How do I write a website brief?

Answer four things: what the site must do, who produces the content, what it must integrate with, and when it has to launch. Every scope dispute I have seen traces back to one of those being left implicit, and a clear brief also makes quotes comparable.

How long does a website take to build?

A small business website takes about three days of build time once scope is agreed and content exists. An e-commerce store takes about a week, a custom application about ten days. What stretches those timelines is almost never the code — it is decisions and missing content.

What happens after my website launches?

Thirty days of snag fixes are included — anything that does not work as scoped is corrected at no charge. You receive written handover documentation and every credential. After that, maintenance is optional and monthly, and nothing you paid for stops working if you decline it.

Process

What do you need from me to start a website project?

One person who can make decisions within a day, your content or a decision to reuse what exists, photographs of real work, and access to your domain and hosting in your own name. The first item matters more than all the others combined on a short build.

Answered by Anas Bin Masud 201 words 3 sections

The list in full

A named approver who can answer questions without a committee
Page content, product data, or an honest decision to reuse what exists
Photography of real work — stock imagery is recognisable as stock imagery
Domain and hosting access, in your name
Payment provider account, created in your business name with your bank details
API documentation and credentials for anything to be integrated

Why decision speed dominates

On a three-day build a decision that waits a day costs a third of the project. No amount of process compensates for a question that sits unanswered, and it is the single most common reason a short timeline stops being short.

What you do not need to have ready

A finished design, a full sitemap, or technical specifications. Describing outcomes — "customers can book a slot and pay a deposit" — is more useful than specifying a solution, and it leaves better answers available.

The longer version

This answer is deliberately short. If you want the full treatment, Writing a website brief that gets you comparable quotes covers it in about 3 minutes — free, ungated, written from client work.

Who answered this

Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan — fifteen live client sites, six of them stores taking real payments. These answers come from those projects rather than from a content brief. More about how I work, or ask me something directly.