Manufacturing website brief template.
The questions to answer before a new website is built, in the structure Phillips Light Industrial used for its 5 sites.
- 11sectionsEach with the questions under it
- 18daysFrom this brief to 5 live sites
Why a written brief shortens a website project
A written brief answers up front the questions an agency would otherwise ask you one meeting at a time. Phillips Light Industrial sent us one naming every page, form field, tracking tool, and brand rule, and all 5 sites were delivered 18 days later.
You already know most of the answers, and they can be written down in an afternoon. If you send the same brief to three suppliers, you get three quotes you can compare line by line.
The template, in full
The template has eleven sections: website structure, positioning, the home page, navigation, service and industry pages, forms, SEO cleanup, tracking, speed and accessibility, brand assets, and the things that must keep working through a rebuild. Under each one are the questions a supplier would otherwise have to ask you in a meeting.
01 Website structure
Say which domain is the main site, which sites are divisions, and how a visitor moves between them.
- What is the primary domain, and which other domains does the company own?
- Which divisions or brands are there, and does each one need its own site?
- Which domains forward somewhere else today, and where do they go?
- Who controls the registrar account for each domain?
02 Positioning
Write the one sentence the home page has to get across.
- What does the company make or do, in the words a buyer would use?
- Who is the buyer: a specifying engineer, a quality manager, procurement, or a plant manager?
- What work do you want to be called in for, and what would you rather decline?
- What is the one thing a competitor cannot say?
03 The home page
Set out the headline, the supporting line, the calls to action, and each section in order.
- What is the headline, and what is the supporting line under it?
- What is the primary call to action, and what is the secondary one?
- Does a phone number belong at the top of the page, and which number?
- Which sections follow, in order from the top of the page down?
04 Navigation
List the menu items and the one button that stays on screen.
- Which top-level menu items do you want, and in what order?
- Is anything in the menu today that should come out?
- Which button stays on screen, and what does it say?
05 Service, industry and location pages
List one page per process, industry, and region, by name.
- Which processes or services deserve a page of their own?
- Which industries does the company sell into?
- Which states or regions are worth a coverage page of their own?
- For each process, what are the materials, size envelope, tolerances, standards, and capacity?
06 Forms
Describe the fields, the file upload, and where each inquiry goes.
- Which fields does a quote request need before you can price it?
- Which file types must the upload accept: PDF, DXF, DWG, STEP, IGES, or STL?
- Where should each inquiry be recorded: a CRM, a spreadsheet, an inbox, or all three?
- Who gets notified, and what does the confirmation email to the sender say?
07 SEO cleanup
Decide what gets rewritten on every page and what gets removed.
- Which pages are duplicate, thin, or outdated?
- Which old announcements and testimonials should not survive the rebuild?
- Which pages rank today and must keep their address or get a redirect?
- Should AI crawlers be allowed in robots.txt, the file that tells search engines and AI tools what they may read?
08 Tracking
Cover analytics, Tag Manager, Search Console, and conversion tracking.
- Which analytics accounts exist today, and who owns them?
- What counts as a conversion: a form submission, a call, or a file download?
- Do calls need tracking, and from which pages?
- Who receives the monthly numbers, and in what form?
09 Speed, accessibility and mobile
Note image formats, loading, keyboard navigation, and the calls to action on phones.
- Do you want a call to action that stays on screen on phones?
- Is the company required to meet any accessibility standard?
- Is click-to-call needed, and on which pages?
10 Brand assets
Gather favicons, tab titles, social images, logo usage, colors, typeface, and icon style.
- Which logo files exist, and in which formats?
- What are the brand colors, with their exact values written out?
- Do a favicon set and a social sharing image exist today?
- Do any brand rules apply across more than one site?
11 Things that must keep working
List chat widgets, integrations, and anything sales depends on today.
- Which chat widgets are installed, and who monitors them?
- Does any integration feed a CRM, ERP, or quoting system?
- What does the sales team use every day that a rebuild could break?
Questions about briefing a website project
- Why write a brief at all?
- A written brief turns weeks of back and forth into a checklist, and it is the biggest part of the schedule that you control. Phillips Light Industrial sent one naming every page, form field, tracking tool, and brand rule, and all 5 sites shipped 18 days later. Without it, most of that time goes on discovering requirements one meeting at a time.
- What if we cannot answer every section?
- Answer what you can and mark the rest as open. A brief with gaps in it is still far better than no brief, because the gaps themselves are useful: they show which decisions have not been made yet, and those are usually the ones that stall a project in week three. The sections most often left open are coverage pages and tracking, and both can be settled during the build.
- Can this be used to brief a different agency?
- Yes. If you brief three suppliers from the same document, you get three quotes you can compare line by line.
Fill it in and send it back for a fixed quote.
A brief answered even partly is enough for us to price the work. We will reply in writing with the scope, the price, and a delivery date.