Tag: Web Development

Website planning for Bangladesh businesses

This website design brief checklist helps a Bangladesh business define what its website must do, who it serves, what must be built, and how success will be measured before asking agencies or developers for quotations.

Why write a website brief before requesting a quote?

“We need a modern business website” is not enough information for a responsible quotation. One supplier may assume five pages and a basic contact form. Another may include copywriting, multilingual content, booking, CRM integration, analytics, speed work, training, and ongoing support. The two prices would describe different projects.

A brief does not need to prescribe every colour or screen. Its job is to make the important decisions and unknowns visible. This reduces vague allowances, prevents important requirements from appearing late, and gives you a shared reference for reviewing the finished site.

If you are still setting a budget, use our separate guide to website design cost in Bangladesh. This article intentionally focuses on scope, not price bands.

1. State the business objective and primary conversion

Start with the business problem, not a list of visual preferences. Is the website intended to generate enquiries, support sales conversations, accept bookings, sell products, recruit staff, build credibility for tenders, or reduce repetitive support requests? You may have several goals, but name one primary outcome for the first release.

Define the action a valuable visitor should take

• Submit a detailed quotation or consultation request
• Call or message the sales team
• Book an appointment or demonstration
• Buy a product or complete checkout
• Download a technical document after providing appropriate details
• Visit a location or request directions

Then define what makes that action qualified. For example, an architecture firm may ask for project type, site location, approximate area, intended start date, and whether the visitor is the decision-maker. A concise form may create less friction, while a detailed form can help route complex enquiries. The right balance depends on your sales process.

2. Describe the audience, location, and buying context

“Everyone” is not a target audience. Give the designer enough context to make decisions about language, examples, navigation, proof, forms, and calls to action.

• Customer type: consumer, small business, corporate procurement team, government body, nonprofit, or a mix
• Decision-maker: founder, marketing manager, operations lead, procurement officer, technical evaluator, or family member
• Service geography: Khulna, Dhaka, all Bangladesh, selected districts, the United Kingdom, or remote/global
• Language: English, Bangla, or a genuinely maintained bilingual experience
• Device and context: mobile visitors on limited bandwidth, office users comparing vendors, or returning customers seeking support
• Questions and objections: eligibility, process, timing, trust, compatibility, ownership, or support

Do not request location pages for places you do not serve. If a service is remote, explain the operational coverage honestly. The brief should also identify audiences the website is not designed to attract, which can improve both messaging and lead qualification.

3. Build a page inventory before discussing design

A quotation should be based on a page or template inventory. “Ten pages” can still be ambiguous: ten individually designed pages are different from one reusable service template populated nine times.

Add every special state: form confirmation, no search results, 404, empty cart, out-of-stock product, password reset, or account pages. For an existing site, identify URLs that must remain, change, redirect, or be retired. A redesign without a URL and redirect plan can break useful links and search visibility.

4. Confirm who supplies copy, images, logos, and proof

Content delays many website projects because “content provided by client” appears in a proposal without naming the content, format, owner, or due date. Inventory what exists and what must be created.

Copy and factual material

• Approved company name, address, service areas, phone numbers, and opening hours
• Service descriptions, process, eligibility, exclusions, and frequently asked questions
• Team biographies and credentials that can be verified
• Case studies with client permission and evidence for every claim
• Policies reviewed by the appropriate professional where necessary

Visual assets

• Vector logo files and brand guidelines—not only a small screenshot
• Original photography, product images, portfolio work, and usage rights
• Headshots, certificates, partner marks, and written permission to display them
• Meaningful image descriptions for alternative text

If assets are missing, ask the proposal to separate writing, editing, translation, photography, illustration, and stock licensing. Also state whether placeholder text is acceptable during development and who gives final factual approval.

5. Specify functions and integrations as workflows

A feature name rarely describes the whole requirement. “Booking,” “payment,” “CRM,” or “WhatsApp” can represent many different workflows. Explain the people, data, rules, and expected outcome.

For each feature, answer six questions

1. Who can start the workflow?
2. What information do they provide?
3. What validation, consent, eligibility, or availability rules apply?
4. Which system receives the data?
5. Who is notified, and what should they do next?
6. What happens when the integration fails?

For example, a “quotation form” may require file uploads, spam protection, confirmation email, internal routing by service, CRM creation, source attribution, retention rules, and a useful error state. If the project depends on third-party software, name the current plan, account owner, known API limits, and whether subscription fees are included.

6. Make mobile, performance, accessibility, and SEO testable

Words such as “fast,” “mobile-friendly,” “SEO-ready,” and “accessible” invite different interpretations. Turn them into acceptance criteria and ask how they will be verified.

Mobile content and function

Google documents that it uses the mobile version of site content for indexing and ranking. The mobile-first indexing guidance recommends equivalent primary content, headings, structured data, and image alternative text across versions. Your brief should therefore require that essential copy, links, forms, and structured information remain available on mobile—not merely a visually reduced version.

Performance

Ask for a realistic performance budget, the test environment, and who controls third-party scripts. Google explains that Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, while also warning that good scores alone do not guarantee top rankings. Define whether testing covers representative mobile devices and networks, not only a developer’s desktop.

Accessibility

State an accessibility target and require keyboard, focus, form-label, error-message, zoom, and contrast checks. For reference, WCAG 2.2 guidance describes a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, subject to its exceptions. Its target-size guidance describes a 24 by 24 CSS pixel minimum or sufficient spacing, again with documented exceptions. Treat these as measurable requirements rather than assuming a plugin will make the site accessible.

SEO foundations

Request editable titles and descriptions, one clear page topic, logical headings, descriptive URLs, crawl controls, canonical handling, XML sitemap behavior, image alternative text, internal linking, structured data where appropriate, and a redirect map for changed URLs. Google’s SEO Starter Guide is a useful baseline, but no developer or agency can truthfully guarantee a ranking.

7. Define measurement, events, privacy, and consent

“Install Google Analytics” is not a measurement plan. Name the business actions that need to be recorded and the decisions the data should support. Google Analytics defines an event as a way to measure a distinct interaction or occurrence; its event documentation also distinguishes recommended and custom events.

A practical measurement section can include:

• Successful quotation or contact-form submission
• Qualified phone or WhatsApp click, with the limits of click-based measurement stated
• Booking completion, account registration, purchase, or payment confirmation
• Important document download or video interaction when it supports a real business decision
• Campaign parameters, referrer preservation, and cross-domain behavior where required
• Internal and test traffic exclusions
• Consent behavior, data retention, and responsibility for the privacy notice
• GA4, Tag Manager, Search Console, advertising, CRM, and reporting access ownership

Ask for a validation record before launch: event name, trigger, test action, observed result, destination, and any limitation. Tracking should not be considered complete merely because a tag exists.

8. Protect domain, hosting, accounts, code, and handover

Your brief should identify who owns and administers each operational asset. Otherwise, the site may launch while the business lacks access needed for maintenance, measurement, or a future supplier change.

• Domain registration and DNS
• Hosting, backups, staging, SSL, and email delivery
• WordPress administrator accounts and plugin licences
• Analytics, Tag Manager, Search Console, advertising, maps, and business profiles
• Source files, custom code, repositories, fonts, photographs, and licences
• Forms, CRM, booking, payment, live chat, and messaging integrations

State what the final handover includes: administrator access, account inventory, backup and restore instructions, update procedure, design/source files, licences, training, known limitations, and an agreed period for correcting in-scope defects. Avoid shared administrator logins; each person should have an appropriate account.

9. Provide a timeline, stakeholders, and approval process

A target launch date is meaningful only when paired with dependencies. Mention events such as an office opening, product release, tender, or campaign, but distinguish a preferred date from a fixed operational deadline.

List the internal stakeholders and give one person authority to consolidate feedback. Define review rounds, response times, and acceptance. For example:

• Discovery and confirmed scope
• Information architecture and page inventory approval
• Content delivery and factual review
• Design direction and reusable component approval
• Development on staging
• Content population and integration testing
• Mobile, accessibility, performance, SEO, form, and analytics QA
• Redirects, backups, launch, and post-launch verification
• Training, documentation, and handover

Also state the change-control rule. A new payment flow, language, portal, integration, or content type after scope approval may require a separate estimate. That is easier to manage when the original scope is explicit.

10. Copyable website request-for-quote checklist

Copy the list below into your document or email and answer every relevant item. Write “not yet decided” rather than leaving a requirement silently ambiguous.

• Business name, website URL, contact person, and decision-maker
• What the organisation provides and why the website project is needed now
• Primary objective and primary visitor conversion
• Target audiences, locations, languages, and exclusions
• Current-site strengths, weaknesses, and evidence available
• Required pages, reusable templates, and navigation outline
• Existing URLs to retain, redirect, or retire
• Who writes, edits, translates, and approves each content type
• Available brand files, photography, portfolio assets, and usage rights
• Forms, search, booking, payment, account, portal, or e-commerce workflows
• Required CRM, email, calendar, map, chat, accounting, or other integrations
• Mobile content and functionality expectations
• Performance testing method and third-party script constraints
• Accessibility target and required manual checks
• SEO deliverables, migration requirements, structured data, and redirects
• Events or conversions to measure and where data should appear
• Consent, privacy, retention, and policy responsibilities
• Domain, DNS, hosting, email, analytics, and platform account owners
• Administrator roles, source files, licences, backups, training, and handover
• Target date, fixed dependencies, reviewer names, and approval process
• Maintenance, support, warranty, reporting, and future roadmap
• Budget range or constraints, and which optional items should be priced separately
• Proposal format: assumptions, exclusions, milestones, payment schedule, and change control

How to compare website quotations fairly

Do not compare only the total. Put proposals side by side against the same brief and mark each item as included, excluded, optional, assumed, or unanswered.

The cheapest proposal can become expensive if essential work is absent. A higher proposal is not automatically better either. The best fit is the supplier that understands the objective, exposes assumptions, proposes a maintainable solution, and gives you a credible way to verify delivery.

When evaluating a broader partner rather than only a build, our guide to choosing a digital marketing agency in Bangladesh provides a separate due-diligence checklist.

Turn the checklist into a one-page brief

A long specification is not always necessary. For a straightforward business website, start with one page covering the objective, audience, pages, features, content ownership, quality requirements, accounts, timeline, and decision process. Attach supporting materials and let bidders identify unresolved risks.

The brief should create a better conversation, not prevent professional advice. A capable supplier may recommend a smaller first release, a different workflow, or an investigation before fixed pricing. What matters is that changes are explained against your actual business requirements.