Most web design projects that go wrong don't fail because the designer was bad. They fail because nobody properly explained what was needed before the work started. Vague briefs lead to rounds of revisions, blown timelines, frustrated business owners, and websites that technically exist but don't do the job.
A good brief doesn't require you to be a designer. It just requires you to think clearly about your business, your customers, and what you actually want the website to do. Here's exactly what to prepare before you sit down with a web designer.
Start With the Goal, Not the Design
The first thing a good web designer needs to know is what success looks like for you. Not "I want a nice website" — but specifically: what do you want visitors to do when they land on it?
Common goals include:
- Generate phone or email enquiries
- Sell products online
- Build credibility and trust with new visitors
- Rank higher on Google for specific searches
- Replace a badly outdated site that's embarrassing to share
Most business websites have more than one goal, but there's usually a primary one. Knowing yours shapes every design decision, from the structure of the homepage to where the call-to-action buttons sit.
Know Your Customers
Your designer needs to understand who they're designing for. Not just "small business owners" or "people in Melbourne" — but a real picture of your typical customer: their age, what they care about, how they found you, what hesitations they have before buying or enquiring.
If you have existing customers you love working with, describe them. If there's a type of customer you want more of, say so. This information determines the tone of the copy, the style of the design, and how the site is structured. A website for 55-year-old tradies and a website for 28-year-old startup founders should feel completely different — even if both are selling the same service.
A designer who doesn't know your customer will make decisions based on aesthetics alone. That's how you end up with a beautiful website that doesn't convert.
Collect Examples of What You Like (and Don't Like)
You don't need to be able to name design styles or use industry jargon. What helps enormously is being able to show a designer a handful of websites you like and explain what you like about them. Is it the clean layout? The bold typography? The colour palette? The way they present their services?
It's equally useful to share examples of what you don't want. "I don't want it to feel corporate and stuffy" or "I hate websites where you can't find the phone number" are genuinely valuable creative constraints.
Three to five examples is plenty. More than that starts to get contradictory, and designers can't build a coherent vision from twenty different references pulling in different directions.
Be Clear About Your Brand
Do you have a logo? Brand colours? Specific fonts you use on your current materials? Share all of this upfront. If you have a brand guide, even a basic one, hand it over at the start.
If you don't have any of these things, say so early. A good web designer will either help you establish some basic brand foundations or factor that work into the quote. Finding out three weeks into the project that there's no logo is the kind of thing that blows timelines.
What to Gather Before Your First Meeting
- Your primary website goal (enquiries, sales, credibility, SEO)
- A description of your ideal customer
- 3–5 websites you like, with notes on what you like about each
- Your logo and brand colours (if you have them)
- Your existing domain name and hosting details (if applicable)
- Any content you already have: photos, service descriptions, testimonials
- Your budget range and timeline expectations
Talk About Budget and Timeline Honestly
Business owners often avoid sharing their budget upfront because they're worried the designer will just quote to the ceiling. The opposite is usually true: knowing your budget helps a designer tell you honestly what's achievable, and stops both sides from wasting time.
If you have a hard deadline — a product launch, an event, a new financial year — say so at the first conversation. Timelines affect how much work can happen in parallel, how many revision rounds are included, and sometimes whether a project is feasible at all in the available window.
Think About Content Early
One of the most common reasons web projects run late is content. The design gets finished and then the client realises they haven't written the service pages, sourced the photos, or gathered the testimonials. Suddenly a three-week project drags to three months.
Before briefing your designer, think about who is responsible for each piece of content. Will you write the copy, or does the designer need to? Do you have professional photos, or will you need them shot? Do you have existing customer reviews you can use?
A designer can work without final content — most will use placeholder text while building — but knowing the content plan upfront prevents the late-stage scramble that kills project momentum.
One Last Thing: Be Honest About Your Technical Confidence
Do you want to be able to update your own website after it's built, or are you happy to send changes to a developer? This matters because it shapes what platform your site gets built on. If you want to edit content yourself, WordPress or a similar CMS might suit you. If you'd rather just send an email when something needs changing, a custom-coded site might actually be simpler and faster.
There's no wrong answer. But being honest about this upfront saves a lot of frustration down the track.
If you're ready to start and want to make sure your project gets off on the right foot, get in touch with the KY Web team. We'll ask you all the right questions and give you a fixed quote before any work begins.