Website Brief Template for Irish Businesses: A Practical Guide

A strong website brief does not tell a designer to “make it modern”. It explains the business problem, the customers, the required journeys, the evidence available and the constraints that will shape a successful decision.

This practical template helps Irish businesses prepare for a new website or redesign. Copy the questions into a document, answer what you know and mark genuine unknowns. A thoughtful five-page brief is more useful than a 50-page wish list nobody has prioritised.

Website brief template: the short version

1. Business: what you sell, to whom and where.
2. Problem: why the website needs to change now.
3. Outcomes: measurable business and customer results.
4. Audiences: priority users, needs, objections and context.
5. Scope: pages, functions, integrations and content.
6. Evidence: analytics, research, feedback and competitors.
7. Brand: identity, tone, assets and constraints.
8. Operations: owners, approvals, editing and maintenance.
9. Delivery: budget range, dates, dependencies and procurement.
10. Success: baseline, targets, tracking and review date.

If you can answer those ten points honestly, an agency can propose a more accurate approach. The expanded template below helps expose the details that commonly create cost or delay.

1. Business context

Start with a concise explanation that a capable outsider can understand.

• What does the organisation sell or provide?
• Which services, products or customer groups matter most commercially?
• Where does it operate: one town, several counties, all Ireland or internationally?
• How do customers currently discover and buy?
• What is changing in the business over the next two to three years?
• Who are the key internal stakeholders?

Include commercial context an agency needs to prioritise: typical order or contract value, sales cycle, seasonality, capacity limits and geographic boundaries. You do not need to disclose confidential figures before an appropriate agreement, but “all services are equal” is rarely true.

2. The problem to solve

Describe symptoms and evidence rather than pre-selecting a design treatment.

Weak statement	Useful statement
The site looks old.	Mobile prospects struggle to compare our three services and qualified form enquiries have fallen.
We need more animation.	Visitors do not understand our process or why our price is higher than a basic alternative.
Make it rank first.	We lost non-brand traffic after changing URLs and need to rebuild visibility for two profitable services.
Add a customer portal.	Staff spend 25 hours a month emailing documents customers could retrieve securely.

Explain why the work is happening now. A lease opening, product launch, rebrand, software retirement or grant deadline can change the appropriate sequence and risk.

3. Outcomes and success measures

Choose a small set of outcomes the website can genuinely influence:

• Increase qualified consultation requests for a priority service.
• Enable customers to complete a purchase or booking without assistance.
• Reduce unsuitable enquiries through clearer scope and pricing.
• Improve organic discovery for defined topics or locations.
• Reduce staff time spent publishing or answering repeated questions.
• Meet an identified accessibility or security requirement.

Record a baseline where possible. “Increase conversion” is not measurable without the current conversion definition, rate, data quality and timeframe. Google Analytics calls important measured actions key events; define the equivalent business outcome as well.

4. Audiences and customer journeys

Do not create eight fictional personas because a template requested them. Identify priority customer situations:

• What has prompted the visit?
• What does the person already know?
• Which question must be answered before they act?
• What evidence will they trust?
• Which device, location or accessibility need shapes the visit?
• What should they do next?

A procurement manager comparing suppliers, a homeowner with an urgent leak and an existing customer looking for an invoice are three different journeys. Rank them. A website cannot make every action equally prominent.

5. Scope and functionality

List requirements by outcome and priority, not as an unfiltered feature dump.

Priority	Meaning	Example
Must have	Launch cannot meet its objective without it.	Accessible quote form routed to the CRM.
Should have	Valuable in the initial release if budget allows.	Project filtering by sector.
Could have	A useful candidate for a later phase.	Interactive savings calculator.
Will not have now	Explicitly outside the first release.	Customer account portal.

For each function, describe the users, information, business rule, notification, system connection and failure state. “Booking system” could mean a simple external link or a real-time multi-location scheduler with deposits and cancellations.

6. Proposed pages and information architecture

Create a first-pass content inventory, not a final sitemap. Include:

• Current URL and page title.
• Keep, improve, combine, redirect or remove decision.
• Primary audience and purpose.
• Business owner and content status.
• Organic traffic, links or conversion value.
• New page requirement.

Do not delete old pages merely because the design is changing. A redesign needs URL mapping and post-launch validation. Use our website redesign SEO checklist to protect existing visibility.

7. Content responsibilities

Content is frequently the real critical path. State who will:

• Interview subject-matter experts.
• Write, edit and approve copy.
• Source case studies and customer permissions.
• Produce photography, video and illustration.
• Migrate and format existing pages.
• Enter products, translations or staff biographies.
• Review factual, regulatory and legal statements.

Attach available brand guidelines, previous research, sales material and customer questions. Do not ask an agency to invent expertise the business has not supplied.

8. Brand and creative direction

Provide the current logo, typefaces, colour definitions, image library and tone guidance. Explain which assets are approved and which may change.

Reference sites can be useful when annotated. Say exactly what works: the restrained typography, case-study sequence, navigation or product photography. “Make us look like Apple” does not explain what the audience needs and may pull the project away from the organisation’s identity.

9. Technical and integration requirements

List the systems the website must exchange data with and who owns each relationship:

• Domain, DNS, hosting and business email.
• CRM, marketing automation and form routing.
• Booking, payments, stock, accounting or ERP.
• Analytics, consent, call tracking and Search Console.
• Recruitment, property, membership or external databases.
• Single sign-on, APIs and security review.

Provide documentation and sandbox access early. “It integrates with our CRM” is not a scope until fields, authentication, duplicates, errors and data ownership are understood.

10. Accessibility, privacy and governance

State the accessibility standard or organisational policy the site must meet, who will test it and how content editors will preserve it. The website accessibility Ireland guide gives a practical planning baseline.

Identify personal data collected, systems receiving it, retention requirements, cookie categories and the people responsible for privacy and legal review. The agency can implement agreed controls; it should not silently decide the business’s legal position.

11. Editing, maintenance and ownership

Describe what staff need to update and how often. Request a demonstration using your real tasks rather than a generic CMS tour. Define:

• User roles and approval workflow.
• Training and documentation.
• Software updates and security ownership.
• Backup frequency, storage and restore testing.
• Support channels and response targets.
• Ownership of domain, accounts, code, licences and source assets.
• Handover if the supplier relationship ends.

12. Budget and commercial model

A budget range helps an agency propose the right level of solution. Without one, three capable suppliers may quote fundamentally different products and appear impossible to compare.

Separate:

• Discovery, design and initial build.
• Content, photography and migration.
• Licences, hosting and third-party services.
• Ongoing maintenance and support.
• SEO, advertising and post-launch improvement.
• VAT and an appropriate contingency.

Our website cost Ireland guide explains typical planning ranges and quote comparisons.

13. Timeline, dependencies and approvals

Give the reason behind any immovable date. Work backwards from launch to content approval, testing, migration, training and stakeholder sign-off. Identify annual leave, board meetings, product data, photography, IT review and external suppliers that may affect delivery.

Name one day-to-day decision maker. A project with five equal approvers and no resolution process will lose time even with an excellent agency.

14. Supplier response format

Ask each supplier to answer the same core questions:

1. Their understanding of the problem and proposed approach.
2. Scope, deliverables and explicit exclusions.
3. Project team and relevant examples.
4. Responsibilities expected from your organisation.
5. Timeline, milestones and approval process.
6. Fixed and recurring cost, assumptions and change rates.
7. Technology choice and maintenance model.
8. Measurement, accessibility, SEO and launch assurance.
9. Ownership, handover and termination arrangements.

This makes evaluation more reliable than selecting the most attractive mock-up. Our guide to choosing a web design agency in Ireland includes due-diligence questions and scoring criteria.

One-page copy-and-paste website brief

• Organisation: [what we do, priority offers, markets]
• Reason for project: [problem, evidence, why now]
• Primary audiences: [situations, needs, barriers]
• Required outcomes: [three measurable results]
• Must-have scope: [pages, functions, integrations]
• Content: [existing assets, gaps, owners, approvals]
• Brand: [guidelines, assets, planned changes]
• Technical context: [platform, hosting, systems, access]
• Governance: [decision maker, stakeholders, legal review]
• Budget: [build range, recurring range, VAT status]
• Timing: [target, reason, dependencies]
• Success: [baseline, target, tracking, review date]
• Response required: [format, deadline, evaluation criteria]

Website brief FAQs

Should I specify the platform?

Specify it when there is a genuine organisational or technical requirement. Otherwise describe needs and ask suppliers to justify their recommendation, including portability and ongoing cost.

Should the brief include a budget?

Yes, at least a credible range. It lets suppliers shape an appropriate solution and state trade-offs. Hiding the budget often produces proposals that cannot be compared.

How long should a website brief be?

Long enough to explain the decision clearly. A small business may need three to five pages plus attachments; a complex procurement may need much more. Relevance matters more than length.

Do I need the final sitemap before choosing an agency?

No. Supply the current inventory, known requirements and priorities. Information architecture should be refined using customer, content and search evidence during discovery.

A good brief creates a better conversation; it does not pretend every answer is already known. If you want help turning business needs into a practical scope, send SEOWeb.ie your starting notes.