Questions you need to answer to help us create your new website content

Creating a new website for your company or organisation is no small task. Design is only part of the challenge; building the content of the new site needs careful thought and attention. As content writers and website project managers we ask a lot of questions. we thought it might be useful to list these here for anyone considering building or redesigning a business website with us.
   CONTACT US FOR A WEBSITE
Our list of questions is pretty exhaustive. It will tease out all the important information needed to create the type of content website visitors now expect to find. We’ve grouped these questions to correspond with the key sections of a professional website.
Answer these as fully as you can in preparation for writing and structuring the new website. This thinking will make the job quicker and easier for you – a faster route to getting the new website up and working.

For the About Us section

1. How do you describe who you are and what you do to potential clients? (Pull out a few examples e.g. from proposals or other marketing collateral you’ve produced.)
2. What are your particular skills, specialism and expertise? What are you famous for?
3. Who do you work for? What types of people and companies benefit from your help? What roles do they typically work in?
4. Why do they need you? What issues do you solve for them? What’s s going on in their world that makes your service/product so relevant today? (One way to do this is to ask yourself: “When should someone pick up the phone to your company?” Make a list: “Call us if you want to…..”)
5. Why do they come back to you? Why do they need ongoing support? What do you provide?
6. What is the value you deliver? High-level benefits – short and long term?
7. List impressive clients or noteworthy projects you have worked on. Describe your most successful project/client to date.
8. Company background: When and why did you set it up? What’s the company structure, number of employees etc? Describe the team. Any awards, accolades or relevant qualifications/associations? Where is the business going – what is your ambition?
9. What does the company stand for? What do you believe in as a business? What inspired you to set up in business in the first place – what do you want to change about your industry? What’s the bigger mission, and what values are important to you?

Your Services/products

1. List your services/products. How can you group these meaningfully?
   1. Which are your main/most popular ones? Which would you most want to highlight on the website?
   2. Structure – for each one: a) state who it relevant for and why they need it; b) the problem this service/product solves c) your approach and the benefits it delivers d) example or testimonial from client.

Your People

1. Provide details on your team.
2. What information would you like to appear on the site for each of the team? What tone of voice do you want to convey?
3. Provide images of each of the team or instruct a professional photo shoot.
4. Any other information you’d like to see to reflect the personality of the team or company.

Clients and Projects

1. List you current clients, giving name, buyer, service delivered, testimonials and case study if available, location.
2. Which clients/projects would you like to highlight on the new website? Which are you particularly proud of and why? Collect together information on each key project.

Library of Valuable Content
(NB: This is different from company news. As an example

1. What helpful information can you provide to clients and potential clients? E.g. research, guides, videos, articles/blogs?
2. List the type of information you would like to provide in the future. e.g. blog articles, guides, research, video, recommended books or papers by others etc.

Company News

1. List any previous news articles/press releases you’ve written that you’d like to see on the new site. Provide hard copy or links of articles you’ve had published in the press.
2. Include details of events, awards etc. Are you planning to run any events in the future that would need publicising on the website?

Contact Details

1. Provide contact details for your company or role players that you’d like to see on the site. This can be handled using contact forms for which additional questions, like industry specific questions, over the obvious like name contact phone ietc. need to be provided
2. Provide physical address and head office if it needs to be public
3. Provide postal address

PLEASE NOTE THAT SOME QUESTIONS MIGHT BE REPEATED HERE BUT THIS IS TO ENSURE THAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE ANSWER IN AS MANY DIFFERENT WAYS AS POSSIBLE.

DOMAIN/ HOSTING QUESTIONS

1. Have you already purchased your domain name URL?
   • E.g. your_domain.com
2. If you already purchased a domain name URL, Let us assist you in moving it to recommended DiG Hosting with Xneelo for better one stop support?
3. In this way you would have your website, domain and hosting in one place.
4. If you already have an email address, do you want to move it (together with emails) to DiG Hosting?
5. In this way, you would have your business email addresses and hosting in one place.

ABOUT YOUR COMPANY/ ORGANIZATION

1. Explain what your company/ organization does, what products/ services you offer
   • Please, state the primary product(s)/service(s) of your company.
   • Give us as much background information about your company as possible.
   • This text could be incorporated into your website.
2. Do you have a slogan or tagline that clearly describes what you offer regarding benefits or features?
   • It’s okay either not to have a slogan or have one (even simple one).
3. What industry does your business belong?
   • Be as precise as possible in the definition of the industry you operate.
4. What problems does your business solve?
   • How your products/services help other people to solve their problems, in what ways?
5. How is your company different from your competition?
   • What do you offer that your competition doesn’t offer?
   • What are the advantages of your products/services/working experience?
   • Something that differentiates you from your competition?
   • Reasons customers should choose you rather than your competitors?
   • It might be that you’ve been in business twice as long as any of your competitors or that your customers stay with you for an average of 5 years, you offer excellent service, you have the best products on the market, you have the best prices on the market, etc.
6. Do you have any proof that your products/ services are better than your competition?
   • E.g. clients’ testimonials, products comparisons/ reviews, feedback from clients, some other proof of excellence.
7. Do you want us to create your business websites’ email addresses?
   • You need to have a professional e-mail address but it would also be useful to have a backup Gmail address in case your business email address is not accessible for any reason(s).
   • All your business emails can be forwarded automatically to your Gmail address that can serve as a backup solution for business mails.

WEBSITES’ GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

1. What is the main goal of this website?
   • What is your motivation for getting in touch with us? 
2. What do you want this website to do for your company?
   • Identify your short-term and long-term objectives

• POSSIBLE SHORT-TERM OBJECTIVES:

1. Better company online presence
2. Improve internal communication
3. Encourage onsite or social media interaction
4. Educate your audience
5. Reduce customer service calls
6. Get more inbound leads / quote requests / phone inquiries
7. Collect email addresses and build a list
8. Need to reach people in other languages
9. Promote latest product(s) / service(s)

• POSSIBLE LONG-TERM OBJECTIVES:

1. Better company image
2. Increase brand awareness
3. Better product recognition
4. Increase prospective customer base
5. Build customer loyalty
6. Increase sales
7. Increase company’s profitability

Now think what will happen if you don’t get a new website or you don’t have your current website redesigned?

• E.g. your current website may not be fully functional in browsers, or you have decided to sell online and your current website isn’t capable for that, etc. 

YOUR PREFERRED WEBSITE’S DESIGN

1. Describe your design aims and requirements in detail — the more specific, the better.
   • Tell the designers what is required, but also let them know where they’re free to be creative.
   • E.g. some websites use white space and limited text to give a relaxed feel while others use many images and text to give the website a busy feel. 
   • Define what you want the “feel” of your website to be: Funny, Casual, Formal, Professional, Cutting Edge, etc.  
2. Do you have any colour palette/ font preferences?
   • In case you have some personal preferences for colours/fonts to be used on your website, provide them to us.
   • Be careful that your website’s design preferences are aligned with your logo design preferences.
3. Any specific visual goals for your website?
   • Do you want to design your website based on your specific website goals?
   • If yes, can you list those specific website goals?
4. If you had a seasonal marketing campaign or your corporate identity needs to be revised, it will help to provide past design samples.
   • It’s useful to discuss what worked or didn’t work for you the past, particularly regarding customer/audience response
   • Or the direction you and your organization wish to take in future. 
5. Do you have any current marketing materials that you want to incorporate into the design?
   • Do you want to use existing marketing materials?
6. What you DON’T WANT on your current website (if you have a website)?
   • E.g. what text, type of content, etc.
7. What do you DISLIKE about your current website (if you have a website)?
   • What are websites’ weak points?
8. What do you LIKE about your current website (if you have a website)?
   • What are websites’ strong points?
9. Do you have a final text/ copy/ graphics/ videos for the website ready to go?
   • Any photographs provided should have a high resolution. The best resolution for photographs is 300dpi (dots per inch).
   • Any text, photographs, illustrations or other material provided should be given to the designer before work commences, as it can be a drain on time and resources if a designer is left waiting for these things halfway through a project.
   • All materials provided by the client should be in the final form without need for further revisions. Any content you delivered needed to be adjusted/optimized will be charged an hourly rate.
   • Any changes that have to be made after the design has been agreed and work done will need additional time and cost money.
   • Content usually takes forever to be prepared. If you have copy writing skills or you can team up with somebody, you could speed up the content production process and we can finish the project faster.
10. Where is the website content coming from?
    • When you provide images/text/video/audio or any other material, it’s crucial also to provide information on the legal permissions that have been obtained for the use of the material (if possible).
    • If any attribution is required, the details should be provided to us before we start working on the project.
    • This is also valid for any materials that are provided by third parties.
11. Do you need basic training to change and add content on your website?
    • We can provide you comprehensive training so you are able to create & update website’s content completely by yourself.

YOUR PREFERRED LOGO DESIGN

1. Do you have a logo of your company/ organization?
   • If you have a logo, send us a copy of its largest image as well as the color codes of your brand.
   • For the best result, the logo should be provided in vector format.
   • The most common vector formats are Postscript (.eps) and Illustrator (.ai).
   • A vector format allows the logo to be made bigger or smaller without losing image quality.
   • A .jpg file is not a vector format and usually doesn’t represent a client’s logo at its best, depending on its size.
2. If you already have a logo, why do you want a new logo?
   • Your logo doesn’t represent your current business anymore
   • Your logo was an amateur project
   • Your logo is complex
   • Your logo isn’t responsive
   • You don’t like your logo anymore
3. If you don’t have a logo, what colors would you like to see in your logo?
   • It’s usually best to stick up to two colors that are complimentary.
   • It’s better to get it all right from the very start.
   • Possible colors for your logo:
     • Red: Passion, Anger, Vigor, Love, Danger
     • Yellow: Knowledge, Energy, Joy, Intellect, Youth
     • Green: Fertility, Wealth, Healing, Success, Growth
     • White: Purity, Healing, Perfection, Clean, Virtue
     • Blue:  Knowledge, Trust, Tranquility, Calm, Peace, Cool
     • Black: Fear, Secrecy, Formal, Luxury
     • Purple: Royalty, Wisdom, Spirituality, Imagination
     • Orange: Creativity, Invigoration, Unique, Stimulation
     • Gray: Balance, Sophistication, Neutrality, Uncommitted
       (bold the chosen color or a maximum of 2 colors) 
4. Do you have any colors that you don’t wish to use?
   • Not wanted colors for your logo:
     • Red: Passion, Anger, Vigor, Love, Danger
     • Yellow: Knowledge, Energy, Joy, Intellect, Youth
     • Green: Fertility, Wealth, Healing, Success, Growth
     • White: Purity, Healing, Perfection, Clean, Virtue
     • Blue:  Knowledge, Trust, Tranquility, Calm, Peace, Cool
     • Black: Fear, Secrecy, Formal, Luxury
     • Purple: Royalty, Wisdom, Spirituality, Imagination
     • Orange: Creativity, Invigoration, Unique, Stimulation
     • Gray: Balance, Sophistication, Neutrality, Uncommitted
       (bold the chosen color or a maximum of 2 colors)
5. What is the purpose of the logo?
   • Is the logo for your website, your company or your product?
6. Select what type(s) your logo should be?
   • E.g. typography, abstract, symbol, silhouette, corporate, initial, fun, etc.
7. What words or letters do you want to be included in your logo?
   • Type in exactly as you want it.
8. How would you like the typography to appear?
   • Example: script, bold, light, hand drawn, custom lettering.
9. Do you want your slogan/ tagline to be included in the logo?
   • Slogan can be included in your logo, if that is feasible.
10. Provide a few adjectives to describe your logo. 
    • Some examples: Feminine, Masculine, Young, Mature, Luxury, Economical, Modern, Classic, Playful, Serious, Loud, Quiet, Simple, Complex, Subtle, Obvious
11. What attributes of your business/ organization would you like your logo to reflect?
    • Should the logo reflect the attitude of the company or is it independent of the company?
12. Do you have any specific imagery in mind for your logo?
    • Can you provide links and visual examples?
13. What logos appeal to you and why?
    • Can you provide links and visual examples?
14. Would you like any additional design services to be packaged with your new logo?
    • E.g. Business cards, Envelopes, Letterhead, all of the mentioned?
    • You need to be in sync with any other materials you already have.

COMPETITORS DESIGNS

1. Who are your main competitors?
   • State your main competitors, their business names and the websites’ links.
2. Use Google to search for 3 websites that you LIKE in terms of text, content, color, graphic elements, etc.
   • Please explain in short why you like them and what to include in your design.
   • Sometimes you already know what your website should look like or be similar to – no need to re-invent the wheel.
3. Use Google to search for 3 websites that you DON’T LIKE in terms of text, content, color, graphic elements, etc.
   • Please explain in short why you don’t like them.
   • Not following your dislikes can get us all into trouble and prolong website’s creation. It’s better from the project’s side to know such things in advance.

WEBSITE’S TARGET AUDIENCE

1. Who are you trying to attract with your marketing message?
   • Who is the primary audience you would like to reach and who are the secondary audiences?
   • Please describe your potential customers – be specific: nationally or internationally (which countries?).
   • Pay particular attention to their income, interests, gender, age, even type of devices they will use to browse your website.
   • If your website is a business-to-business site, what sort of companies are you hoping to attract?
   • These questions help to understand better your potential visitors and therefore allow to more accurately plan the website design and development.
2. What main keyword words/ phrases would you like to use to make it easier for people to find your website via search engines?
   • E.g. if you were using Google, what words or phrases would you use to find your website?
   • Come up with a reasonable list for at least 3 to 5 of words/phrases.
3. Which of keyword words or phrases is the most important, which is second, third…?
   • For example: “dance dress, right dance dress, Los Angeles dance dress”.
4. Are you interested in letting us write articles for your website?
   • We can write and optimize your articles for Google searches (SEO optimization).
5. Do you intend to market your company over other Internet channels (besides your website)?
   • How do you intend to promote your company: are you going to use social media (we recommend  Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and there are others: Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.?), Google AdWords, Facebook ads, email list, ads websites, etc.
6. Do you plan to publish posts by yourselves on social networks or would you like us to do it instead?
   • Regular and appropriate content creation encourage engagement and lead generation on your website.
7. Do you want to manage your social networks profiles/ pages/ channels by yourselves or would you want us to do it for you? 
   • Appropriate setup of social networks profiles/pages as well as quality and timely communication through various channels is of crucial importance in building your reputation and relationship with current & possible customers.
8. Where does the majority of your traffic come from?
   • Your website, Google search, Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, G+, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.), Trip Advisor, various posts, etc.
9. What actions do you want visitors to take on the website?
   • Visitors can buy products, be educated, fill out the form, etc. 

MEASUREMENT OF YOUR WEBSITE’S SUCCESS

Will you measure your goals by:

1. the number of visitors?
2. the new inquiries you get?
3. by the number of leads generated?
4. by the level of activity on your website’s blog?
5. by the number of sales made?
6. by the number of social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) followers?
7. by the users of your website’s forum?
8. by something else?

FINAL QUESTIONS

1. Who is the decision maker on this project?
   • Name and surname: 
   • E-mail: 
   • Phone Number:
2. What is the turnaround time for making individual decisions?
   • We must have your time commitment for providing us with answers on our questions/requests otherwise the project can be prolonged for a longer period.
   • Time to get answers on our questions (could influence the total duration of the Project): 
     • 1 working day 
     • 2 working days
     • 3 working days
     • 1 week
     • more than 1 week
3. Who on your staff will be responsible for receiving feedback from the visitors?
   • In order to avoid possible “conflicting input from multiple people” problem, we need to have only one main responsible person.
     • Name and surname: 
     • E-mail: 
     • Phone Number:
4. What features would you like your website to have?
   • Not every website needs to have the same features and sometimes you could ask the features on your website that you really don’t need.
   • Possible websites’ features:
     • Blog
     • Contact form for clients’ questions
     • Interactive Google map of your business locations
     • Photo Gallery
     • Video Gallery
     • Slider
     • Testimonials
     • Survey
     • Questions & Answers (Q&A)
     • Internal Site’s Search option
     • Newsletter e-mail form.
     • Booking system
     • Membership Login
     • Quiz/Polls
     • Events Calendar
     • Online Chat
     • Online Forum
     • Advanced commenting system
     • Connecting the content of the website with the most popular social networks (Facebook, Twitter, G +,…)
     • Store/Webshop: 
     • Are you planning to do online sales? 
       • If so, what is the product and how many items do you want to sell online
       • Are you open to accept credit cards?
       • How much time will you be able to spend online, responding to e-commerce inquiries that come in via your website? Once a day? Several hours a day?
         ◦ Other:
         (please bold the features you plan to have on your website)
5. Would you like your website to have regular website’s maintenance / updates / communication with the visitors?
   
   • If you don’t have enough knowledge or time we offer maintenance (system, security, speed up, visitors statistics reports), website’s content updates, answers on visitors questions, etc.
6. What is your organizations data?
   • Formal organizational name:
   • Address:
   • Phone:
   • E-mail:
   • All other organization data:
7. Do you have a deadline for completing the website (deliverable schedule)?
   • Usually, our deadline/website delivery is 4-6 weeks, depending on the Project’s size and our other priorities/availability.
   • Our goal is to agree with you on the realistic deadline for website’s delivery.
8. When a website is completed, in what time do you expect your website to contribute in  increasing your business?
9. Once your new website is up, it will take time for the promotional activities to show results. You would need to be patient to see concrete results.
10. What is your expected budget for this project?
    • R10,000
    • R15,000
    • R20,000
    • R30,000
    • R50,000
    • Open budget
      
      The goal is to make a clear realistic budget for both sides.
      
      
11. Please include other comments or questions you would like addressed before starting the project, if there are any.
    • We are open for any discussions/questions you may have.

Your Turn for Web Design Brief comments

1. How do you like our Web Design Brief questionnaire? 
2. Do you think we covered all the aspects you think are important in Web Design Brief? 
3. Would you like to add anything else in above Web Design Brief? 
   
   You can share your additional questions in the comments below.

   CONTACT US FOR A WEBSITE

[quix id='63' name='Let us help you ']