A weak brief produces a weak proposal. If you send a homepage URL and ask for “SEO”, you will get a package that could belong to any business. If you send the commercial goal, the pages that already matter, the work already tried, and the constraints, you force the agency to look at your site. That is the point of a brief: not to sound technical, but to make the next conversation specific.
You do not need a long document. You need a short one that an outsider can use without guessing. Guessing is how agencies sell content calendars to sites with crawl problems, or link packages to businesses whose enquiry form is broken.
Say What The Business Needs From Search
Start with the commercial outcome, not a ranking list. Organic search can support calls, form enquiries, booked jobs, store visits, or qualified sales conversations. Those are different pages and different proof. A clinic that needs appointment requests is not the same brief as a manufacturer that needs spec-sheet enquiries from procurement.
Name the offer in ordinary language. What do you sell, to whom, and in which geography? If you serve Metro Manila only, say so. If you sell nationwide from a warehouse in Cebu, say so. If English and Filipino both appear on the site, say which language the buyer actually uses. Local modifiers, service-area language, and the way people ask for a quote all change the page that should rank.
Name the value of a good enquiry if you can. You do not need a spreadsheet. You do need enough commercial context that the agency does not chase cheap traffic. A high volume of irrelevant visits can look like progress and still waste sales time.
If you already know which services pay the bills, put those first. SEO work should follow money, not the keyword that looks easiest. A brief that lists twenty services with equal weight invites a scattered plan.
Show The Pages That Already Matter
Give live URLs for the pages that should win. Homepage, main services, location pages, product categories, and the page a paid campaign already uses are the usual set. If the sales team sends a particular URL to prospects, include that too. Those pages are the commercial centre of the site, even if they are not the ones with the most blog traffic.
Say what is wrong with them in buyer language. “This page does not explain the difference between the two packages.” “The contact form sits below unrelated content.” “The location page is a copy of the homepage.” That is more useful than “needs optimisation”. An agency that cannot respond to those comments is not ready to work on the site.
If important pages are missing, say that as well. Missing is a brief item. Many Philippine service businesses need a page for a real service and currently bury it in a paragraph on the homepage. Do not ask for rankings on a query that has no page.
Include competitors only as a comparison, not as a wish list. Two or three sites that win the jobs you want are enough. Explain why they win: clearer offers, stronger proof, more complete local profiles, faster pages, or simply more useful content. Copying their blog topics is not a strategy.
Put Constraints On The Table Early
Agencies waste weeks discovering constraints that you already know. If the CMS is locked by a vendor, say so. If a developer is available two days a month, say so. If legal must approve every page, say so. If the brand cannot make claims about results, say so. Constraints change the plan. They should not appear after the proposal is signed.
Access is a constraint. Search Console, analytics, Google Business Profile, the CMS, and staging should be listed as available or not. If you cannot grant access, the agency can still look at the public site, but diagnosis will be thinner. Do not treat access as a later admin task. It is part of whether the work can start.
Brand and compliance limits belong in the brief. Some industries cannot use certain proof, before-and-after claims, or patient stories. Some businesses cannot publish prices. Some cannot name clients. An agency that plans a case-study engine against those rules will stall, and then fill the gap with generic posts.
Implementation ownership belongs there too. Who will make technical changes? Who will write, or approve writing? Who can change the header, the forms, and the title tags? If the answer is “the agency, once they have access”, write that down. If the answer is “our web vendor, when they have time”, the plan needs fewer parallel tasks and clearer tickets.
Describe The Work Already Tried
New agencies should not repeat failed work blindly, and they should not ignore useful work already done. List what has been attempted: a redesign, a blog programme, a previous retainer, a tool subscription, a batch of location pages, a link campaign, a migration. Give dates if you have them. Give the outcome in plain terms: traffic moved, enquiries did not, rankings dropped after the redesign, or nobody implemented the last audit.
This is not a confession. It is a way to stop paying twice for the same diagnosis. If a previous SEO audit already named crawl waste or thin service pages, include it. A good agency will verify the live state rather than assume the PDF is still true. A weak one will ignore it and start from a template.
If you have Search Console data, mention the pattern you already see: impressions without clicks, a drop after a particular date, queries that show the brand name only, or pages that attract the wrong intent. You do not need to interpret it perfectly. You need to point at it.
If you have no data, say that. Starting without Search Console is common. The brief can still be useful. The first work may include setting up measurement rather than publishing content.
Ask For Diagnosis Before A Package
The brief should request a view of the live site, not a menu. You want the agency to say what they would do first, what they would not do yet, and what they need from you. If the reply is a standard package with a blog count and a link count, the brief did not bite, or the agency does not work from evidence.
Ask them to name blockers. Technical issues, duplicate pages, missing commercial pages, weak local listings, and broken enquiry paths all change the sequence. Content volume is rarely the first honest answer on a neglected site.
Ask how they will judge progress. If they only mention rankings, you will get ranking-shaped work. If they mention qualified enquiries, you still need them to explain the leading indicators they will watch while search results take time to move. A brief that stays silent on measurement invites a pretty report.
Ask who will do the work. A brief can be short and still request names for diagnosis, writing, technical changes, and reporting. You are not hiring a logo. You are hiring people who will touch the site.
What To Leave Out
Do not fill the brief with keyword lists copied from a tool. A raw list without commercial context is noise. If you have terms that sales already hears on the phone, include those. They are more reliable than a volume column.
Do not demand a ranking date. Nobody honest can promise when a competitive query will move. You can ask for a sequence, a review point, and the evidence they will use. That is a brief. A guaranteed first-page date is a sales line.
Do not ask for “full SEO” without defining it. Full can mean technical work, content, local listings, links, and conversion. It can also mean a monthly PDF. If you want SEO services for a Philippine business, say which layers you believe are in play, then let the diagnosis confirm or correct that list.
Do not attach every old report without a note. Ten files with no summary bury the useful fact. One paragraph on what you think happened, plus the two most relevant documents, is enough.
Do not write the strategy for them if you are hiring them to diagnose. You can state the commercial priority. You should not dictate a hundred blog titles as a substitute for looking at the site. If you already know the titles, you may need writing help, not an SEO engagement.
A Brief You Can Send This Week
Use a one-page structure. Business and offer. Geography and language. Commercial goal from organic search. Priority URLs. Known problems in buyer language. Work already tried. Constraints and access. Competitors worth comparing. How you will judge success. Who on your side will respond.
That page should be readable in five minutes. If it needs a glossary, it is too inward. The agency is not in your Slack. They cannot see the argument you had with the web vendor. Write the outcome of that argument instead: “We cannot change the header without a ticket, and tickets take two weeks.”
Add proof assets as a separate pack: photos, licences, reviews you can use, project descriptions, staff credentials, and the claims you are allowed to make. SEO pages fail when they have nowhere to put proof. The brief is the moment to say what proof exists.
If several people must approve the brief, agree the commercial goal before you send it. Mixed instructions from sales and marketing produce mixed proposals. One owner on your side is part of the brief.
How We Use A Brief
We read the brief against the live site. If the two disagree, the site wins. A page that claims to be the main service but cannot be crawled, or does not ask for an enquiry, is not a priority because a document said so. It is a problem to name.
We also use the brief to refuse work that would waste money. If the enquiry path is broken, publishing more pages is not the first job. If the CMS cannot implement title changes, a content calendar is theatre. A useful reply will say that plainly.
The brief does not replace a conversation. It makes the conversation shorter and more honest. You should leave that conversation with a sequence, a list of access items, and a clear statement of what is out of scope.
If you want help turning the current site into that kind of plan, send the live URL, the offer, and the outcome you need. Talk to us with those three things and the constraints you already know. That is enough to start a serious brief.
