Six questions to answer before building a website
Table of contents 10 sections
- 01Why most website projects start wrong
- 02Question 1 — What should the website have concretely accomplished in one year?
- 03Question 2 — Who is your target group and what language do they really speak?
- 04Question 3 — Which content, images, and texts can you supply yourself?
- 05Question 4 — One-off project, kit builder, or ongoing maintenance?
- 06Question 5 — Who maintains the site after launch?
- 07Question 6 — How do you measure whether the website works?
- 08The five follow-up questions that are usually forgotten
- 09What happens if you do not answer these questions
- 10What you can do this week
Why most website projects start wrong
The most common opening question in a web-design consultation is: "What does a website cost?" It is the wrong question at the wrong start. As long as the six questions in this article are not answered, no one can quote a serious price — and you yourself cannot compare offers without knowing your own measure.
Stefan, a plumbing and heating contractor in Carinthia with 14 employees, had his first website built in 2019 with the brief "make something that fits". Three designers, three prices between 2,800 and 9,500 euros, built by the cheapest, the result a site that did not pick up his target group. Eight months later a new start, this time with clear answers to the six questions. The second site cost almost as much as the first — but brought noticeably more enquiries, because the concept matched the reality of the business.
The difference between a website that works and one that just exists does not arise at the designer's table. It arises in the two or three hours you take before the first meeting — with pen, paper, and the honest answer to six questions.
Question 1 — What should the website have concretely accomplished in one year?
This question separates seriously meant projects from decorative ones. A website is usually meant to take on one of four tasks.
Produce enquiries. Visitors you do not yet know find you, read in, write to you or call. Typical for service providers, consultants, craftsmen with complex services.
Win candidates. Careers page, job openings, application form. Typical for growing businesses in industries with skills shortages.
Bring bookings or sales. Direct-booking process, online shop, appointment reservation. Typical for hospitality, gastronomy, retail, coaching.
Be verification. Existing customers check you after a recommendation, before a call, after a business card. That is the most common but least named function — and it requires very little.
Most SMEs in practice have one main task and one or two secondary tasks. Anyone who wants to optimise all four simultaneously optimises none properly. What the main task is determines every further question — from structure through content to maintenance routine.
A concrete formulation helps: "In twelve months I want the website to bring me ten qualified enquiries per month." Or: "In twelve months I want at least thirty percent of our applications to come through the careers page." A number, a timeframe, a concrete result. If you cannot write that down, you do not yet have a brief.
Question 2 — Who is your target group and what language do they really speak?
This is where most website projects fail. Not because the target group was misidentified, but because the site is written in the provider's language, not the customer's.
An example from the special-purpose machinery world: a manufacturer calls its product "hydraulic press system". His customers google for "stamping presses". Even the best search engine optimisation cannot bridge this gap because the search term simply does not appear on the site. The target group and the provider speak different languages.
Two ways help close this gap before the website is built.
First, go through a list of the last ten real customer conversations. Which words did the customer use when they described their problem? Exactly those words must appear in the texts of the site — not the internal technical terms you use in the office.
Second, an external test. Send a list of five to seven search terms you would wish for your website to three people outside your company. Ask them honestly how they would search themselves if they needed your offering. The answers are regularly sobering — and the most important input you can take into your brief.
Question 3 — Which content, images, and texts can you supply yourself?
This question has two effects. It determines the price directly — texts you supply yourself save 80 to 150 euros per page. And it determines how authentic your site feels in the end.
Three content classes are critical.
Texts. An average SME website has between six and twelve main pages. Per page you have to supply or pay for between 200 and 600 words of text. Anyone writing texts themselves gets a site with their own voice. Anyone letting the designer write the texts gets an interchangeable tone that sounds like a hundred other sites.
Images. Own photos of the team, the operation, real customer situations are in almost every comparison superior to stock photos. They cost a one-off 800 to 2,500 euros for a photo shoot — and remain the identity of the site over five to seven years. Anyone taking stock photos saves in the short term and gets an interchangeable look.
Logo and brand. If your logo is current, it goes directly into the new site. If the logo looks outdated or only exists as a JPG, a logo rework belongs before the website build, not into the website build. That is a separate project with its own brief.
An honest list before the first designer meeting: what is already there, what has to be newly created, what are you willing to supply yourself. These three columns spare you later discussions that make every project more strenuous than it has to be.
Question 4 — One-off project, kit builder, or ongoing maintenance?
Three models that fit different setups.
The one-off project. You pay once a fixed amount, the site is built and handed over. After that, it is your responsibility. Sensible when you have your own IT that can take on updates and minor changes — or when the site should deliberately stay static for five to seven years.
The kit builder. You work with a kit-builder platform, build the site yourself or have it set up, and take over maintenance directly. Sensible for very small sites, for sole traders, for projects with a tight budget. Not sensible if you have custom requirements, your own features, or a serious claim to visibility.
The ongoing maintenance. You pay monthly for construction and operation, the site stays permanently in a maintenance relationship with a designer or agency. Sensible for businesses without their own IT that want to use the site as an ongoing tool.
Which model fits does not depend on price, but on the answer to question 5. Anyone who can honestly answer "who maintains the site after launch" usually also knows which model fits.
Question 5 — Who maintains the site after launch?
The most common life-lie in website projects: "We maintain it ourselves." In practice almost no one maintains it themselves, because in everyday life there is no time and routine is missing. Three months after launch the site still looks like it did on day one — including the typos no one has corrected.
An honest answer has three possible forms.
First, "a concrete person on my team with a concrete time window". Example: "Our office assistant does thirty minutes of maintenance every Thursday." That works if the person is trained and the task is in the calendar.
Second, "I have an external maintenance contract with a designer or agency". Example: "Per month I pay 120 euros for updates, backups, and minor content changes." That works if the contract terms are clear and communication runs.
Third, "the site deliberately stays static". Example: "It is a verification site, it will not change in three years." That works if the site genuinely needs no maintenance — which is realistic for business-card sites, not for sites with currency claim.
What does not work: "We will take care of it." That answer is none, and is the most common precursor to sites that look technically and content-wise outdated after two years.
Question 6 — How do you measure whether the website works?
A website without success measurement is a gut-feeling project. If you do not know what you will read after twelve months to tell whether the investment paid off, you also cannot decide whether a second or third iteration step is sensible.
Three measurable dimensions are realistic for SMEs.
Enquiry rate. How many enquiries per month come through website forms and through direct calls demonstrably traceable to the website. A simple question on the phone — "may I briefly ask how you came across us?" — creates the data basis.
Visibility. How far up do you rank in the three or five most important search phrases for your business. Google Search Console is free and shows that to the hour.
Maintenance frequency. How often is the site actually touched — content changes, new posts, updates. A site that is never touched necessarily falls behind. A site maintained quarterly holds its position.
What is not measurable but still fills many briefs: "that the site looks modern", "that it conveys trust", "that it suits us". These points are legitimate wishes, but they are not measures. Anyone who cannot translate them into concrete, countable sizes should rethink before the build.
The five follow-up questions that are usually forgotten
Anyone who has answered the six main questions often overlooks five follow-up questions that inevitably arise in the project.
First, which existing content from the old site will be taken over. If you have an existing site, an inventory list belongs in the brief — which posts stay, which are merged, which fly out.
Second, which external connections the site needs. Newsletter system, booking tool, CRM, maps provider, analytics. These integrations take time and sometimes their own contracts.
Third, which language versions are required. A bilingual site (DE/EN) doubles the texts and maintenance logic. That is not just a technical question but a content one.
Fourth, how data protection and cookies are organised. Anyone with a contact form needs a data-protection declaration. Anyone using tracking needs a cookie banner. Both cost money, both belong in the brief.
Fifth, which access structures the site requires. Anyone needing a customer login, a member area, or an employee access has a more complex site that costs more and takes longer.
These five follow-up questions do not lengthen the brief — they replace the later follow-up loop that burdens every website project if the questions were not clarified beforehand.
What happens if you do not answer these questions
An honest follow-up list from two decades of web-design consulting.
You get offers that are not comparable. Three designers calculate three different concepts without those concepts fitting each other. You compare apples to pears and end up deciding on price — not on concept.
You get a site that looks generic. Anyone without a clear brief gets what the designer judges as "fits for most" — and that is mostly what all the other sites in your industry have. Differentiation arises through a clear brief, not through designer magic.
You need a second iteration. Sites without a clear brief are after twelve months almost always ripe for rework. That doubles the cost and delays the actual business.
You lose trust in the medium. Anyone who has had a site built and the result does not carry becomes more cautious the next time — and often invests further in the wrong place. A bad first site costs not only the price of the first site, but also the budget of the second[1].
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to create a good brief for the website build?
Realistically between two and six hours of concentrated work, spread over a half day with pen and paper or two shorter sessions. Anyone needing longer usually has unresolved fundamental questions in the company — but clarifying those questions is the most important preparation overall.
Do I have to answer these six questions alone or with the designer?
Questions 1, 2, 3, and 5 you have to answer yourself — only you know your target group, your content, and your internal resources. With questions 4 and 6, a designer conversation helps to place the models and measures. But the core of the answers comes from your company.
What does a website briefing workshop cost at an agency?
Realistic range between 400 and 1,500 euros for a structured workshop with documented output. Anyone who does not want to have it done externally can get very far with the six questions from this article and half an A4 page of notes. The workshop is the luxury variant — own work works just as well if you take it seriously.
Which question is the most important of the six?
Question 1 — "what should the website have concretely accomplished in one year". All other questions are derivations of this one. Anyone who cannot answer question 1 also cannot sensibly answer the other five — and should gain that clarity before the website build.
What do I do if I cannot answer questions 1 or 2?
Then the right investment is not a new website but first time with your target group. Three to five conversations with real customers, three to five with potential customers, one hour with your sales or service staff. From these conversations the answers emerge — and without these answers, any website investment is gut feeling.
Are the six questions enough or are there more?
For most SME sites, the six main questions plus the five follow-up questions from the next section suffice. With larger projects — online shop with logistics, multilingualism, member area — further questions come in that differentiate the concept more deeply. But the basic framework always stays the same.
What you can do this week
Take a quiet half day, lay out pen and paper, answer the six questions honestly. If you get stuck at one point, that is the most important information of the day — the lever for your next conversation in the company, not at the designer. Anyone going into the first provider conversation with clear answers will find the corresponding orders of magnitude in the overview of what a website costs in Austria, useful for placing offers concretely.
