Website Redesign Brief: A Melbourne Small-Business Example

A useful website redesign brief gives every supplier the same job to price: the customer problem, required pages, content responsibilities, enquiry workflow and evidence needed for launch. Include what must be preserved from the current site and what is outside the project. Ask suppliers to identify assumptions before you compare their quotes.

For a Melbourne service business, “make us look more professional” leaves too much undecided. A more useful brief explains which jobs you want, where you actually work and what your office needs to receive before arranging the next step.

Below is a worked brief you can adapt, followed by a way to compare proposals. It builds on our website planning checklist and focuses on commissioning a redesign rather than choosing a visual style.

Start with the problem the current site leaves unresolved

Choose a customer task that the redesign should improve. Record what happens today and what the new site must enable. Avoid turning an unmeasured impression into a performance claim.

For example, write “the current form does not ask for the job location, so we have to request it before checking coverage”, rather than “the website loses half our leads”. The first statement can be checked against the existing form. The second needs evidence you may not have.

The Australian Government’s business website guide recommends deciding what customers need, what they should do on the site and how the website fits the business. Use those decisions to explain the purpose of the redesign before describing its appearance.

If you have enquiry records or analytics, give suppliers a dated summary and explain the limits. A form submission count does not tell them how many enquiries were suitable or turned into work.

A worked brief for a Melbourne painting business

This is a fictional owner-operated painting business. It takes residential interior and exterior projects in Brunswick, Northcote and Preston, considers other locations individually, and does not offer emergency call-outs. Those are assumptions for this example, not claims about a real company.

Its current website says “all Melbourne”, while its actual quoting process starts with a coverage check. That mismatch is the reason to include service-area decisions in the brief.

Project objective

Help a homeowner understand whether the business handles their type of painting project and submit enough information for an initial review. The office must be able to see the request and decide whether to arrange a conversation or site visit.

The website must not promise an instant fixed price, an available start date or automatic acceptance of a job.

Pages and scope

The first release includes a homepage, residential interiors page, residential exteriors page, service-area page, project gallery, about page and enquiry page. Include approved privacy information where the form needs it.

The gallery uses a reusable project layout with agreed fields: project type, approved location detail, description and photographs. The supplier’s quote must state how many initial projects it includes entering. Additional case studies, online payments and customer accounts are separately scoped.

Existing useful page addresses should remain where practical. Any changed or retired addresses need an agreed treatment before launch.

Local coverage and customer expectations

The service-area page names the example business’s three regular suburbs and explains that other locations need confirmation. The enquiry form asks for suburb and postcode before requesting detailed job information.

An out-of-area enquiry is still allowed, but its confirmation says the office will check coverage. It must not imply that the request has been accepted. The office sees the submitted location without opening a separate attachment.

Do not convert an operating area into a fictional branch address. Google’s Business Profile guidelines require accurate business information and service areas; a service-area business that does not receive customers at its address should hide that address on its profile. Review the website and profile together for consistency, without treating them as identical products.

Content responsibilities

The business supplies its original logo, approved service descriptions, real project photographs and permission to use them. It also confirms which qualifications, memberships or guarantees may be stated and supplies supporting evidence where needed.

The supplier organises and edits the supplied copy, prepares image sizes and identifies missing material. The owner approves the final wording and selects which photographs are public. Stock or illustrative imagery must not be presented as completed painting work.

The brief names one approver and includes a content deadline. If photographs are late, the team must agree whether to delay the gallery or launch with fewer approved projects.

Enquiry workflow

The form collects the customer’s name, preferred contact details, job suburb and postcode, interior or exterior work, and a short description. Optional photographs are a separately priced feature if they require upload storage or extra handling.

A valid submission reaches the agreed office destination with the submitted fields intact. The customer sees an accurate acknowledgement. A failed submission shows a useful retry or contact option and must not look successful.

The office owns the response. The initial website scope does not include an automatic sales-message sequence. If a CRM connection is needed, quote the destination, field mapping and duplicate-handling work explicitly; our CRM setup checklist covers those decisions.

Convert the brief into acceptance checks

Ask the supplier to demonstrate these outcomes on the preview site and repeat the critical checks after launch. The list below is a proposed acceptance checklist for the example, not a claim that every website needs the same features.

Requirement	Evidence for approval
Clear service choice	A visitor can distinguish interior and exterior work and reach the relevant enquiry route
Accurate coverage	The page and form acknowledgement reflect regular suburbs and the review rule for other areas
Reliable enquiry delivery	A test request appears in the agreed destination with location and project details intact
Honest failure state	A simulated delivery failure does not display a success message
Usable phone layout	Navigation, headings, gallery and form work on the agreed mobile sizes without horizontal scrolling
Accessible form interaction	Labels, keyboard navigation and understandable error messages are checked
Preserved old links	Each changed old address resolves to its agreed destination or appropriate removal response
Business ownership	The owner can access the agreed accounts and edit a sample project after handover

Agree who runs each test and who signs it off. Define the review period and how defects are reported. A screen recording of the journey is helpful, but also verify the actual enquiry record at its destination.

Include the old website in the scope

A redesign can look finished while leaving old links broken. Give the supplier an inventory of existing pages, downloadable documents, important inbound links and the current enquiry destination. Mark content that must stay, needs rewriting or is no longer offered.

When URLs change, Google’s site-move guidance recommends mapping old URLs to their new equivalents and implementing redirects. It also cautions against sending many unrelated old pages to the homepage. Put that mapping and its verification in the scope rather than assuming it is included in “SEO setup”.

For example, an old exterior-painting page should normally lead to the equivalent new exterior service page if that service continues. An old offer with no relevant replacement needs a deliberate decision, not a blanket homepage redirect.

Ask for a launch checklist that covers page titles, canonical URLs, the sitemap and removal of preview-only indexing blocks. These are checks on implementation, not a promise that search rankings will improve. Agree who checks enquiries and search reports after launch, and who can restore the prior version if a critical problem appears.

Compare supplier proposals against the same boundaries

Send the same brief and asset list to each supplier. Ask them to mark each item as included, excluded or dependent on information from you. Review the exceptions before comparing totals.

Useful questions include:

Does the price include writing, editing or only loading the copy we supply?
How many pages, gallery entries and revision rounds are included?
Are uploads, enquiry delivery and CRM connections included at the stated scope?
Who supplies hosting, domain access and ongoing maintenance?
Which third-party licences renew, in what currency and under whose account?
Is pricing in AUD, and is GST included where applicable?
What does support after launch cover, and what becomes a new change request?
What files, content access and account permissions are handed over?

Ask the supplier to separate mandatory work from optional features and explain the effect of missing content on the timeline. This gives you a clearer comparison than an unsupported “standard website price”. Our website cost guide explains the main scope questions behind a quote.

Copy this short brief structure

Use these prompts to produce a first version you can discuss:

Current problem: What is difficult for customers or your office today? What evidence do you have?
Primary outcome: What should the customer understand and do next?
Audience and coverage: Which services, locations and exclusions are real?
Pages and existing content: What is included, preserved, replaced or retired?
Assets and approvals: Who supplies each item and who approves it?
Enquiry destination: What information goes where, and who responds?
Acceptance and launch: Which checks demonstrate that the work is ready?
Budget and handover: What must the quote include, and what will you own or maintain?

You do not need to choose every layout before speaking with a supplier. You do need enough shared detail to understand what their proposal buys.

Bring your current site and draft brief to a project call, or explore Vendrato’s website design and development service. We can help turn the customer journey, content and handover requirements into a defined scope.