The brief is the single biggest factor in whether your first draft is nearly right or needs three rounds of revisions. It is worth twenty proper minutes.
Write like you talk
The most common mistake is writing in “website voice” — “We pride ourselves on delivering bespoke solutions tailored to our valued clients.” That sentence contains no information. It could describe a plumber or an accountancy firm.
Compare: “We do domestic rewires and consumer unit upgrades. Most jobs are 1930s semis where the wiring has never been touched.”
The second one tells us your customers, your trade, your typical job and your likely price bracket. Write that.
Be specific about the boring things
Specifics are what make a site feel like a real business rather than a brochure:
- “Same-day callout across LS1 to LS17” beats “fast response times”
- “Twelve years, mostly commercial” beats “highly experienced”
- “We don’t do new builds” is genuinely useful — it stops the wrong enquiries
Say what makes you different, honestly
If you are cheaper, say so. If you are not cheap but you turn up when you say you will, say that instead. If you are the only person in the county certified for a particular system, that is worth a whole section.
“Quality workmanship and customer service” is not a differentiator. Every competitor says it.
Tell us what you do not want
There is a field for this and people underuse it. Use it for:
- Words you hate (“solutions”, “passionate”, “bespoke”)
- Claims you are not comfortable making
- Topics to avoid entirely
- Competitors you do not want mentioned
Testimonials must be real
Paste in actual reviews if you have them — from Google, Checkatrade, Facebook, an email a customer sent you. Include the name if you have permission.
We will not invent them. A site with no testimonial section looks better than one with obviously fake praise, and it keeps you the right side of advertising rules.
The core four
If you only fill in four things properly, make them these:
- What your business does — two or three sentences
- Who your customers are — one sentence
- Your services — a list, however rough
- How to contact you — phone, email, or both
Everything else has a sensible default. These four do not.
You can change it later
The brief locks once you confirm it, because that is what the design work is based on. But you can always request a revision afterwards, and business details like opening hours can be updated any time from your dashboard.