A copywriting brief template for websites that skips the fluff and gets you a sharper first draft. Steal our 7-question version — or ask Sage Writers to fill it in with you.
Nine out of ten briefs we receive at Sage Writers are a Google Doc titled “website copy” containing three bullet points and a link to a competitor. That’s it. No customer, no goal, no proof — just a vibe and a URL. So the writer guesses, the founder rewrites the draft into something unrecognisable, and everyone finishes the project quietly annoyed. A proper copywriting brief template for websites fixes this in about twenty minutes, and this article gives you the seven-question version we actually fill in with clients.
The brief problem most founders don’t spot
The bad brief isn’t lazy — it’s optimistic. Founders assume the writer will “get it” from the competitor link. Writers assume the founder will “fill in the gaps” during revisions. Nobody says the quiet part out loud: nobody has decided what the page needs to do.
That’s why you end up in round three of edits, arguing over whether the hero should say “trusted” or “trusted by”. The disagreement isn’t about the word. It’s about the fact that the brief never named a customer, a job, or a proof.
Quick tip — if your brief takes longer to read than the finished homepage, it’s too long. The point of a brief is to force decisions, not delay them.
What a website brief actually needs to answer
A useful brief describes the human, not the sitemap. Wireframes and page structure are the writer’s job. Your job, as the person commissioning the copy, is to hand over four things:
- One customer (a real person, named, with a morning routine)
- One job-to-be-done for this page
- One proof point that isn’t an adjective
- One next action the reader should take
That’s the whole shape of it. Compare this with the 20-page “discovery deck” bigger agencies love — a document that’s brilliant for justifying a retainer, but useless when a writer sits down at nine on a Tuesday morning and has to actually type something.
The 7-question brief we use at Sage Writers
Here’s the template. Copy it into a doc, answer each question in a sentence or two, and stop when you’ve finished. Do not embellish.
- Who’s the one customer we’re writing for? Name them. What did they eat for breakfast? What tab is open next to yours in their browser?
- What page are we writing, and what’s the one thing it needs to do? Book a call, sell a product, get a download. Pick one.
- What was their day like before they found you? What were they trying to do? What was annoying about it?
- What do you do better than every alternative they’ve tried? Not “faster” or “friendlier”. Specific. “First draft in 5 days” specific.
- What’s the proof? Numbers, client names, screenshots, review counts. Anything concrete.
- What’s the ONE next action? One button. Not three. Not “learn more and also read our blog and also follow us on LinkedIn”.
- What are three phrases we should never use? Your banned-words list. This is the sleeper hit of the whole template.
How long should filling this in take?
Twenty minutes, if you already know your customer. Forty, if you’re using the questions to work them out for the first time. If you’re at two hours, you’re overthinking it — jot down a rough answer and move on. The brief is meant to be a springboard, not a monument. A shorter, decisive brief always beats a long, hedged one.
The banned-words list — the underrated section
Question seven is the highest-leverage line in the whole brief. Because it stops the writer from typing the phrases you’ll only spot in round two — the ones that made you flinch when you read them but couldn’t articulate why.
Real examples clients have handed us: “bespoke solutions”, “passionate about”, “industry-leading”, “seamless experience”, “cutting-edge”. Give a writer that list up front and you save two revision rounds. Give it after the first draft and you’re rewriting anyway.
If you’re not sure which phrases to ban, our voice vs tone brand guide walks through how to build the list from three of your favourite bits of writing and three of your least favourite.
Three real briefs, three different outcomes
Three briefs from the last twelve months, anonymised but structurally identical to what we received.
Example 1 — A Birmingham dental practice
Before: three bullet points and the word “premium”. After we ran the seven questions on a 30-minute call: one customer (a 42-year-old woman researching Invisalign after her sister’s wedding photos), one goal (book a consultation), one proof (487 verified Google reviews). First draft hit in five days. Zero rewrites requested.
Example 2 — A B2B SaaS founder
Before: a 40-page brand document written by a previous agency. Beautiful. Unusable. After: we tore it down to one index card of answers. The homepage rewrite shipped in a week and lifted demo bookings by 34% in the first month.
Example 3 — An ecommerce skincare brand
Before: “match our competitor” and a link. After: named one customer (a 34-year-old who buys skincare on her commute), one banned word (“luxury”). We wrote twelve product descriptions from the same brief. Conversion on those SKUs rose enough to justify a full website copy rewrite.
What if I don’t have proof points yet?
Then say so — and be specific about what you do have. Ten happy customer emails is a proof point. A founder-led origin story is a proof point. Even “we launched three months ago” is honest and workable. The one thing that isn’t a proof point is an adjective. “Trusted” isn’t a proof. “Trusted by 40 UK dental practices” is.
How Sage Writers fills the brief in with you
Most clients don’t send us a completed brief. They send a bad one, we get on a 30-minute call, and we fill in the seven questions together. That call is the whole discovery process — not a six-week workshop with sticky notes.
Here’s the shape of the market:
| Option | Discovery process | Realistic timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Cheap freelancer (£300 site) | No brief at all | You’ll rewrite everything |
| Sage Writers | 30-min call + 7 questions | First draft in 5 days |
| Big agency | 6-week discovery sprint | First draft in 8–12 weeks |
You get a senior UK writer, a fixed price you know before we start, and the first draft in your inbox within five working days. If you want to prep before we chat, our list of questions to ask before hiring a copywriter is a decent companion piece.
Can I use this template with a different copywriter?
Yes — and please do. We built it to be portable. A good brief works with any writer who’s any good, and if you take our seven questions to a competitor’s freelancer, we’d rather that than see you struggle with three-bullet-point briefs forever. Copy the template, share it, tape it above your desk. We’ll survive.
The one-blockquote anti-pattern to avoid
Here’s the sentence we see, in some form, on 70% of the bad briefs that land in our inbox:
We want a modern, professional website that reflects our brand values and speaks to our target audience across multiple touchpoints.
“Modern” describes nothing. “Professional” is a hygiene factor, not a differentiator. “Brand values” is a container for the actual answer, not the answer. “Target audience” is a group; a writer needs a person. “Multiple touchpoints” is agency-deck vocabulary.
The eight-word rewrite: “Book more consultations from women researching Invisalign.”
That’s a brief. It names the action, names the customer, and lets the writer make every other decision.
What to ship today
You don’t need to hire anyone to try this. Right now, in the next twenty minutes:
- Open a fresh doc. Delete every previous brief you’ve written.
- Answer the seven questions in single sentences. No bullet-point sprawl.
- Send it to one of your customers and ask “does this sound like why you bought from us?”
- Adjust the two things they push back on.
- Send it to your writer.
That’s the whole exercise. Density beats volume every time — a one-page brief that names one customer will always outperform a twenty-page deck that names none.
If you’d rather fill it in with someone on the phone, we do that as part of every project. Send us the messy three-bullet version and get a free quote — we’ll book a 30-minute call, run the seven questions together, and have a proper brief on your desk by the end of it.