A search project can go wrong before anyone changes a page. The agency starts with a list of keywords. The owner starts with a sales target. Neither has written down which enquiries are worth answering, which work the business can deliver, or who makes the final call on a claim. A simple business brief closes that gap.
You do not need to prepare a long presentation. One honest page, with a few links and examples, gives a good agency something much more useful than a polished mission statement. It tells them which customer a page should help, what that customer needs to know, and how you will recognise a useful enquiry.
Here is the brief I would ask for before planning a new local business site or a content programme. You can fill it in yourself. If an agency has already started work, use it to test whether the plan still points at the business you actually run.
Start with the work you want more of
Write down your three most valuable services in ordinary words. Beside each one, say what the customer is buying and what happens next. “Commercial cleaning” is a category. “A regular early-morning clean for an office that must be ready before staff arrive” is work someone can picture. The second version gives a writer the questions to answer on the page.
Then add the work you do not want. This part is often missing. If you do not serve homes, say so. If you only take projects above a certain size, describe the threshold in terms a buyer can understand. If you cannot take emergency calls, do not let a page promise a same-day response. A page that brings the wrong enquiries can look successful in a traffic report while wasting the time of everyone who answers the phone.
Do not turn a preference into a guarantee. “We usually start within two weeks” and “every job starts within two weeks” are different claims. Your brief should identify which statements can be published as facts and which need a fresh check before they appear on the site.
Describe the person who says yes
For each service, name the person who can approve it. A building manager, a practice owner, and a parent may search for the same broad service but ask different questions. One needs to know how a site stays open during the work. Another needs to know who holds the keys. Another needs a plain explanation of cost. The job title matters less than the decision the person must make.
Write two or three questions you hear before a sale. Use the words customers use, even if they are less tidy than the words in your brochure. Add the objection that makes a promising enquiry pause. For example, a buyer might ask whether a website redesign means losing the pages already visible in Google. That concern deserves a clear answer on the service page, not a paragraph about “digital transformation”.
It helps to include one recent good enquiry and one poor fit, with names removed. What did each person ask for? Why did one become a conversation and the other not? Those examples give an agency a better starting point than a guessed audience profile.
Draw the real service area
List the places you can serve, then mark any boundary that changes the offer. “We work across the city” may be true, but travel time, licences, staff coverage, and response times can make the practical service area much smaller for a particular job. A page should not invite someone to book a service that cannot be delivered there.
Separate where you have an office from where you serve customers. Do not imply a staffed branch exists because you would like to appear in a nearby town. For a service-area business, the honest coverage map is more useful than a large set of thin town pages. If location changes price or availability, explain that in the brief.
Choose one or two locations where you genuinely want the next customer, and state why. Capacity, margin, repeat work, and an existing team are better reasons than a tool showing a large search number. Your agency can then check what people in those places search for and whether the site has a page that answers it.
Hand over proof that a stranger can check
Give the agency the materials you are comfortable putting in front of a buyer: photographs of your own work, a process document, a real qualification, a public policy, or a review you have permission to quote. For each item, say who owns it, what it shows, when it was made, and whether it may be published. A photograph without a location or date can still be useful, but nobody should invent those details around it.
Write down claims that need care. “Certified”, “award-winning”, “guaranteed”, “24/7”, and “same-day” should each have a source and a scope before they appear in a headline. If the proof is not ready, the claim stays out. Good pages do not need a row of badges to feel credible. They need details a buyer can recognise as real.
Google’s guidance on helpful content asks whether a page provides original information and leaves people feeling they have learned enough to achieve their goal. Your photos, boundaries, process, and real answers are the parts an outside writer cannot simply produce from a keyword list.
Define an enquiry worth counting
Agree what a good outcome looks like before the first monthly report. A form submission might be a qualified lead, a request for a job you do not offer, or a test from your own staff. A call may last ten seconds or lead to a booked visit. Count the action, but also review enough of the context to understand its quality.
On the brief, name the actions the website should make easy: a call, a form, an appointment request, a quote request, or a visit to a booking system. Identify where each action is recorded and who can confirm whether it became useful. Avoid a report that quietly treats every button click as a sale.
Search Console can show which queries and pages brought people from Google Search. It cannot tell you by itself whether a caller was a fit. Analytics and the business’s own enquiry records answer different parts of that question. Put the sources side by side. Do not add their totals together and call the result “leads”.
Set the approval route before writing starts
Name one person who can approve service facts, prices, photos, and claims. If a clinical, legal, or financial point needs a specialist’s review, name that second reviewer too. Decide whether the agency may make small wording edits without returning to you, and which changes must wait. A clear route avoids both endless drafts and unsafe shortcuts.
Tell the agency which information changes often. Opening hours, phone numbers, service capacity, team names, and offers can become wrong faster than the core service description. Set a simple way to report a change. For example, an owner might send one email with the changed fact, the page URL, and the date it takes effect. The agency should confirm the edit on the public page, not only in its working file.
Keep access and ownership written down. The business should know who controls the domain, hosting, website, Search Console property, analytics property, and business profile. The people doing the work can have the access they need without taking ownership of those accounts. When a project ends or changes hands, that distinction saves time.
What the finished page should let a buyer do
Once the brief exists, pick one service and read its page as a stranger. Can you tell exactly what is offered? Can you see whether the business serves you? Is there a real reason to trust the work? Are the common concerns answered before the contact button? Does that button lead to a route someone checks? If any answer is no, that is a better next task than publishing another broad article.
Ask the agency to show how the brief changed the work. A good answer names the service page it will improve, the question it will answer, the proof it will add, and the enquiry path it will test. It may also show where a new page would repeat an existing one. More pages are useful only when they give a different buyer a better answer.
After publication, review the page itself. Check the heading, phone view, images, links, and contact route. Then use Search Console’s page and query views to see what Google has shown the page for over a named period. Put that beside the enquiries you actually received. Neither set of numbers is a verdict on its own, but together they help you decide what to change.
A brief you can fill in today
Open a blank page and write eight lines: the three services you want more of; the work you will not take; the person who approves each purchase; the three questions that person asks; the places you can really serve; the proof you can publish; the action you want the visitor to take; and the person who approves the facts. Add links to the current site and any evidence. If a line is uncertain, mark it as uncertain. That is useful information too.
The brief is not a promise of rankings. It is a way to keep the project pointed at a real customer and a real sale. It gives the agency a reason to reject an attractive but irrelevant keyword, and it gives you a fair way to judge the work later.
If you would like another pair of eyes on the brief and the pages it should shape, send me your site. I will look at what is already there before suggesting more content. You can also read how I plan and write service content.