Small Business Website Brief Checklist

By The Solva Group. Published 3 October 2026.

A website brief should explain what the business does, where it works, which services need pages and how visitors should enquire. The Solva Group recommends gathering domain access, existing content, real photos and reviews before agreeing the scope. Also identify who receives enquiries and who will handle hosting and future changes.

Describe the business and the enquiry you want

Say in plain words what you do, the area you cover and the kind of work you want more of. Then say what a good enquiry looks like: a phone call, a quote request, a booking. The site should be built around that one action.

The services you offer, in the words customers use.
The suburbs or regions you work in.
Phone, email and opening hours, written the way they appear on your Google listing.
Real photos of your work, your team or your premises.
Reviews you are happy to show, and where they were left.
Pages on the current site that must be kept.

Check domain and website access

Identify who controls the domain, current hosting and any forms or booking tools. List what must keep working during a move. Confirm who can authorise and make any required domain, DNS or hosting changes before planning the move.

An enquiry-path checklist

Ask whoever builds the site to show you each of these working before it goes live.

The phone number is a link that dials on a phone.
The enquiry form reaches the inbox you named.
The message a visitor sees after sending is true: it only says "sent" when it was.
If the form fails, the visitor is told how else to reach you.
Every page is easy to use on a phone.

Separate the build from ongoing costs

Ask who hosts the site, who can edit it and how future changes are charged. Ask for the build price and the recurring costs as separate figures, and ask who controls the hosting and domain accounts.