How to Write a Website Brief Your Developer Can Actually Use

Most website project delays don't come from the developer being slow -- they come from a brief that didn't say enough, leading to guesswork that has to be corrected later.

Start with your actual goal, stated as an outcome, not a feature list. "I want more enquiry calls from people searching for X in my city" gives a developer something to design toward. "I want a modern website" doesn't -- modern means something different to everyone, and you'll only find out what your developer thinks it means once the first draft is wrong.

List your must-have pages and what each one needs to do, not just what it should say. A services page that needs to let a visitor filter by category is a different build than one that's just a static list -- say which one you need.

Bring examples, and be specific about what you like in each one. "I like this layout" is more useful than "I like this website", since most sites you admire have several elements you'd actually want to avoid.

Decide who's writing the content before the project starts. A huge share of website delays happen because design and development finish on time and then wait weeks for final text and images from the client -- if you can supply a rough draft of your copy upfront, even in bullet points, your project timeline holds together far better.

Finally, say what "done" looks like for you -- number of revision rounds included, what counts as a completed page, and when you expect to review progress. A concrete brief on all of this doesn't just speed up the build; it usually makes the final result closer to what you actually wanted.