Client Website Questionnaire: 25 Questions and How They Feed the Prompt

A client website questionnaire gathers the facts a site needs before anyone designs it: goal, audience, offer, pages, proof, tone, brand assets, examples, integrations, deadline and must-be-exact details. These 25 questions cover all of it, and the answers become the brief you give an AI builder.

Most weak websites start with a thin brief. The designer guesses, the AI guesses, and the client reacts to guesses. A questionnaire moves the guessing to the front, where it is cheap.

Below is a copyable set of 25 questions, a note on what each group decides, and a worked method for turning answers into a prompt. If you would rather fill in a single page, use the website brief template afterward to condense the answers.

How to Use the Questionnaire

Send it before the kickoff call. Let the client answer in their own words, in a form, a shared document or a recorded voice note. Short, messy answers are fine. Your job on the call is to ask about the gaps, and the client’s job beforehand is to put something down.

Three rules make it work.

• The client answers, you ask. You send the questions, and the facts come from the person who owns them.
• Skipped answers are information. A blank on “primary goal” says the project is not ready to start.
• Keep the original answers. When scope drifts later, the written answers settle the argument.

The 25 Questions

Copy the block below into a form or document. Numbering is intentional, so you can refer to “Q14” on a call.

CLIENT WEBSITE QUESTIONNAIRE

A. The business
1. What does the business do, in one sentence a stranger would understand?
2. Who are your customers today, and who do you wish they were?
3. What do customers say when they first call or write to you?
4. What makes a customer choose you over the alternative?

B. The goal
5. If the site does one thing, what is it? (calls, bookings, sales, sign-ups)
6. What does a successful visit look like, step by step?
7. How will you know the site is working in three months?
8. What happens today when someone wants to buy or book?

C. The offer
9. What are your main products or services? List up to five.
10. Which one earns the most, or do you most want to sell?
11. Are prices shown on the site? If so, which ones?
12. What do you not offer that people often ask for?

D. Pages and content
13. Which pages must exist at launch?
14. Which pages do you specifically not want?
15. What content do you already have? (text, photos, videos, logos)
16. Who writes new content after launch, and how often?

E. Proof
17. Which reviews, testimonials or case studies can we use? (with permission)
18. Which numbers or facts are true and checkable? (years in business, clients served)
19. Which awards, certifications or partners can be named?

F. Look and voice
20. Describe your brand voice in three words, and three words to avoid.
21. Do you have a logo, colors and fonts? Where are the files?
22. Name three websites you like, and say what you like about each.

G. Practical
23. What must the site connect to? (booking tool, payments, newsletter, CRM, maps)
24. What is the deadline, and who gives the final approval?
25. What details must be exact? (legal wording, prices, addresses, opening hours)

What Each Group Decides

From Answers to Prompt

An AI builder responds to detail. A one-line prompt gets a plausible stranger’s idea of the business, and a prompt built from the answers above gets something closer to the real one. The mapping is mechanical, so you can do it in ten minutes.

1. Open with the business and goal. Combine Q1 and Q5 into the first sentence of the prompt.
2. Name the audience. Q2 and Q3 give the reader the page is written for.
3. List the offer. Q9 and Q10 become the products or services, in order of importance.
4. Specify pages. Q13 and Q14 become the page list, and the “do not want” list belongs in the prompt too.
5. Add proof only if true. Q17 to Q19, using exactly what was supplied.
6. Set voice. Q20 gives tone words and words to avoid.
7. Add the exact details. Q25 copied word for word, since an AI will otherwise rephrase them.

Here is the shape of a prompt assembled that way. The bracketed parts are where your client’s answers go.

Build a website for [Q1 business in one sentence].
Primary goal: [Q5]. Audience: [Q2], who usually [Q3].
Offer, in order of importance: [Q10], then [Q9 remaining items].
Pages wanted: [Q13]. Pages not wanted: [Q14].
Proof available (use only this): [Q17 to Q19].
Tone: [Q20 three words]. Avoid: [Q20 three words to avoid].
Design references: [Q22 sites and what was liked].
Must connect to: [Q23].
Use these details exactly as written: [Q25].

For a real run of a prompt like this through a builder, see the coffee roaster test, step by step. Our own single test on 2026-10-01 used a short prompt, and the draft gave five cards where we asked for three, a reminder that even a good prompt needs a review pass, covered in why the sitemap review step prevents rework.

What to Do With Thin Answers

Clients do not always have answers. A few patterns come up repeatedly.

• “We do everything.” Ask for the one thing they would be sad to lose. That answer is the primary offer.
• “Make it modern.” Ask for the three liked websites in Q22 and what they like about each. References beat adjectives.
• No proof. Leave the proof section out of the first draft and say so. Never let a tool invent testimonials. Mark the gap and ask for real quotes.
• Nobody can say who approves. Stop. A project without a named approver has no finish line.

When the answers are in, the next stage is structure. If the design comes from Figma instead of a prompt, Figma to WordPress covers that route, and the AI to WordPress setup guide covers the connection steps for bringing a build into your site. For how this fits into a repeatable agency process, AI workflows for WordPress agencies goes deeper.

How to Send the Questionnaire So Clients Actually Answer

A 25-question document can look like homework. How you send it changes how many answers come back. A few choices make a big difference.

• Offer two ways to answer. Some clients type well, and others talk better. Accept a voice note or a call as an alternative, then write the answers up yourself and send them back for confirmation.
• Explain why each group matters. One sentence per group, such as “this decides what the homepage says first”, turns a chore into a reason.
• Set a deadline and a default. “If I do not hear back by Thursday, I will start with the answers I have and mark the rest as unknown.”
• Send it with a real example. A filled-in sample for an unrelated business shows the level of detail you expect.
• Ask for files in one place. A shared folder for logo, photos and documents avoids a trail of email attachments.

Keep your cover note short. Say what the questionnaire is for, how long it takes, and what happens next. A client who knows the next step is more likely to finish.

If a client answers fewer than half the questions, treat that as information about the project, as covered earlier. A project without a primary goal or an approver is not ready, and starting it anyway moves the cost to a later, more expensive point.

A Worked Example: Filling the Prompt From Answers

Here is the method applied to a made-up business, so you can see the mapping at work. The client below is fictional and exists only for this illustration.

Imagine a small bicycle repair shop. The owner’s answers, shortened, are: Q1, “We repair and tune bikes in a workshop in town.” Q5, “Book a repair slot.” Q2, “Commuters and families.” Q10, “Full tune-ups.” Q13, “Home, Services, Prices, Contact.” Q14, “No blog.” Q20, “Friendly, plain, practical. Avoid: premium, bespoke, luxury.”

Build a website for a small bicycle repair shop that repairs and tunes
bikes in a workshop in town.
Primary goal: book a repair slot. Audience: commuters and families.
Offer, in order of importance: full tune-ups, then other repairs.
Pages wanted: Home, Services, Prices, Contact. Pages not wanted: blog.
Proof available (use only this): none supplied yet, leave the proof
section out and flag it.
Tone: friendly, plain, practical. Avoid: premium, bespoke, luxury.
Must connect to: [NEED from client: booking tool].
Use these details exactly as written: [NEED from client: opening hours].

Two things are worth noticing. The proof line says what to do with a gap, which prevents invented testimonials. And the two bracketed lines mark facts the client still owes, so the draft cannot fill them in by guessing.

Review the output against the questionnaire. Count pages, check that the offer order matches Q10, and confirm that no proof appeared that the client never supplied. AI website prompts that get the sitemap you want goes further on shaping the prompt itself.

Keeping the Answers Useful After Launch

The questionnaire is more than a kickoff tool. Stored well, it answers questions for months afterward.

• Date it and keep the original. When someone says “we always wanted a blog”, the dated answer to Q14 tells you what was agreed.
• Link it from the brief. The one-page brief summarizes, and the questionnaire holds the detail.
• Reuse it for the next project. Many answers, such as brand voice and proof, carry over to the next campaign or page.
• Review it at six months. Offers, prices and goals change, and the document should too.

Treat the first set of answers as a baseline and the later ones as revisions, each with a date. When scope arguments come up, the trail makes them short. A locked sitemap and a scope review shows how the agreed pages and the agreed answers work together as a scope document.

For an agency, the questionnaire is also the front of a repeatable process. The client brief to WordPress site agency workflow places it in the full journey from first call to launch.

FAQ

What questions should I ask a client before building a website?

Ask about the business, the single main goal, the offer, the pages wanted and not wanted, available proof, brand voice and assets, three liked websites, integrations, deadline and approver, and details that must be exact. The 25 questions above cover each of these in order.

How long should a client questionnaire be?

Long enough to remove guessing, short enough to be finished. Twenty-five questions in seven groups usually fits a single sitting of well under an hour when clients answer in their own words. If clients abandon it, shorten the set rather than skip the goal and proof questions.

Can I use the answers directly as an AI prompt?

Mostly yes, with a little shaping. Combine business and goal into the opening line, list the offer and pages, add only proof the client supplied, set tone words, and paste exact details unchanged. The assembled-prompt template above shows the order. Review the first draft against the answers before showing the client.

What if the client does not know their goal?

Pause the build. Ask what happens today when someone wants to buy or book, and what the client wants more of. If neither produces a single answer, the discovery work is unfinished. Building before that point gives you a draft that will be reworked once the goal appears.

Does this work without an AI builder?

Yes. The questionnaire gathers facts any designer or developer needs. AI just makes the cost of a thin brief show up faster, since the tool will fill gaps with plausible guesses. A complete set of answers helps a human team as much as a machine.

To turn a finished questionnaire into a first draft, Get Started and paste the assembled prompt into your first project.

Every feature named in this post is listed by product: all UiChemy features, AI to WordPress features.