Most redesigns start with a feeling: the site looks old and the owner is tired of it. That is a real reason to act, and the wrong brief. A site redesigned for taste gets new colours, a new photo of the team and the same phone that does not ring.
The brief that works starts with a buyer, not with the owner. Who arrives at the site, what they came to find, and what has to happen on the page for them to call. For a manufacturer that is a spec sheet and a quote form an engineer will fill in. For an investment firm it is a page compliance has already signed. Nobody asks whether the owner likes the blue.
The brief also has to protect what already works. A site that has ranked for years has addresses Google trusts. Redesign it without a redirect map and the traffic leaves with the old pages. We mapped 575 addresses before our own site moved (our redirect map, 2026); dull work, and the work.
If the site is years behind the company and the phone is quiet, that is the brief. See how a redesign keeps what still ranks, or ask the question this article did not answer in the form below.