BRIEF

Why is it important to create a web design brief?

Establishing a positive working relationship with your website team from the outset is key to ensuring everyone is aligned and working toward the same goal. Your brief should clearly outline your requirements, offering a concise overview of your vision and the objectives you aim to achieve. This will enable your team to provide an accurate quote and realistic project timelines.

While it’s beneficial to share a comprehensive brief, there’s no need to delve too deeply at this stage. It’s helpful for us to have the essential details, but a detailed breakdown of your five-year business strategy isn’t necessary to get started!

About You

The first step is to provide us with some background information about your company and an overview of what you do. Please include the following details:

• Your company name and website address
• A brief description of your business and its activities
• How long your company has been operating (e.g., is it a start-up or has it been in business for over 20 years?)
• Your location
• Annual turnover, to help us understand the scale of your operations

Objectives

What are your short-term and long-term goals for your business and website? This could include objectives like “we aim to double our conversion rate within the next year” or “we want to expand a specific area of our business.” Sharing a few key bullet points will give us valuable insight into what you hope to accomplish with the website build.

Logo design & Branding

Do you already have a logo and brand guidelines for us to work with? If so, would you like us to update the design or maintain the current one? Alternatively, if you’re a start-up, you might need a fresh, innovative logo and branding to match your new site. Regardless, it’s important for us to know, as your logo and branding will shape the overall design of the website.

Target Audience

One of the first steps in the initial process is to analyze your target audience and determine how to design the site in a way that specifically appeals to them. Therefore, it’s crucial for us to gather as much information as possible about your customers.

Your current website

It’s always helpful to share a link to your current website (even if you’re not satisfied with it!). From there, you can let us know what you like and don’t like about the existing site, which elements you’d like to keep in the new design, and which areas you want to remove or improve.

Your benchmark

Are there any websites you’ve come across that offer a similar service or feature functionality you aim to have on your new site? Sharing examples of key competitors or websites that you find appealing will help us better understand your preferences, dislikes, and the outcomes you’re hoping for.

Content

One of the most effective ways to ensure your project progresses smoothly is to have your content ready as early as possible. Providing your website content at the start of the project helps guide key design decisions and gives us a clear understanding of what you do or offer. We’ll also need to know how many pages you require and if you need us to source images, videos, or graphics. Content delivery is often the main hurdle that delays projects, so it’s crucial to consider it from Day 1. The amount of content you plan to display will directly influence the website’s design—for example, a page with 2,000 words will need a different layout compared to one with just 200.

Technical functionality requirements

This is the section where it’s crucial to be as detailed as possible and provide us with all relevant information. Your functionality requirements could include features such as:

• A blog or newsfeed
• Social media feeds
• A forum
• An online booking system
• Account registration
• Ecommerce
• Specific payment or shipping needs
• API integration

Wherever possible, describe not just what you need, but also how you want it to look and function. For example, if you want users to register for an account, how should the registration process work? What features should the user dashboard or profile include? If you need ecommerce functionality, how many products are you selling? Will you need advanced search and filtering options by category?

Your plans for the future

To ensure you get the best return on your investment in the long term, it’s important to share your future plans for the website with us. For example:

• Are there any features you’d like to add but don’t have the budget for at the moment?
• Do you plan to update or expand your content?
• Are you considering adding ecommerce functionality in the future?

By understanding all these details, we can plan how to future-proof your site, making sure it remains effective and adaptable for the long haul.

Budget

Many people may not have experience working with a digital agency and might be unaware of the costs involved in creating a custom website. It’s essential to remember that along with a bespoke website, you’re also paying for professional services. Providing us with a general idea of your budget helps us determine what can realistically be achieved within your project scope to meet your goals.

For example, a larger budget allows us to dedicate more time to elements like UX design, advanced interactive features, and custom functionality. On the other hand, if your budget is only a few hundred pounds, you might find that a freelancer or a DIY website builder, such as WIX, is a better fit for your needs.

Deadline

Project deadlines can vary widely depending on the client. You might prefer to take as much time as needed to achieve your website goals without a strict timeline. However, if you have a specific launch date in mind, it’s crucial to let us know from the outset. This allows us to assess feasibility and establish key project milestones to ensure we stay on track.

On average, our website projects take 4 to 12 weeks to design and develop, depending on the complexity of the requirements.

SEO

To grow your business, creating an effective website is an excellent first step, but it’s equally crucial to plan how you’ll attract visitors to it. If SEO is a priority, it’s essential to communicate this from the start, as it will significantly influence the site’s design. For redesign projects, providing your current analytics data can offer valuable insights into your website’s performance and highlight areas for potential improvement.

Hosting

Please provide us with access to your hosting control panel or FTP/SFTP credentials, along with your MySQL details. Additionally, ensure your hosting meets the following requirements:

• PHP version 7.0 or higher is necessary for installing WordPress.
• MySQL version 5.6 or above is required.
• Sufficient disk space is available — we recommend at least 1-5GB, depending on the size of your website and its files.