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Website design brief

Everything we need to quote your website properly, in one form you can fill in at the kitchen table.

1
About ten minutes

Six short screens. Your answers save in this browser as you go, so you can come back to it.

2
A call within one working day

Jordan or Talia rings to go through your answers and ask the two or three things a form can't.

3
A fixed, itemised proposal

What's included, what isn't, when it'll be live, and what it costs. Then it's your decision.

Start the brief Print the questions instead

Before you start

Most website quotes are guesses dressed up as numbers. An agency hears "we need a new website", skips the questions, and sends a figure that either scares you off or turns into something bigger once the work starts. We would rather ask first. This brief covers the things that actually change the price and the timescale: what the site has to do, how many pages, who is writing the words, what you already have.

It takes about ten minutes. You can skip anything you don't know, and "not sure" is a perfectly good answer that we will help you with on the call. When you send it, a copy goes to your inbox and one lands with Jordan and the team in Grantham. We read it, ring you within one working day to fill in the gaps, and send a fixed, itemised proposal with timescales. No starting-price guesswork, no hard sell.

Website design brief

About 10 minutes · 6 short steps · your answers save in this browser as you go

Nothing here is compulsory. The more you answer, the closer the first quote is to the final one.

  1. 1Your business
  2. 2What the site has to do
  3. 3Content and design
  4. 4What you have now
  5. 5Timing and budget
  6. 6How to reach you
Step 1 of 6Your business

Start with who you are and who buys from you. The site gets designed around the second one.

Why we ask: It sets the brief in plain terms before we look at a single page.

Why we ask: The site has to make sense to them, not to us or to you. This shapes the structure, the words and the design.

Where do your customers come from?

Why we ask: Local businesses need a different site structure (and different SEO) from national ones.

Why we ask: We look at what they do well and where there's a gap you can take.

Step 2 of 6What the site has to do

A site that shows what you do and gives people a phone number is one job. A shop with stock control is another. This is where quotes diverge most.

What is the one thing the website most needs to do?

Why we ask: Everything else in the brief is measured against this.

Which of these does the site need?

Why we ask: Each one adds build and testing time. Ticking it here means it's in the quote rather than a surprise later.

Why we ask: Integrations are specified before we build, not discovered halfway through.

Roughly how many pages?

Why we ask: A five-page brochure site is a different job from a forty-page site with a page for every town you cover.

Step 3 of 6Content and design

A surprising amount of a website's cost is content. Who writes it, who takes the photos, and what already exists.

Who will write the words?

Why we ask: If you're supplying the text, the price is lower and the timescale depends on you. If we're writing it, it's higher and faster.

Photography and video

Why we ask: Real photos of your people and your work outperform stock every time. We need to know what we're working with.

Brand assets

Why we ask: If the brand needs sorting first, that's a separate line in the proposal, not a hidden cost.

Why we ask: This is the quickest way for our designer to understand your taste before drawing anything.

Why we ask: Saves a round of revisions.

Step 4 of 6What you have now

If there's an existing site, we need to know what to keep, what to lose, and what Google already trusts.

Why we ask: We check what ranks, what's linked to and what must be redirected so you don't lose visibility when the new site goes live.

Domain name and hosting

Why we ask: The domain should be registered in your name. If it isn't, we help you get it back before anything else.

Step 5 of 6Timing and budget

Ranges are fine. We don't publish a starting price because the honest range is too wide to be useful, but knowing roughly what you have in mind stops us proposing the wrong kind of site.

When would you like it live?

Why we ask: A small business site usually takes about two weeks from sign-off, and almost everything we build is finished within two months. A fixed date changes how we sequence the work.

Budget you have in mind

Why we ask: Not to pad the quote to match it. It tells us whether to propose a starter site, a business site built for enquiries, or a shop or system, and what to leave out if the budget is tight.

After launch

Why we ask: Building a site and getting it found are different jobs. If you want both, the proposal covers both.

Step 6 of 6How to reach you

Last bit. Who should we come back to, and how? Your name and an email address are the only two things we need; everything else on this form is optional.

Why we ask: We send a copy of your answers here, so you have them too.

How would you rather we got in touch first?

We only use your answers to reply to you and prepare a proposal. No mailing lists, nothing shared outside Codesky. Privacy policy.

Why we ask you to brief us first

Every website we quote starts with a brief, and most of the time we write it ourselves after a first conversation. This form lets you get ahead of that. Fill it in and the first call is spent on the proposal rather than on discovery, which means you get a number and a timescale sooner. It also means the number is right. The five things that move a website quote are page count, functionality, whether the design is from scratch or from a template, who produces the content, and who builds it. The brief asks about all five.

There is a longer piece on this in our guide on how to brief a web designer, with a downloadable template if you would rather write it up yourself and email it over. This page is the quicker route: the same questions, answered online, straight into our project system.

What happens to your answers

Your brief lands in our project system in Grantham and a copy goes to your email. One of us (usually Jordan, sometimes Talia) reads it the same day and rings you within one working day. The call is to fill the gaps: the question you skipped, the thing you were not sure about, the detail that only comes out in conversation. If it is a straightforward site, we can often give you a fixed, itemised proposal within a couple of days of that call. Shops and custom systems take longer to specify, because we write them up properly before we price them.

We do not share briefs with anyone outside Codesky, we do not add you to a mailing list, and if we are not the right agency for the job we say so on the call. We only take on one business per trade in each town, so occasionally the honest answer is that we already work for your competitor.

If you are not sure how to answer something

Skip it. Honestly. "Not sure" is in most of the lists for a reason. The two questions people get stuck on most are budget and page count, and both have a get-out option. On budget: we would rather know you have £3,000 to spend than guess and propose a £9,000 site. We do not pad quotes to match budgets, we fit the right kind of site to them. On page count: tell us what you do and who for, and we will map the pages with you.

If you would rather talk it through before writing anything down, ring 0800 699 0037. The office is on Floor 1 of Lindpet House in Grantham and the kettle is usually on.

Questions people ask before sending a brief

What information do I need to give a web designer?

The things that change the job: what the site has to do, who it's for, roughly how many pages, which features you need (forms, a shop, bookings, logins), who is writing the content and taking the photos, what you have already (domain, brand, an existing site), and your timescale and budget. That is exactly what this brief asks. You do not need a sitemap, a wireframe or a technical spec; that is our job once we have your answers.

How long does it take to design and build a website?

A small business site usually takes about two weeks from the point you sign off the plan. Almost everything we build is finished within two months. The thing that stretches timescales most is content: if the words and photos are not ready, the build waits for them. If you have a fixed date, say so in the brief and we plan backwards from it.

How much should a website cost for a small business?

We don't publish a starting price, because the honest range is too wide to be useful and a "from" figure tends to become the figure people expect. What you get instead is a fixed, itemised quote after we've read your brief and spoken to you, with timescales and a clear list of what is and isn't included. Our guide on what a website costs explains what drives the price.

Do I have to write the content for my website?

No, but someone does, and the brief asks who. If you supply the words, the quote is lower and the timescale depends on you. If we write them, it's higher and faster, and we interview you to get the detail right. A lot of clients draft and we tidy, which works well.

Can I keep my existing domain name?

Yes, and you should. The brief asks who controls it, because if a previous agency registered it in their name we need to sort that out before launch. Once your site is built and paid for, the site, the design and the content are yours, and the domain is in your name.

Will I lose my Google rankings with a new website?

Not if the migration is done properly. Before launch we map every existing URL, its traffic and its links, and set up redirects so the new site inherits what Google already trusts. That's why the brief asks for your current website address.

Prefer to talk first?

Ring 0800 699 0037, email hello@codesky.co.uk, or use the contact page. Or look at the other briefs: SEO brief and Google Ads brief.