What to put in a website project brief

Start with the customer and the action

Say who the site is for and what you want that person to do: request a quote, book a session, buy a product or understand your work. Pick one main action for the first version. A portfolio that helps a consultant start conversations has a different scope from a shop with payments and stock.

Include your business name, current website if you have one, countries you serve and the language your customers use. A remote business can explain the markets it serves without pretending to have an office in every country.

List the pages and the features separately

Pages are the information a visitor reads: home, services, about, work and contact. Features do something: appointment booking, a product catalogue, payments, account sign-in or an admin screen. Listing both prevents a five-page website brief from quietly becoming a software project.

For the standard business website, the starting scope is three to five pages with contact options. If visitors need bookings or checkout, use the booking or shop website as the starting point. A dashboard or a custom workflow belongs in a web app brief.

Show the evidence and content you already have

Send your logo, service descriptions, photos, existing domain and two or three examples you like. Explain what works in each example: the navigation, the way work is shown or the booking process. Examples help define a direction; they are not instructions to copy somebody else's site.

Use results you can support and have permission to publish. In Nysha's portfolio, the brief was to replace a PDF pitch deck and make the evidence behind her marketing results easy to inspect. Those results belong to her work; they are not claims about conversion gains caused by the new website.

Explain your budget and launch date

Give a budget range and say whether there is a real deadline. The published prices are starting prices. A final quote depends on pages, features and the material needed for the build. Clients outside India receive USD quotes.

A standard business website is listed as ready within 17 days. That assumes the agreed content, access and feedback arrive on time. Put those dependencies in the plan alongside the launch date. For an app, distinguish a build ready for submission from approval by an app store.

Ask what is included in the build and what you pay directly afterwards. Domains, hosting, payment providers and other services can have their own charges. A project quote should make those visible before work starts.

Agree what handover means

Write down who owns the domain and accounts, how the code is delivered, and what you need to update yourself. Agree how the first version is reviewed and how new requests are priced. For Shaan Builds projects, two rounds of changes on the first version are included; new scope is quoted before it is done.

After full payment, the code, design, domain and accounts set up for you are yours. Third-party tools and fonts retain their own licences. Fixes for work that does not match the agreement are covered for the first 14 days after launch. Read the terms with the project quote, including running costs and ownership.

Copy this short brief

Business and current website:
Customers and countries served:
Main action a visitor should take:
Pages needed:
Features needed:
Logo, photos and text ready:
Examples I like and why:
Who will approve the first version:
Preferred launch date:
Budget range and currency:
What I need to update after launch:

It is fine to leave a field undecided. Mark it as a question so it can be settled in the quote rather than becoming a surprise during the build.

How the quote works

Send the brief by email or WhatsApp. I reply with a plan and a fixed project quote, usually within a day. You pay half to start and half on delivery. You do not need to book a sales call to send the first brief.

A clear scope makes the project easier to assess. It does not promise search rankings, enquiries or sales. Those depend on the business offer, demand and what happens after the site launches as well as the site itself.