Before anyone builds a website — an agency, a site builder or an AI assistant — three questions need an answer: what should the website achieve, who is it for, and what goes on it. Those answers together are the brief. In most small firms the brief never gets written down; instead the first meeting is improvised and the draft gets patched afterwards. That costs time on both sides and usually ends in a website that feels interchangeable, because nobody decided what it stands for. This article shows how to put together a usable brief in about an hour: twelve questions with example answers from trades, hospitality and healthcare practices, a list of materials to gather, and a short template to copy. It is explicitly not about taste — it is about decisions somebody in the business has to make anyway.
A brief is not a formality
The starting position is better than it is often made out to be. 94 percent (Bitkom) of German skilled trade businesses run a website of their own and 88 percent (Bitkom) are additionally listed in online directories; the survey covered 504 (Bitkom) trade businesses in Germany. Having a website is rarely the problem. The school grade those same businesses give their own state of digitalisation, however, sits at 3.0 (Bitkom) on a scale from 1 to 6, and at 3.2 (Bitkom) for firms with fewer than twenty employees. The gap between „we have a website" and „the website brings us enquiries" is exactly the step this article is about. And it does not start with colours and typefaces, but with three or four sentences about what the site is supposed to do.
A brief is the written answer to the question of what the website should achieve, for whom, and what evidence backs it up. It is not a thirty-page specification, not a design guideline and not a wish list of features. It is one page, at most two, holding the decisions somebody in the business has to make anyway: which service comes first, who is meant to call in the end, who signs off the copy, and what must explicitly stay off the site. Leave those decisions open and they are made by whoever builds the website — someone who knows neither the customers nor the daily routine of the business.
The time required is modest. If two people from the business sit down undisturbed, a workable brief is typically done in one hour (project experience); gathering files and access credentials usually takes longer than answering the questions. That is exactly why the order matters: answer the twelve questions first, then work through the list of materials. Start the other way round and you spend two hours hunting for a logo file and still do not know which service belongs at the top of the home page.
What this article deliberately leaves out
Questions 1 to 4: goal, responsibility and offering
The first question is the most important one and the one most rarely answered: what exactly should happen after somebody has seen the website? „Becoming better known" is not an answer, because nothing can be derived from it. It only becomes useful once a concrete action is named — a phone call, a completed form, a reservation, a job application, a visit to the shop. Nearly everything else follows from that single decision: what appears on the first screen, where phone numbers show up, how many fields a form has, and which page gets built first. It also helps to name a secondary goal for everyone who is not ready for the first one yet.
| Business | What should happen after the visit | How it reads in the brief |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical contractor | A call during office hours | Goal: a call to the landline number, Monday to Friday from 7 am to 4 pm. Secondary goal: a callback request through a three-field form. |
| Country inn with terrace | A table reservation for the evening | Goal: a reservation request with party size and time. Secondary goal: reading the menu without having to download anything. |
| Physiotherapy practice | An appointment request via form | Goal: appointment request stating whether a referral exists. Secondary goal: finding opening hours and directions. |
| Painting and decorating firm | Applications from qualified staff | Goal: a short application without a cover letter, three mandatory fields. Secondary goal: viewing photos of completed work. |
| Plumbing firm with emergency service | A call at the weekend | Goal: a call to the emergency number, visible on every page. Secondary goal: a request for a regular weekday appointment. |
Official statistics show that a business website has long served several goals at once. In Bavaria in 2025, 92 percent (Bavarian State Office for Statistics) of companies with at least ten employed persons had a website of their own. Of the companies with a website, 64 percent (Bavarian State Office for Statistics) advertise vacancies there or accept online applications, and 27 percent (Bavarian State Office for Statistics) provide ordering, reservation or booking systems. For many businesses, recruiting is no longer a side goal but the actual one — naming that in the brief produces a careers page instead of a paragraph in the about text.
The second question sounds like paperwork and still decides how long the whole project takes: who makes the decisions in the business, and who signs off the copy at the end? In practice that is not always the same person — the owner decides on services and prices, the office knows the opening hours, the master craftsman checks the technical statements. As long as this is unclear, drafts circle for weeks. One sentence is enough: who decides, who supplies content, who signs off, and by when. Digitalisation running alongside day-to-day work is the rule rather than the exception: 62 percent (Bitkom) of trade businesses name it explicitly as a central challenge next to ongoing operations.
Questions three and four belong together and are uncomfortable, because they force a ranking. Question three: which three services carry the revenue? Not which ones are the most enjoyable, not which ones are technically the most demanding — which ones pay the invoices. Question four: which services would the business rather shed? Both answers steer what sits at the top of the home page, which subpages get created, and what is mentioned deliberately in a subordinate clause only. Weight everything equally and you get a website that mentions everything and explains nothing.
- Heating engineer: servicing, breakdown call-outs and boiler replacement carry the revenue. Small repairs on third-party systems should decline and are therefore not promoted.
- Country inn: the lunch menu, functions for up to 60 guests and the terrace at weekends carry it. The takeaway service runs on the side and gets no page of its own.
- Physiotherapy practice: physiotherapy, manual therapy and home visits carry it. The prevention courses are fully booked and are marked in the brief as „do not promote".
- Painting firm: exterior painting, interior work for property managers and floor coverings carry it. Wallpapering single rooms should decline noticeably.
- Tax advisory: annual accounts for trade businesses, payroll and start-up advice carry it. Income tax returns for employees are no longer actively offered.
The ranking is the actual statement
Questions 5 to 8: ideal customer, area and evidence
Question five: who is the ideal customer — and who explicitly is not? The second half of that question is almost always dropped and is the more useful one. „Private and business customers" describes nobody. „Owners of a detached or semi-detached house built before 1995 in this district, planning a renovation and not looking for the cheapest quote" describes someone you can write sentences for. The exclusion is just as helpful: anyone who does not bid for public tenders, does not take jobs below a certain size, or does not travel beyond a set area should note that in the brief. Those sentences save enquiries that would be declined anyway.
Question six concerns the service area and can be answered more concretely than most people think: how far does the business travel, from which distance does a call-out charge apply, and which places do customers themselves name when they call? For a practice or a restaurant it reads more like: which neighbourhoods do guests come from, where do they park, which stop is the nearest? For the website this is one of the most important pieces of information there is, because local search queries and map services live on it. How visibility in your own area comes about is described in the article on local visibility for local businesses.
Question seven asks for evidence, and it is regularly underestimated. A business that has been working for twenty years takes references, qualifications and memberships for granted — for a visitor they are new. That proof works is something the businesses see themselves: 72 percent (Bitkom) regard online reviews as a serious opportunity to build trust and win work, and 40 percent (Bitkom) are already present on review platforms. For the brief a three-column list is enough: what exists, where the proof is kept, and whether it may be named publicly.
References and projects
Three to five completed jobs with location, scope and year. The consent question matters: may the customer be named, may photos from private rooms be shown. Without that clarification the project stays described anonymously.
Qualifications and certificates
Master craftsman certificates, specialist accreditations, proof of competence, training with the year it was completed. For regulated professions the professional title, the state that awarded it and the responsible chamber belong in the provider identification anyway.
Memberships and networks
Guilds, chambers, associations, producer groups, cooperations. Plus the question of whether a logo may be used and in which version — many associations issue their own rules and files for this.
Question eight is the hardest: what really sets the business apart, without empty phrases? „Quality, reliability and fair prices" appears in some form on nearly every website in the sector and therefore contributes nothing. The answer only carries weight once it can be checked: a callback time, a staffing level, a specialisation, a piece of equipment nobody else in the area has, a language spoken in the team, an opening hour others do not offer. The reversal test helps: would a competitor claim the opposite? If not, it is not a differentiator but a given.
| Empty phrase in the brief | What it turns into on the page | Verifiable version |
|---|---|---|
| We stand for quality. | A sentence that appears on every second website in the sector. | Two master craftsmen on staff; every installation is inspected jointly before handover. |
| We are quick to reach. | A claim without a yardstick. | Callback the same working day until 4 pm, emergency service at weekends from 8 am to 8 pm. |
| We have a lot of experience. | A number is missing, so the reader guesses. | Family-owned since 1998, 14 employees, two master craftsmen, guild member. |
| We work with the customer in mind. | Nothing anyone could verify. | Fixed price after on-site measurement, written quote within five working days. |
| We are locally rooted. | A feeling instead of a fact. | Service area within a 40-kilometre radius, no call-out charge inside the district. |
Questions 9 to 12: routine, limits and deadline
The last four questions collect the knowledge that gets used in the business every day and still rarely makes it onto the website. They are answered quickly, because nobody has to think about them — you simply write down what gets said on the phone every time anyway. In practice these four answers produce the sections visitors spend the longest reading (project experience), because they answer exactly the follow-up questions that otherwise lead to a phone call or to somebody leaving.
- Which questions do customers ask on the phone again and again? Example answer from a dental practice: whether there are appointments after 5 pm, how long the wait for a first appointment is, and whether you can come without a referral. Exactly those three belong visibly on the page, not in a submenu line.
- How does an enquiry arrive, and who answers it within what time? Example answer from a painting firm: enquiries land in a shared mailbox, the office reviews them in the morning, response within one working day. Without that answer you end up with a form nobody reads.
- What should explicitly stay off the website? Example answer from a country inn: no private address of the owner family, no surnames of casual staff, no flat prices for functions because they are calculated individually. Such limits belong in the brief, not in a later round of corrections.
- Is there a date by which something has to be finished? Example answer from a plumbing firm: the apprenticeship fair in September, because the careers page will be shown there. A deadline changes the build order — it decides which page goes live first.
Two of those answers have immediate technical consequences. Knowing who handles enquiries lets you cut the form down so an answer is possible without a follow-up call — which fields make sense is described in the article on contact forms as an enquiry channel. And keeping opening hours, emergency service and holiday closures in the brief means maintaining them in one place later instead of four; why that has more effect than any advertising claim is shown in the article on opening hours and availability. The businesses themselves confirm the expectation: 85 percent (Bitkom) observe a clear customer wish for constant availability, and 89 percent (Bitkom) report an expectation of individual offers.
Part 2: the list of materials before you start
The second part of the brief is pure collecting work and can be delegated. In practice this is the part that delays projects: the questions are answered, but the logo only exists as a small image in an old presentation, nobody remembers the domain credentials, and the photos come from a catalogue whose licence is unclear. Ticking off the following points before the start saves waiting time in the middle of the build.
Logo, ideally as a vector file
An SVG, EPS or AI file scales to any size; a small image from an old presentation does not. House colours as colour values belong with it, and the typeface if there is one. If no original exists any more, that belongs in the brief too — then the logo gets redrawn.
Real photos of the premises and team
Workshop, vehicles, shop, team, completed work. What matters is the origin: shot yourself, taken by a photographer with usage rights, or licensed from an image library. Photos showing people need the consent of those depicted.
Services and price information
One sentence per service on scope, process and prerequisites. Plus the decision whether prices, price ranges, hourly rates or worked examples are named — and which details are mandatory towards consumers.
Opening hours and availability
Regular hours, emergency service, lunch break, holiday closures, public holiday arrangements. Plus the numbers that actually get answered and the email address somebody reads. Contradictions between website, map service and the notice on the door are the first thing customers notice.
Register data and supervisory authority
Full company name, legal form, address, authorised representatives, register and registration number, VAT identification number, for regulated professions the chamber, the professional title and the professional rules, and for licensed activities the responsible supervisory authority.
Access to domain, DNS and profiles
Where the domain is registered, who can change the DNS records, who has access to the business profile in the map service, who to the existing mailbox. Missing access is a common reason why a migration stalls on a Friday afternoon.
The register data point deserves a closer explanation, because it is the only one with a statutory basis. Under Section 5 of the German Digital Services Act, commercially offered digital services must state, among other things, name and address, details enabling fast electronic contact including an email address, the responsible supervisory authority where the activity requires a licence, the register entry with registration number, for regulated professions the chamber, the statutory professional title together with the state that awarded it and the applicable professional rules, as well as any VAT identification number (Section 5 DDG). These details are in the trade registration, the register extract and the chamber notice — in the brief they belong attached as a copy, not dictated from memory. Which gaps regularly show up is covered in the article on imprint and privacy policy.
Access and data: two points to settle in advance
The last point is the simplest and the one most often forgotten: old copy as raw material. Flyers, quote templates, notices, the advert in the parish newsletter, the reply email that gets sent again and again — that is the language the business actually uses. As raw material it is valuable, even if not a single sentence is carried over word for word. How to turn it into readable sentences and how to spot jargon is described in the article on website copy for customers rather than colleagues. For images the same applies to provenance: what comes from which source and who holds the rights is covered in the article on image rights for stock, team and AI images.
Why the brief matters more with AI-assisted builds
With an agency the meeting replaces part of the brief. Questions get asked, the consultant notices that „everything around the house" is not an answer, and digs deeper. With a site builder that questioning is missing, but you fill everything in yourself and notice the gaps as you go. With an AI-assisted build the situation is different: delivery is immediate and complete, even when the input was thin. The result is exactly as precise as what went in — you only notice later, because at first glance it looks finished. Such methods are in wide use by now: 26 percent (Federal Statistical Office of Germany) of companies in Germany used artificial intelligence technologies in 2025, and 54 percent (Federal Statistical Office of Germany) of companies with at least ten employees used paid IT services via cloud computing.
In practice that means every vague sentence in the brief becomes a vague paragraph on the page. „We are a modern business" produces text about modernity; „homeowners within a 40-kilometre radius should call to arrange an appointment for bathroom planning" produces a page with a phone number, a service area and a process. The difference lies not in the technology but in the input. That is why the hour spent on the brief pays off more with an AI-assisted build than on any other route — and why the first version there is usable fastest when the groundwork is right.
| Weak input | What it can turn into | Strong input |
|---|---|---|
| We want a modern look. | An interchangeable draft that would suit any business in the sector. | The goal is a phone call; the number sits top right on every page and in the emergency banner. |
| We do everything around the house. | A catch-all page without focus that answers no single search query fully. | Three services carry us: bathroom renovation, heating maintenance, breakdown service — in that order, one page each. |
| Our audience is private and business customers. | Copy that addresses nobody directly because it means two groups at once. | Ideal customer: homeowners in the district, built before 1995. We do not bid for public tenders. |
| We have been successful for years. | An empty phrase no visitor can verify. | Family-owned since 1998, 14 employees, two master craftsmen, weekend emergency service. |
| Something with images, please. | Random motifs with no link to the business. | Twelve of our own photos exist: workshop, three vehicles, team, five completed bathrooms with the owners' consent. |
A second point concerns language. Anyone who already writes the brief in short sentences and without jargon gets copy back in that form. That is not only a matter of style: a good structure of the content with cleanly ordered headings and plain language also helps people using a screen reader to find their way around the page (Aktion Mensch). A brief full of abbreviations and internal labels carries those terms reliably through to the finished page — where they then stand in front of an audience that does not know them.
A good structure of the content also helps people who use a screen reader to orient themselves in the text and find content quickly.
Which route is right in the end depends less on the tool than on budget, available time and how much the business wants to decide itself. A side-by-side look at the three common routes — site builder, agency and AI-assisted build — with their respective prerequisites is in the article on site builder, agency or AI compared. The brief itself stays the same document in all three cases; only the recipient changes.
The short template to copy
The following template holds the twelve questions in the order in which they are answered fastest, plus the list of materials to tick off. It fits on one page. Notes are enough; full sentences are only needed where something has to be evidenced. If a question takes longer than two minutes, write „open" and move on — open points are information, not a gap.
BRIEF — <business name>
Date: <date> Decision: <name> Sign-off: <name>
1. Goal: what should happen after the visit?
2. Secondary goal: what is the alternative if goal 1 comes too early?
3. Responsibility: who decides, who supplies content, who signs off, by when?
4. Revenue drivers: which three services carry the revenue? In which order?
5. Wind down: which services should decline and are not promoted?
6. Ideal customer: who should get in touch? (situation, place, trigger, budget range)
7. Not a customer: which enquiries do we regularly decline?
8. Service area: how far do we travel? From where does a call-out charge apply?
9. Evidence: references, qualifications, memberships — each with proof and consent
10. Difference: what can we claim that a competitor could not?
11. Phone questions: which three questions come up again and again?
12. Limits and deadline: what must stay off the site? When must what be ready?
Materials ready:
[ ] Logo as a vector file, house colours, typeface
[ ] Own photos (premises, team, work) with provenance clarified
[ ] Services with scope, process and price information
[ ] Opening hours, emergency service, phone numbers, email address
[ ] Register data, chamber, supervisory authority, VAT identification number
[ ] Access to domain and DNS
[ ] Access to the business profile in the map service
[ ] Old copy: flyers, quotes, notices, standard emailsTwo notes on using it. First: the template is filled in together, not passed around. A conversation between two people about twelve questions takes an hour; an email round on the same questions takes three weeks. Second: what is in the template is today's state, not a permanent one. Businesses change their offering, services get added, service areas grow. Reviewing the brief once a year costs twenty minutes and saves the next complete rebuild — which other maintenance steps belong to that is listed in the article on a maintenance routine for business websites.
From the brief to the first version
A finished brief is not yet a website, but it is the part of the work nobody else can take on. What comes afterwards — creating pages, forming the structure, writing the copy, placing images, adding the mandatory pages — is execution. That is exactly where the XICflow assistant starts: from the details on goal, ideal customer, services, service area and evidence, a first complete version emerges with a home page, service pages, an about page, a contact page and the mandatory pages. That version is a draft, not a final sign-off; it is the point at which something concrete exists for the first time that can be changed.
The goal steers the structure
If the goal is a phone call, the number stays visible throughout. If it is a reservation or an appointment request, the form moves forward and is cut down to the fields genuinely needed to answer it.
The ideal customer steers the language
From the description of the ideal customer and the exclusions come headings and paragraphs that describe a situation instead of listing a service. The enquiries you do not want can be named openly as well.
Adjusting in the Flow Builder
Every block of the first version can be changed, reordered, extended or deleted in the visual editor. Changes made by text instruction arrive as one coherent proposal that you accept or discard as a whole.
What this process looks like from brief to published website is described on the page how XICflow works. Which building blocks are available is shown in the overview of features, and what a business pays for it is in the pricing overview. Anyone who wants to see finished results first will find several sectors side by side in the example websites. And how this route compares with the alternatives is set out in why XICflow.
The short version
Sources and studies