'd like hosting included."

6. Content management

Who will update the site after launch: your team, the agency, or both. The answer shapes how we set up the CMS, and the training and support you'll need.

• Weak: (left blank)
• Useful: "Two marketers will publish news and events weekly. We'd like the agency to handle larger page changes and technical updates."

7. Budget constraints

Your budget range. It's the item people leave out most often, and the one that saves everyone the most time. Without it, agencies have to guess, and you end up with proposals you can't compare.

• Weak: "To be determined based on proposals."
• Useful: "Between [lower amount] and [upper amount] for design and development, with a separate yearly budget for hosting and support."

8. Schedule and milestones

Your critical dates, the target launch, and whether a launch event is planned. A fixed date changes how we phase the work.

• Weak: "As soon as possible."
• Useful: "Launch before our annual conference on October 15. The board approves the budget in March, so we can start in April."

9. Decision-making process

Who approves what, how many agencies you're talking to, and what drew you to each one. Agencies shape their proposal and presentation around the people who will decide.

• Weak: "Management will decide."
• Useful: "The marketing director leads, the CEO signs. We're talking to three agencies and want to decide by the end of the month. We contacted you after seeing your work for a company in our sector."

10. Legal and compliance

Contracts, procurement terms, privacy laws, accessibility standards or industry rules that apply. Discovering them late gets expensive.

• Weak: (left blank)
• Useful: "We're subject to Quebec's Law 25, the site must meet WCAG 2.2 AA, and our standard services agreement is attached."

Our checklist closes with two short items: any project challenges you already see coming, such as internal politics, a legacy system or a tight team, and the next steps you expect, including how and when you'd like to receive proposals.

Write a brief when you're free to choose your agency and want to compare a few partners through conversations. It's quicker to produce, and it invites agencies to poke at your assumptions and bring options you hadn't considered. That's often where the most interesting ideas show up.

Write an RFP when your organization's rules require a formal, documented selection: public bodies, regulated sectors, large companies with a procurement team. It adds a fixed response format, a scoring grid and deadlines. Our guide on how to write a website redesign RFP covers those extra parts.

Either way, skip the request for free design concepts. Ask for relevant past work, a proposed approach and a conversation with the people who would actually do the work.

Website brief template

To turn this checklist into a template, copy the ten headings into a document and answer each in a few sentences. Attach what you already have, such as brand guidelines, a site map, analytics or a draft contract. If you don't know an answer yet, say so: "budget not yet approved, expected range…" is still far more useful than a guess.

Write a first version in an afternoon, then share it with the two or three people who will approve the project. Their reactions usually surface the real priorities, and the budget question, before any agency sees a word.

Then send the same brief to the agencies on your list and compare how they respond: the questions they ask often tell you more than the proposals themselves. Browse our case studies, such as the Mate Libre online store, to see what a well-framed project can become. And if your brief has some ambition in it, we'd love to read it.