The ultimate key to getting a website that you love, is writing the perfect brief!
If you’re considering investing in a new website or are already in the process of developing a new ecommerce website with a web design agency, you’ll need to ensure that your website brief is optimised for success. Whether you’ve already written a brief and simply need to make amends or you’re starting from scratch, we’ve gathered our top tips for writing a perfect website brief that ensures you achieve the outcome you’re envisioning. Without further ado, let’s dive in!
1. Provide an in-depth overview of your business
Having a deep understanding of your business and what your company does is essential for an agency to build a website that aligns with your values, vision and business goals. A thorough description of your business, day-to-day operations and your product or service gives designers the room to think of new ideas and functionalities that could significantly benefit your business.
Start by answering the following questions and expand wherever you feel it’s relevant or necessary and remember, the more honest and transparent you are about where your company is now and where you want to get to, the more designers can align with your goals and create a website that drives growth;
- What does your business do? How long have you been in business? Where are you based? How many employees do you have?
- What are your brand values? Do you have a mission statement? What is your vision for the future? How do you differentiate from the competition? What do you want your new website to convey about your brand? (If you have any branding documents or guidelines, it’s a good idea to share them with your web design agency).
2. Get clear on your number one objective for your new website
Getting clear on your goal is key to ensuring that your digital agency is on the same page. Whether you want to drive conversions, maximise leads, build a community of like-minded people with a show-stopping content hub or something more niche, honing in on your number one goal will stand you in good stead for building a website that exceeds your expectations. We’ve gathered some of the most common goals we see to help you:
- Increase sales and revenue
- Generate more qualified leads and enquiries
- Strengthen online presence with a modern and mobile responsive website design
- Boost customer engagement
- To rank higher on Google
3. Be honest about your budget & timeline
Being honest with your web design agency about your budget and desired timeline is the best way to save time and energy for team and your agency. A reliable digital agency will be honest in telling you if your budget is unrealistic for what you want to achieve and that’s the case, they should then provide their professional opinion for the best possible solution. Alternatively, if your budget is aligned with your goals, an agency will be able to provide a comprehensive proposal for you to review. Either way, honestly is always the best policy!
4. Research your target audience and site users
If you haven’t already got a good handle on your target audience, site visitors and customer personas, it’s time to knuckle down and get to grips with who your customers are (or will be). Undertake in-depth research into your existing customer base to identify trends in demographics (e.g. location, age, occupation) and psychographics (e.g. preferences, beliefs, values) that can help you to align your new website with your audience on a deeper level. By sharing specific demographic data with your web design agency, they will ensure your new site is designed specifically with the end-user in mind. Helping to ensure that your site resonates with your target audience and had a better chance of converting first-time site visitors into loyal advocates.
5. Conduct competitor analysis
Giving your web design agency an insight into your competitors and where you sit within the market is a great way to ensure that they design the website in a way that beats the competition and makes your brand memorable in the eyes of your target audience. We recommend listing your top 5 direct competitors and identify what their websites are doing well and what they’re doing not so well. This infinitely helps a team of designers and developers to pinpoint exactly what you love and what you don’t like about competitor sites. Ultimately, allowing them to develop exciting new ideas that beat the competition and set your brand apart.
6. Gather inspirational websites & unique features you love
In the same vein, gathering your favourite websites and a list of unique features that you absolutely love (and reasons why if you’re being extra generous!), will help to ensure your designers are on the same page in terms of the look and feel and market position of your brand. Your inspirational websites don’t have to be confined to your industry, branch out and have a really good research and think about which sites you like and why. Sharing this with your web design agency will help them to understand your unique vision and ensure their initial designs align with your goals.
7. Think about branding & visual identity
Branding and visual identity are paramount to building a website that you love. Review your existing brand (if you have one) and compare it to your competitors, if it feels outdated, irrelevant or boring, you’ll know it’s time to take your branding to the next level. After all, a website design has to capture brand identity in order to feel consistent with your other visual branding elements. Many agencies offer a branding service so don’t hesitate to ask. If you’re happy with your existing brand, be sure to share your logo, brand colours, typography and brand guidelines as these will form the parameters of many aspects of your new website.
8. Consider technical requirements
Technical requirements are often overlooked because they can be confusing and difficult to label. We’d recommend writing a list of all of the functionalities your new website requires to help your agency to assess how much time each feature will take. This enables you to pick and choose the features that will provide the most value and perhaps you can drop a few that require extensive coding, if they’re not going to provide the tangible results you’re looking for. Examples of technical requirements include:
- Multilingual website
- A location map
- WCAG accessible
- Third-party integrations (which ones, if you know?)
- Online payment portal
- Room calculator functionality
- VAT toggle
- Free sample feature
9. Decide who will be responsible for content population
One of the biggest bottlenecks when it comes to web design is content population. It’s so important to set out who will be writing, editing and populating or exporting content right from the outset to avoid delays when you’re further down the line. If you have an existing website, are you happy with all of the content and simply need your agency to export it? Do you need your agency to write content for you or are you happy to write it all in-house? Who will populate your content? Do you and your team want to populate within the content-management system (CMS) or do you want your agency to take care of this? Be sure to communicate your thoughts (even if you’re not 100% sure) within your brief as this will help your agency to prepare, plan ahead and ensure that your content doesn’t slow down the launch of your shiny new site!
10. What are your benchmarks for success?
Finally, set out some benchmarks for success. If your number one goal is to drive sales, will increasing online conversions be the metric you track? Or perhaps it’ll be wholesale orders that come in thanks to the elevated professionalism and credibility your new site conveys? Whatever your goal, ensure you communicate your benchmarks for success and a good web agency will ensure that your new site is set up to do just that!
And there we have it! Our top 10 tips for writing the perfect website brief. As an experienced web design and ecommerce agency, we’re in the perfect position to give advice on this topic and we know first-hand that clients who nail-down their vision, goals, target audience and competitors are the ones who see the most success post-launch. If you need a helping hand, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
