Plan a better business website
Plan the pages, brief, supplier questions and launch checks for a small-business website, with practical examples and a downloadable worksheet.
Start with what a visitor needs to do. A useful website plan turns that task into pages, responsibilities and a way to check the finished work. It also makes the things you are leaving out explicit.
You do not need to settle every design detail before speaking to a supplier. You do need enough information to explain the project and compare what different proposals include.
Choose your next planning task
| Your situation | Start here | What you will have afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| You know the business, but the project is still vague | Write a website brief | A statement of purpose, scope, responsibilities and open questions |
| You have a long list of possible pages | Plan pages and navigation | A page map organised around visitor decisions |
| You have proposals that are difficult to compare | Choose a web designer | A comparison of actual deliverables, exclusions and ongoing work |
| You are replacing a live website | Plan a redesign | An inventory and a decision for each important old address |
| The website looks finished | Work through the launch checks | Recorded evidence, owners and resolved launch blockers |
A practical sequence for a new site
Write down the main visitor task, then sketch the pages needed to complete it. Prepare the source facts and images before asking for polished layouts. Give suppliers the same brief, decide who writes and approves the content, and agree what you will check before launch.
For a small repair workshop, the main task might be deciding whether a piece of furniture is suitable for assessment. That calls for clear scope, exclusions and a preparation checklist. It does not automatically call for an online booking system, customer account or weekly blog.
The local-service website example follows that decision from a brief to finished page copy. Its business and requirements are fictional teaching material.
A practical sequence for a redesign
First record the current pages and the jobs they serve. Keep useful addresses wherever possible, identify content that needs checking and make deliberate decisions about material you will remove. Then plan the new pages and test the old links against them.
Keep a short decision log: the question, the chosen answer, the reason and who owns the next action. This gives later design discussions something firmer than personal preference.
Start with a working document
The website brief worksheet includes a blank editable CSV and a completed example. You can use it before appointing a supplier, or to clarify a project already in progress.