What matters for website design

A business website should help visitors understand the offer, judge whether it fits their needs, and contact the right person. The brief needs to cover content and user journeys as well as appearance. Existing search traffic, useful URLs, integrations, accessibility, and maintenance all affect the work. Redesigning without an inventory can remove valuable pages or break form and contact processs that already function.

Make the handover and responsibilities explicit

List the accounts, files, domains, integrations, reports, and active campaigns involved. Confirm who controls each one and which licences can be transferred. Give the agency the access it needs and choose someone on your team to approve changes. Keep useful records and plan the handover to avoid unnecessary interruptions.

Check access, test the new setup, make the agreed changes, and then test the site or campaign from a customer's point of view. Where possible, keep a way to restore the previous setup if something goes wrong. The agreement should explain cancellation, help with exporting files or data, and any remaining charges, so you know what happens when the project ends.

A practical checklist

  1. Inventory existing pages, useful content, integrations, and search landing pages.
  2. Define the main customer journeys and the information each decision requires.
  3. Agree on content ownership, genuine evidence, and approval responsibilities.
  4. Build responsive layouts with readable text, useful links, and accessible forms.
  5. Test performance, navigation, redirects, and completed enquiries before launch.
  6. Document hosting, updates, backups, and ownership after handover.

Use this checklist to see what is working and what needs attention. Start with the most important change before taking on more work. Record what you change so you can understand the results later.

How to assess the results

Judge the site through completed tasks and business outcomes: qualified enquiries, bookings, successful form delivery, and relevant search traffic. Measure mobile and desktop experiences separately. Performance and accessibility are practical quality checks, but a fast website still needs a clear offer and a functioning response process.

What to include in your brief

Share your current website, the pages and features you need, approved content, and genuine examples of your work. Identify pages that already attract useful search traffic, connected systems, accessibility needs, and anything you want to edit yourself. Agree how content will be moved, what will be tested, who owns the finished work, and who maintains it.

Ask for a proposal explaining what is included, what your team needs to provide, who owns the work, and what it costs. Agree when you will review progress. Broad Promo can help you plan the services you need and explain how they fit together, with the details confirmed before work begins.

Further reading

web.dev: Web Vitals