How to Brief a Web Design Agency (A Guide for NZ Business Owners)

You’ve decided your business needs a new website. You’ve shortlisted a couple of agencies. Now someone asks you to “send through a brief”, and you’re staring at a blank document wondering what on earth to write.

You’re not alone. Most business owners haven’t briefed a web agency before. Why would you have? It’s not something they teach at business school (or anywhere else, really).

But here’s the thing: the quality of your brief directly shapes the quality of your website. A clear brief means fewer revisions, less back-and-forth, and a site that actually does what your business needs. A vague brief? That’s how you end up three months in, looking at a homepage that doesn’t feel right and not being able to explain why.

This guide walks you through exactly what to include, gives you a template you can fill in, and even includes a free AI-powered brief builder that does the hard work for you.

What Is a Website Brief, Anyway?

A website brief is a short document that tells your agency what you need, who it’s for, and what success looks like. Think of it as a set of instructions, not a novel. It doesn’t need to be long. One to three pages is plenty.

The brief isn’t about telling your agency how to design the site. That’s their job. Your job is to give them the context they need to make good decisions on your behalf.

What to Include in Your Brief

1. What Your Business Does (In Plain English)

This sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how often it gets skipped. Your agency needs to understand your business before they can build a site for it.

Keep it simple:

• What do you sell or offer?
• Who do you sell to?
• What makes you different from your competitors?

A couple of paragraphs is enough. Don’t copy and paste your entire business plan, just give your agency enough context to understand what you do and why it matters.

2. Why You Need a New Website

Are you starting from scratch? Redesigning an existing site? Migrating from another platform?

Be honest about what’s driving the project:

• “Our current site looks outdated and we’re embarrassed to send people to it”
• “We’re not showing up on Google”
• “Customers keep calling to ask questions that should be obvious on the site”
• “We’ve outgrown Wix and need something more flexible”

This context helps your agency prioritise. If your main problem is that nobody can find you on Google, the approach will be different than if your main problem is a clunky checkout flow.

3. Who Your Customers Are

Your website isn’t for you, it’s for your customers. The more your agency understands about the people who’ll actually use the site, the better they can design for them.

Think about:

• Who is your typical customer? (Age, role, industry, location)
• How do they find you right now? (Google, word of mouth, social media)
• What are they looking for when they land on your site?
• What questions do they need answered before they’ll get in touch?

You don’t need formal personas or a marketing degree. Just describe your customers the way you’d describe them to a mate over coffee.

4. What You Want the Website to Do

This is the most important part of your brief. What’s the main job of your website?

Pick one primary goal and a few secondary ones:

• Generate enquiries or leads
• Sell products online
• Provide information and build trust
• Get people to book appointments
• Showcase your portfolio or past work

Your site can do more than one thing, but knowing the primary goal helps your agency make design decisions. If generating leads is the priority, the homepage will look very different than if you’re building an online store.

5. Pages You Think You’ll Need

You don’t need to nail down every page, your agency will help with that. But it’s useful to list the main ones you know you’ll want:

• Homepage
• About / Our Story
• Services (with individual pages for each?)
• Contact
• Blog
• Testimonials or Case Studies
• FAQ
• Product pages or online shop

If you’re not sure, that’s fine. Just list what you know and flag what you’re unsure about. A good agency will fill in the gaps.

6. Websites You Like (and Why)

This is worth its weight in gold. Find three to five websites you like and jot down what appeals to you about each one. They don’t need to be in your industry.

Be specific:

• “I like how clean and uncluttered this layout feels” ✅
• “I like this website” ❌

Point out what you like, the navigation, the colour palette, the way they present their services, the photography style. It’s just as helpful to share sites you don’t like, so your agency knows what to avoid.

7. Practical Details

A few nuts-and-bolts things your agency will need to know:

• Budget range: You don’t need an exact number, but a ballpark helps your agency recommend the right approach. There’s a big difference between a $3,000 budget and a $15,000 budget, and both are perfectly valid.
• Timeline: When do you need the site live? Is there a hard deadline (like a product launch) or is it flexible?
• Content: Do you have written copy and photos ready, or will you need help with that?
• Domain and hosting: Do you already have a domain name? Where is it registered?
• Existing branding: Do you have a logo, brand colours, and fonts? If so, share them with your agency.

8. Features and Functionality

If your site needs anything beyond standard pages, mention it in your brief:

• Online shop or e-commerce
• Booking or appointment system
• Contact forms with specific fields
• Integration with your CRM, accounting software, or other tools
• Members-only areas or login functionality
• Multi-language support

Don’t worry about technical specifics, just describe what you need the site to do and let your agency figure out the best way to build it.

What Not to Include

A few things that tend to make briefs less useful:

• Jargon your agency won’t know. Industry acronyms and internal lingo can confuse things. Write for someone outside your business.
• Detailed design instructions. “I want the logo top-left with a blue gradient header and three columns below”, this ties your agency’s hands. Describe the outcome you want, not the layout.
• Everything you’ve ever thought about your business. Keep it focused. If your brief is over five pages, you’ve probably gone too deep.

Tools to Help You Write Your Brief

We’ve put together three free tools so you can pick whichever approach suits you best.

Tool 1: AI Brief Builder

Don’t want to stare at a blank page? Copy the prompt below into ChatGPT (or any AI chatbot) and it’ll walk you through the process one question at a time. At the end, it pulls your answers together into a formatted brief you can send straight to your agency.

Tool 2: Copy-Paste Brief Template

If you’d rather just fill in the blanks yourself, here’s a template you can copy into a Google Doc or Word file:

Quick scoring: 10+ ticks? Your brief is solid. 7-9? Good enough — your agency will ask follow-up questions. Under 7? Spend another 15 minutes on it, or use the AI Brief Builder above.

What Happens After You Send Your Brief

A good agency won’t just take your brief and disappear into a cave for six weeks. They’ll come back with questions. That’s a good sign, it means they’re actually reading it and thinking about your project.

Expect a discovery conversation where they dig deeper into your goals, your customers, and your business. Your brief is the starting point for that conversation, not a replacement for it.

Ready to Get Started?

If you’re thinking about a new WordPress website and want to talk through your project, we’d love to hear from you. Even if your brief is just a few bullet points scribbled on the back of an envelope, that’s a perfectly good place to start.