If you’re looking at web design in Tonbridge, you’ve probably already had one conversation where someone asked you to “send over your content” and you went quiet. That moment is where most projects stall. Not because the designer is slow. Because the brief is missing the five things that let anyone build you something useful.
Why the delay is almost never the designer
A web project has two halves: the build, and the decisions that feed the build. Designers quote for the build. Nobody quotes for the decisions, so nobody budgets time for them. Then the client goes looking for a photo, realises they dont have one, asks a colleague, waits a week, and the whole thing slides.
Sort these five things before you brief anyone and you will move faster, spend less on revisions, and end up with a site that actually works for your business.
1. The one sentence that says what you do
Not your company name. Not your tagline from 2019. One sentence a stranger would read and immediately know whether they’re in the right place.
Test it like this: read it to someone who has never heard of your business. If they can tell you, unprompted, who you help and what you do for them, it works. If they say “so it’s like a consultancy?” it doesn’t.
This sentence becomes the headline on your homepage. Without it, a designer will write something themselves, or leave a placeholder, and you will spend two rounds of revisions arguing about words instead of checking the layout. That’s easily a week gone.
2. Your three services, named the way customers say them
Not the internal names you use in proposals. The words a customer in Tonbridge types into Google when they need what you sell.
There is a quick way to check. Go to Google, start typing your service, and look at the autocomplete suggestions. Those are real searches from real people. If your page says “integrated facilities management” and customers search “office cleaning Tonbridge”, your page will not appear for them.
Pick three services maximum for now. Name them in plain language. Write one sentence about each that says who it’s for and what problem it solves. That’s your services section, done.
3. Ten real photos
Not stock images. Photos of your actual premises, your actual work, or your actual team. Even decent phone photos, taken in good light, beat a stock image of a handshake every time.
Here’s why it matters commercially: Google favours pages that look like real local businesses. A page of stock images gives it no signal that you are one. Real photos also convert better because a customer in Tonbridge who recognises your van, your shopfront, or your face is more likely to pick up the phone.
Ten is the minimum to give a designer something to work with. Aim for: one of the premises or workspace, two or three of work in progress or finished jobs, one of you or your team, and a few of anything that shows the quality of what you do.
If you dont have them yet, book an hour with a local photographer before you brief anyone. Waiting until after the design is agreed means the designer has to use placeholders, and replacing placeholders costs another round of changes.
4. The enquiry route you actually want
Phone, WhatsApp, contact form, booking link - pick one as the primary. The website will push people toward whatever you choose, so choose the one you will actually respond to fastest.
Work out the cost of getting this wrong. Say you close one in three enquiries and each job is worth £400. If your site sends people to a form you check twice a week, and a competitor answers the phone same day, you know which job they’re getting. The enquiry route is not a design decision. It is a sales decision that the design executes.
Write it down: “Primary: WhatsApp to 07xxx. Secondary: contact form, replied within 24 hours.” Hand that to the designer and they know exactly what buttons to build and where to put them.
5. Who signs things off
One name. One person who can say yes and mean it.
The single most common reason Tonbridge website projects overrun is that approval needs three people and one of them is always on holiday. A designer can only move as fast as your slowest decision-maker. If that is not you, name the person before the project starts and make sure they know they are on the hook for turnaround times.
If you are the decision-maker but you tend to loop in a partner or manager “just to check”, that is fine - just name them in the brief so the designer knows to expect a second round of feedback and can plan for it.
What to do with this list
Write a document. One sentence, three services, ten photos, your preferred enquiry route, one name. That is your brief. Any decent web designer in Tonbridge can work from it immediately.
If you want a second pair of eyes before you start, we’re happy to look at what you have and tell you what’s missing. No obligation, no pitch - just a straight answer on whether you’re ready to brief. See how we work and drop us a message if that would be useful.