Why use a website questionnaire?
A website questionnaire collects what you need to design and build a client’s site before the work starts: goals, audience, pages, content, brand, features, access and who approves what. It replaces scattered emails with one structured set of answers, and it surfaces the dependencies that delay most web projects, such as missing copy, unknown logins or an approver nobody mentioned.
Send it after the client has agreed to work with you, or use a shorter version during sales to scope the project. If you’re still qualifying the client, start with a client intake form instead.
The questions in this template
The download contains every question with space for answers. Delete anything that doesn’t apply to the project.
1. Business and goals
- What does your business do, in one or two sentences?
- Why do you need a new website now?
- What should the website help visitors do? (Book, buy, enquire, learn)
- How will you judge success six months after launch?
2. Audience
- Who are your main visitors, and what are they looking for?
- What questions or objections do they usually have?
- Which websites do you like or dislike, and why?
3. Pages and content ownership
- Which pages do you need?
- Who writes the copy: you or us?
- When will final content be ready, and who signs it off?
- Is there existing content, photography or video we should reuse?
4. Brand assets
- Do you have brand guidelines?
- Can you share logo files in vector format, plus fonts and colour values?
- Are there brand rules we must follow, or anything we should avoid?
5. Features and integrations
- Which features are essential? (Forms, booking, e-commerce, search, blog, multiple languages)
- Which tools must the site connect to? (CRM, email marketing, booking, payments, analytics)
- Who will update the site after launch, and how comfortable are they with a CMS?
6. Technical details and access
- Who manages the domain and DNS?
- Where is the current site hosted, and is there anything that must be migrated?
- Can you invite us to the domain registrar, hosting, CMS and analytics with our own named logins?
Never ask clients to send passwords in a questionnaire or by email. Ask them to invite your team member to each service with their own login. It’s more secure, and access can be removed cleanly at the end of the project.
7. Approvals and timeline
- Who is the day-to-day contact?
- Who gives final approval on design and before launch?
- Is there a launch date or event the site must be ready for?
- How quickly can you return feedback on each review?
How to get useful answers
- Explain why you’re asking. “We ask about your booking tool so we can plan the integration” gets a better answer than an unexplained field.
- Allow “not sure yet”. Guessed answers turn into wrong assumptions. Let the client flag what still needs a decision.
- Ask for files separately. Collect logos, photography and existing content through a document request rather than as email attachments.
- Agree content ownership early. Missing copy is the most common reason web projects stall. Put the content deadline and its owner in writing.
- Name the approver. If the day-to-day contact isn’t the decision-maker, agree how approvals will work before design starts.
Turning answers into a project plan
Review the answers before the kickoff call and note the gaps. Then turn them into the scope and dates of the project. A statement of work records the deliverables, client responsibilities and how approvals work.
Angelwood helps you run that next step in a client portal. Prepare an onboarding plan from the proposal or statement of work, review it as a team, then request the content, files and access the build depends on. Clients approve work and record decisions in the portal, and portal activity shows who needs a follow-up.
Use it in Word, Google Docs or PDF
Microsoft Word
- Download the Word (.docx) file and open it. If Word opens it in Protected View, select Enable Editing.
- Use Find (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) and search for “[” to jump between the placeholders you need to replace.
- Save a clean copy as a Word template (File → Save As → Word Template) so every new document starts from it.
Google Docs
- Upload the .docx file to Google Drive.
- Right-click it and choose Open with → Google Docs, then File → Save as Google Docs to keep an editable copy.
- Use File → Make a copy for each new client so your master stays clean.
PDF
Fill it in Word or Google Docs, then export it: File → Save As → PDF in Word, or File → Download → PDF document in Google Docs.