How to brief a web agency.

What a brief must contain

Five things: what the business does and for whom, what the website must change (in numbers where possible), who the buyer is and how they research, the constraints (budget band, deadline, brand, compliance), and how you will judge success. That is one or two pages. Everything else is reference material.

State the budget band. Withholding it does not get you a better price; it gets you a proposal scoped blind. Agencies design to budgets the way architects design to plots.

What to leave out

Page lists and feature lists. If the brief specifies 'a carousel on the homepage', you have hired hands rather than judgement. Describe the outcome ('procurement teams need to verify our certifications quickly') and let the studio propose the mechanism.

Design references are useful as taste signals, not specifications. Three sites you respect, with one sentence each on why, beats a folder of screenshots.

Questions that expose the real agency

Ask who exactly will design and build your project, and meet them before you sign. At many agencies the pitch team and the delivery team are different people; at Web Hero the person you brief is the person who ships, which is the senior-only model in practice.

Ask what their last three projects were measured on and what the numbers did. Studios that work to outcomes will answer with specifics (ours are on the case studies page: Quartix +128% organic sessions, Coptrz +92% qualified leads, Cademi 3.4x demo requests). Studios that work to deliverables will answer with adjectives.

• Who does the work, and do we meet them pre-contract?
• What were your last three projects measured on?
• What would you cut from our scope, and why?
• Who owns code, hosting and accounts after launch?
• What happens in the three months after launch?

Scoring proposals

Weight evidence over polish: named clients with named outcomes, a process that starts with your buyer, and a scope itemised enough to argue with. A proposal you cannot disagree with line by line is hiding its thinking.

If you want a structured starting point instead of a blank page, our £1,500 Action Plan audits your current site and hands you a prioritised roadmap you can brief any agency with, including us.