Your customers have been trained by the biggest retailers on earth, and they bring those expectations to every store they visit, including yours. Nobody consciously compares your checkout to the giants, but everybody notices the extra form field, the delivery cost that appeared at the last step, and the product photo that would not zoom. This guide is about commissioning a store that survives those comparisons.

What the site has to do

Three jobs, in order. It has to answer the product question fast, with photography, sizing, stock and delivery answers on the page, because uncertainty is the biggest basket-killer there is. It has to make paying effortless, with guest checkout, saved details where wanted, and the total cost visible before the final step rather than sprung at it. And it has to rank, because product and category pages that answer real searches are the cheapest customer acquisition an online store will ever own.

What to put in the brief

Your catalogue’s true shape: how many products, how many variants, how often prices and stock change, and where that data lives today, because catalogue complexity drives ecommerce cost more than design ever does. The systems the store must talk to, from EPOS and stock control to couriers and accounting. Your delivery promise, written down, since fulfilment is part of the product. And what happens after the order, because the confirmation email, the despatch update and the returns route are all part of the experience people review you on.

What to measure

Checkout completion rate above everything, then average order value, repeat purchase rate, and the revenue from organic search landings on product and category pages. Traffic without checkout completion is a window-shopping crowd, and a store that measures the right four numbers can be improved every single month.

Your buyers do not buy the way websites assume

The person who first finds you is rarely the person who signs, the gap between first visit and order can run many months, and the visitor who matters most is often an engineer checking whether you can actually make the thing. Most manufacturing websites are built as brochures for a buyer who does not exist. This guide is how to commission one for the buyers who do.

What the site has to do

Three jobs, in order. It has to convince a technical specifier of capability quickly, which means real specifications, tolerances, materials and processes on the page rather than behind an enquiry form. It has to make the evidence easy to hand upwards, because your first visitor sells you internally to the person who signs, so case studies and capability documents need to be sendable. And it has to be found for the searches specifiers actually run, which are precise, technical, and almost never the marketing phrases on your current home page.

What to put in the brief

List the products or capabilities that earn the margin, not everything you can do. Name the three customer types who visit the site and what each needs to leave with. Gather the technical documentation that exists today, because datasheets you already have are content the project does not have to fund. State the systems the site must talk to. And decide who internally owns keeping specifications current, because a manufacturing site with stale specs is worse than none.

What to measure

Qualified enquiries, meaning the ones your sales team did not immediately discard. Downloads of technical documents, which are the earliest signal a specifier is working you into a project. And the search terms bringing engineers to the site, which tell you which capabilities the market currently associates with you and which it has not noticed yet.

Your buyer has read more product pages this month than your marketing team has written this year. They are sophisticated, impatient, and quick to punish jargon, and the person who actually decides is usually the most technical person in the room. A technology website that opens with an abstract slogan has lost that person before the page has finished loading.

What the site has to do

Lead with the problem you solve, in words a buyer would use to describe it themselves, because recognition is what stops the scroll. Let the buyer self-qualify, with real technical depth available for the engineer and a clear commercial story for the budget holder, on paths that do not tangle. And offer a journey that matches how the product is bought, whether that is a self-serve trial, a sales-led demo, or documentation deep enough to evaluate without ever talking to sales.

What to put in the brief

The problem statement, in one sentence, argued over until it is true. Who the technical decision-maker is and what they need to see. The trial or demo funnel, mapped end to end including what happens after signup. And the integrations and security answers enterprise buyers ask about, because pages that answer them are pages that shorten sales cycles.

What to measure

Trial signups or demo bookings, cost per acquisition by channel, and engagement with the technical content, because in this sector the depth of a visit predicts the value of the visitor better than the volume of visits ever will.

Regulated firms live with a tension most businesses never feel: the website has to sell, and every sentence on it has to survive a compliance review. Handled late, that tension turns projects into trench warfare. Handled early, it disappears almost entirely, and handling it early is mostly a matter of asking the right questions in the brief.

What the site has to do

Win trust from a high-stakes buyer, with named people, credentials and evidence doing the work adjectives cannot. Carry its regulatory load invisibly: authorisations, disclosures, complaints information, data protection and accessibility built into the structure rather than bolted on. And convert, because compliance is a constraint on how you say things, not a excuse for a site that never asks for the enquiry.

What to put in the brief

Your regulator and the specific disclosure requirements, on day one. Who signs off content and how long they realistically take, built into the timeline rather than discovered by it. Which partners or advisers will be named and quoted. And the services you actually want more of, because regulated firms above all tend to list everything and sell nothing.

What to measure

Instruction-stage or advice-stage enquiries. Rankings for service and location terms. And the number of compliance revision rounds, because a site built with the rules in mind gets signed off in one pass, and that is a measurable saving in partner time.

Your customers buy on relationships, know their suppliers personally, and do a surprising amount of their browsing from a tractor cab on a 4G connection that drops at the hedge line. A website for this sector has to respect all three of those facts, and most were built respecting none of them.

What the site has to do

Load fast on a weak signal, which is a build discipline rather than a design preference, and one worth testing before you sign anything off. Speak plainly, because this audience is expert, time-poor and allergic to marketing voice. And lead to the phone, because the sector buys by ringing up, and the number should be one thumb-tap away on every page.

What to put in the brief

Your seasonal calendar, because farm business is rhythmic and the site’s content and promotions should breathe with it. Where stock and product data lives and how it will stay current, since a rural audience forgives a plain site and never forgives a wrong one. Who answers the phone and when. And the relationships, dealerships and brands that anchor your credibility locally.

What to measure

Phone enquiries through call tracking, because that is where this sector transacts. Direction requests and opening hours lookups. And product page engagement by season, which quietly maps your customers’ year better than most market research.

Nobody commissions a building from a website

The work is too big, too bespoke and too long-cycle for that. What the website does is get you shortlisted, usually by a researcher assembling a list for someone more senior, and usually on the strength of your evidence rather than your adjectives. That single fact should shape every decision in the project.

What the site has to do

Lead with the portfolio, because in this sector the projects are the argument and everything else is footnotes. Prove capability, with named teams, accreditations, and the technical depth a specifier needs to justify putting you forward. And qualify enquiries properly, because a brief form that asks the right questions saves both sides weeks of polite discovery.

What to put in the brief

The projects you are proud of, with photography you actually have the rights to use, gathered before the build starts because chasing images is the great delayer of construction websites. The sectors and project values you want more of, so the portfolio is curated rather than archived. Your accreditations and framework memberships. And what a qualified enquiry looks like to your team, in writing, so the form can screen for it.

What to measure

Qualified enquiries per quarter, and the quality of what the brief form catches. Capability document downloads, which are the earliest signal of a specifier at work. And which project pages hold attention, because that tells you what the market currently hires you for.

An education website is three websites wearing one address

It is a marketing site for prospective students and parents, an information service for current ones, and a back office that the team has to keep current without filing a ticket every time a course changes or a snow day closes the car park. Projects go wrong when the brief only describes the first one.

What the site has to do

Recruit, which means course and admissions pages built around what applicants search for and the questions parents actually ask. Inform, which means term dates, policies and updates reachable in two taps on a phone at the school gate. And publish, which for schools includes the statutory information Ofsted checks the website for before the inspection team has got out of the car.

What to put in the brief

The course or year-group taxonomy, decided early, because it shapes everything and is miserable to change later. The statutory publishing list and who owns keeping it current. Photography and consent arrangements, because education photography has rules and the good sites lean on real images heavily. And the systems the site must talk to, from MIS platforms to open evening booking.

What to measure

Open day bookings, prospectus requests and applications. Findability of the statutory content, which one parent-testing session will establish. And how long updates actually take the office team, because a site they can run is a site that stays alive.

Charity websites carry more weight per page than any commercial site

The same few pages have to persuade a donor, reassure a referrer, recruit a volunteer and satisfy a trustee, usually on a budget a commercial marketing director would refuse. That constraint is exactly why small improvements have outsized impact, and why getting the basics right matters more here than anywhere.

What the site has to do

Make giving effortless, because every extra step in a donation journey loses people who had already decided to give, and recovering them costs more than the step ever saved. Speak plainly, because jargon that slips past a commercial audience actively repels donors who want to know what their money does. And be accessible by default, because your community includes the people the digital world most often leaves behind.

What to put in the brief

Count the steps in your current donation journey and write the number down, because reducing it is probably the single most valuable thing the project will do. Name your payment and CRM systems. Gather the stories, with permissions sorted, because stories are the currency of the sector and permission chasing is what delays launches. And involve a trustee early, because a board that has seen the thinking approves the spend.

What to measure

Donation completion rate above everything, then average gift and volunteer signups. Not traffic, and never social followers. A charity site with modest traffic and a strong completion rate is quietly outperforming most of the sector.

Your buyer is a careful researcher with a lot to lose

Before they ring any firm they will have read three or four websites, formed a view about who feels credible, and quietly ruled out anyone who made them work too hard. The decision is mostly made before the first conversation, which means your website is doing the early selling whether you designed it to or not.

What the site has to do

Demonstrate expertise without showing off, which in practice means answering the questions clients actually bring rather than describing your departments. Put real people on the page, because professional services are bought from humans, and a firm that hides its people behind stock photography reads as having something to hide. And remove every scrap of friction from the moment of contact, because a researcher who has finally decided to talk should never have to hunt for the way in.

What to put in the brief

The services that actually earn the margin, not the full alphabetical list. The partners or principals willing to be named, photographed and quoted, because their visibility is the trust signal everything else leans on. Your compliance and disclosure requirements, named early, so the compliance review at the end is a formality rather than a rewrite. And the proof: real testimonials, real outcomes, and whether your client relationships allow either to be public.

What to measure

Instruction-stage enquiries and booked calls, tracked properly, because they are the number the website exists to move. Rankings for your services in your towns. And where new clients say they found you, asked at intake and actually recorded, because it is the cheapest attribution data there is.

Your visitors are not browsing

They are worried about a symptom at two in the morning, holding a phone in one hand and a child in the other, or checking whether a referral has sent their parent somewhere trustworthy. Most healthcare websites are built like corporate brochures for a calm reader who does not exist. This guide is about commissioning one for the visitors who do.

What the site has to do

Three jobs, in order. It has to be calm and fast, because an anxious visitor on a phone abandons a slow page in seconds and remembers the frustration longer than you would like. It has to be accurate and current, because in this sector a stale page about services, clinicians or opening hours is not an oversight, it is a clinical communication failure. And it has to work for everyone, which means real accessibility, tested rather than claimed, because the people who most need your information are disproportionately the people accessibility failures lock out.

What to put in the brief

Name the three or four journeys that matter and insist the site is designed around them: book or enquire, find a clinician, get information before an appointment, refer a patient. State your regulatory context up front, whether that is CQC, NHS supply chains or professional body rules, so nothing has to be retrofitted. Decide who clinically signs off content and how often it is reviewed, because the answer needs to survive contact with busy diaries. And gather your existing patient information leaflets, because they are content the project does not have to fund.

What to measure

Appointment requests and referral enquiries, not visits. Task completion on the journeys above, which a short round of testing with real patients will measure better than any dashboard. And the searches bringing people to you, because they show what your community is actually worried about, which is clinical intelligence as much as marketing data.

When a website underperforms, most owners assume it needs rebuilding, and most agencies are happy to agree because a rebuild is the biggest invoice. The truth is that websites fail at three different levels, and the fix should match the failure.

When a refresh makes sense

If the bones are good but the site is showing its age, the design feels five years old, the content has drifted, sections have been bolted on, then a refresh keeps the structure and the search equity while renewing what visitors see. This matters more than most owners realise: a site that has spent years earning its rankings holds value that a rebuild can destroy if it is done carelessly. Refreshing preserves the asset while fixing the experience.

We are a web agency, so you can be forgiven for reading this page with one eyebrow raised. Read it anyway. Everything below applies to us as much as to anyone you might hire instead of us, and we would rather you chose well than chose us badly.

The red flags

A guaranteed first-page Google ranking is a guarantee nobody can honestly make. A price that is dramatically below every other quote means something has been left out, and you will meet it later. A portfolio with no live links suggests sites that no longer exist or clients that would not want to be named. Pressure to sign a long tie-in before any work has been done tells you how confident they are of keeping you on merit. And an agency whose own website is slow, dated or inaccessible is showing you its actual standards, whatever the proposal says.

What a good decision looks like

Speak to three agencies. Ask all of them the same questions. Weight the answers about ownership, longevity and fixed pricing above the answers about design awards. Then pick the one whose explanations you understood, because the agency that explains things clearly before you are a client is the one that will explain things clearly when something goes wrong.