How to write a website design brief tailored to your homebuilder’s needs

A website design brief is a critical document and an essential part of the process for evaluating and planning your project before we begin work.

First, it helps you thoroughly explore your options, review them, and choose the right partner to create your homebuilder website. Second, as a potential partner, it allows us to fully understand your expectations and provide a quote or proposal tailored to meet them.

In this post, we’ll discuss the importance of crafting a strong website design brief, how it shapes and supports the development process, and what we at Dalo look for in one.

Why an in-depth website brief is important

A website design brief is helpful, first and foremost, for setting overall objectives for the project and outlining key requirements. This document then serves as a foundation for finding potential partners who are best placed to support with the project. If the brief is well-written, it allows potential partners to determine whether they’re a good fit for the work. This saves everyone time by setting clear expectations upfront and reducing unnecessary back-and-forth communication.

As a homebuilder, the brief stage is also an opportunity to outline any unique or specialized requirements specific to your business, such as managing multiple brands, separately branded communities, or listing syndication.

From our perspective as a potential partner, receiving a well-prepared brief provides us with a clear set of requirements, constraints, and desired outcomes. This enables us to propose an effective approach and create accurate estimates. In turn, it helps you receive a detailed, customized proposal that allows you to make informed decisions about how to move forward. A strong start with everyone on the same page benefits both sides. An organized process and thorough brief result in a high-quality proposal and response.

Homebuilder website design brief: what to include

The following is a list (a wish list, if you will) of the type of details we love to see within a website brief. You should include all of this as a minimum to get useful responses to your brief.

Project overview

You should start the document by briefly describing your organization and the background for the project. Why are you relaunching your website? What context should we know about your organization and the project’s objectives?

Here’s an example:

Storybook Homes is a leading US-based homebuilder specializing in creating high-quality, sustainable, and beautifully designed residences. With a focus on craftsmanship, innovation, and customer satisfaction, Storybook Homes offers premium-quality homes and thoughtfully planned communities. Our mission is to help families build the home of their dreams, blending modern amenities with timeless design.

We are looking to relaunch our website as a dynamic platform to showcase our communities and properties. The site will feature an intuitive design, interactive tools for virtual tours and cost estimation, and seamless navigation to enhance the user experience.

You should also include the project’s intended budget and timeline. These details are critical so that we can evaluate whether we’re a good fit for the project and put together an accurate and realistic proposal.

The budget doesn’t have to be a single fixed amount—a range (e.g., $50,000–$75,000) is still helpful so we can ensure our proposal aligns with your financial expectations.

Section checklist:

• Organization description
• Project background and objectives
• Budget
• Timelines

 

Further context and objectives

Dive deeper into your organization’s goal and broader digital and/or marketing strategy as it relates to the website project. This is your chance to provide additional context about what you are aiming to achieve through completing the project.

Section checklist:

• Details of prior work on your digital experience or brand: share any market research, internal stakeholder engagement, strategies, or brand guidelines you’ve already developed. Providing as much detail as possible is helpful—include links to relevant documents if available.
• Project-related objectives: highlight specific goals tied to digital or marketing outcomes that should influence the proposal (e.g. boosting inquiries, increasing scheduled visits, improving speed and performance etc.)
• Target audience and key users: provide a brief overview of your website’s primary audience and users. What are the demographics of your potential buyers? Do other personas visit your site, such as land promoters? Who needs to access and manage your site(s) internally?

 

Technical requirements and considerations

Provide insight into the specific details of what you expect to deliver through this project. While some aspects of the “how,” “what,” and “why” may evolve as the project develops and we refine the strategy, this is your opportunity to clearly define what’s absolutely essential. This helps us fully understand the scope of work needed to execute the project successfully.

Section checklist:

• Top-level functionality – for example, interactive community maps, community search, floor plans, etc
• Preferred content management system (CMS) – it’s not required to specify this upfront (we’ll always evaluate and recommend the best CMS platform for your needs), it’s helpful to know what you’re currently using and/or if you have a preference for the new website.
• Multi-site/brand functionality – if you’re running a property group or family of brands, are these going to be part of the same ecosystem and how will you need to manage them?
• Integrations – required connections to internal systems and tools (e.g. to pull in plot availability and other information), and/or listing syndication.
• Server/hosting requirements – would you like us to handle hosting, do you plan to host internally, or with another provider?
• Migration – what content and data will need to be migrated from your current website?
• Content – do you have a content/copywriting plan in place? Will your marketing deliver it?
• Compliance requirements – we always design and develop to meet core web standards, but let us know if there are specific organizational standards we should adhere to or users we need to cater for.

 

Selection process outline

From previous experience, it’s incredibly helpful if your website design brief includes a timeline and an overview of your vendor selection or decision-making process. Preparing a response to a brief often requires input from numerous team members with different skill sets, so having clear expectations and deadlines ensures we can start the process on the right foot.

Section checklist:

• Timelines for response, review, and selection process: specify the proposal deadline, when you expect proposals will be reviewed, when we’ll be informed if we’re moving to the next stage, and the date you’ll select the partner to deliver the project.
• How proposals will be evaluated: provide the criteria you’ll use for evaluation—i.e., is cost the most important factor, previous work, or something else?

 

What’s expected from us

This section isn’t essential, but it’s incredibly helpful for evaluating whether we’d be a good fit to work with you. We aim to build long-term, successful partnerships with our clients, so it’s important to understand if we share similar values and whether our approach, experience and processes align with your needs.

Section checklist:

• Your preferred way of working with external agencies like Dalo.
• Any specific values or qualities you’re looking for in a partner.

 

Setting your own expectations

Once you’ve shared your brief and start receiving responses, it’s important to have a clear internal framework for what to expect to avoid feeling disappointed or frustrated.

First, it’s unlikely you’ll receive designs, concepts, or finalized details about the technical strategy at this stage. Your decision will primarily be based on our previous work, capabilities, and, honestly, whether you feel confident about working with our team based on what you’ve seen and heard from us.

Second, the process is a two-way street—you’ll get out of it what you put into it. From our perspective, crafting a proposal takes time, effort, and resources, so setting clear expectations and providing as much detail as possible upfront helps both sides avoid wasting time. This ensures we don’t create a proposal for a project that might not be a good fit in terms of culture, budget, or timelines.

 

If you’ve been using this blog post to write a website design brief – hey there 👋! We’d love to check it out and see how we can help. Just send it to us here.