10/20/2026 • Gowtham

How to Turn a Client's Website Into a Brand Voice Brief in Under an Hour

A timed, 60-minute worksheet for building a brand voice brief from a new client's website: which pages to read, what to extract, and a fill-in template.

A new client signs, the kickoff is on Thursday, and you have nothing to write from except their website. No style guide, no past posts worth copying, maybe a logo file. The good news: a business website is usually the most edited, most approved piece of writing the client owns, which makes it the best raw material for a first brand voice brief.

This worksheet takes you from URL to a one-page brief in 60 minutes. It is timed on purpose. A voice brief that takes a week to write never gets used; one that is 80% right on day one gets corrected in the first round of drafts.

Before you start: set up in 2 minutes

Open three things:

A blank copy of the brief template at the bottom of this article.
A scratch document for raw quotes. You will paste sentences here, not summaries.
The client's homepage in a browser, with a timer running.

One rule for the whole hour: copy exact phrases, do not paraphrase. "They sound friendly" is useless to a writer. "We'll sort it before your coffee goes cold" is a voice sample you can match.

The 60-minute worksheet

Block	Time	Pages to read	What you extract
1	0:00-0:10	Homepage	Core promise, headline style, primary CTA
2	0:10-0:20	About / Our story / Team	Origin, values, how they talk about themselves
3	0:20-0:30	2 product or service pages	Feature vs benefit language, jargon level, proof
4	0:30-0:40	Blog, FAQ, or help pages	Long-form tone, how they explain things
5	0:40-0:45	Footer, legal, contact, careers	Claims they avoid, compliance hints, regions
6	0:45-0:60	Your scratch doc	Fill the brief, write 3 test lines

If a page does not exist, move its time to the next block. Do not go hunting on social profiles yet. This exercise is website only, so you get a clean read of how the brand presents itself when it has had time to think.

Block 1: Homepage (10 minutes)

The homepage is where the client spent the most approval cycles. Extract:

The headline, word for word. Note its shape: question, bold claim, outcome, or plain description.
The subheadline. This usually says who the customer is. Write down the exact audience words they use ("busy clinic owners", "growing teams", "home cooks").
Every button label. "Book a demo" and "Let's talk" signal very different relationships with the reader.
Sentence length. Count words in three random sentences. Short and punchy, or long and explanatory?

Paste at least five raw quotes into your scratch doc.

Block 2: About page (10 minutes)

The About page shows how the brand talks when it talks about itself. Look for:

Pronouns. "We" and "you" heavy? Or third person ("The company was founded...")? Third person often means the brand voice will need to feel more formal on LinkedIn than on Instagram.
Origin story details. Specific places, years, people, or problems. These become recurring content angles.
Values words. List any adjectives they use about themselves. Then check whether the rest of the site actually sounds like those words. If they say "playful" but write like a bank, trust the writing, not the adjective.
Names. Do founders or staff appear by first name? That tells you whether social posts can feature people.

Block 3: Two product or service pages (10 minutes)

Pick the two pages that most likely make money. Extract:

Feature vs benefit ratio. Do they say "24/7 monitoring" or "sleep through the night"? Match their lean.
Jargon level. List any industry terms used without explanation. Those are safe to use in posts. Terms they explain carefully should be explained in posts too.
Proof style. Do they use case examples, client logos, certifications, or nothing? Note what kinds of proof exist so writers do not invent new ones.
Price talk. Do they show prices, say "contact us", or avoid the topic? Social posts should follow the same rule.

Block 4: Blog, FAQ or help content (10 minutes)

Long-form pages show the voice at rest, without sales pressure.

How they open an explanation. Straight to the answer, or a story first?
Humor. Any jokes, puns, or asides? Copy one if it exists. If there are none in 10 minutes of reading, write "no humor observed" in the brief. That is useful information.
Formatting habits. Lists, short paragraphs, emojis, exclamation marks, British vs American spelling.
Recurring topics. Three subjects they keep returning to. These are your first content pillars.

Block 5: The boring pages (5 minutes)

Footers, legal pages, contact and careers pages carry quiet constraints:

Regulated language. Health, finance, legal and education clients often have disclaimers. Note any phrasing they use to hedge claims ("may help", "results vary").
Regions and languages. Where do they operate? This affects spelling, holidays and posting times.
Trademark styling. Product names with specific capitalization or symbols.
Contact preferences. Phone, form, WhatsApp, email. This shapes the CTA in every post.

Block 6: Fill the brief (15 minutes)

Move from the scratch doc to the template. Then do the one step most people skip: write three test lines in the voice you described, one for LinkedIn, one for Instagram, one for X. If you cannot write them quickly from your own brief, the brief is too vague. Go back and add a quote or a rule.

The fill-in brand voice brief template

Copy this into a doc and fill every field. Leave "unknown" rather than guessing; unknowns become your kickoff questions.

BRAND VOICE BRIEF (v0.1, from website only)
Client: ____________________
Website: ____________________
Prepared by: ______  Date: ______

1. ONE-LINE PROMISE (their words, not yours)
   "______________________________________________"

2. WHO THEY TALK TO (exact audience phrases from the site)
   - ______________________
   - ______________________

3. VOICE IN 3 TRAITS (each with a "this, not that")
   - ______, not ______
   - ______, not ______
   - ______, not ______

4. VOICE SAMPLES (5 exact quotes from the site)
   1. "____________________"
   2. "____________________"
   3. "____________________"
   4. "____________________"
   5. "____________________"

5. MECHANICS
   Sentence length: short / mixed / long
   Person: we-you / third person
   Spelling: UK / US / other: ______
   Emojis: yes / sparingly / never seen
   Exclamation marks: yes / rarely / never seen
   Humor: yes (example: "______") / none observed

6. WORDS TO USE (terms, product names with exact styling)
   ______________________________________________

7. WORDS TO AVOID (jargon they explain, claims they never make)
   ______________________________________________

8. PROOF WE ARE ALLOWED TO REFERENCE
   (only what appears on the site)
   ______________________________________________

9. CTA STYLE
   Primary CTA wording: "______"
   Contact channel preferred: ______

10. CONTENT PILLARS (3 recurring topics from the site)
   1. ______  2. ______  3. ______

11. COMPLIANCE / SENSITIVITY NOTES
   ______________________________________________

12. TEST LINES
   LinkedIn: ______________________________________
   Instagram: _____________________________________
   X: _____________________________________________

13. OPEN QUESTIONS FOR KICKOFF
   - ______________________
   - ______________________

Writing the "this, not that" traits

Section 3 is where most briefs fall apart. Single adjectives like "professional" or "friendly" describe almost every brand. Pair each trait with its failure mode instead:

Confident, not boastful. They state outcomes plainly but never use superlatives.
Warm, not cutesy. They say "you" a lot but do not use pet names or emoji strings.
Expert, not academic. They use trade terms but explain the "why" in one sentence.

Every trait should point back to at least one quote in section 4. If you cannot find a quote that proves a trait, cut the trait.

Common mistakes in the first hour

Reading the client's social accounts first. Old posts may have been written by a previous agency or an intern. The website is a cleaner baseline. Compare the two later.
Describing the voice you think they should have. This brief records how they sound now. Recommendations go in a separate document after kickoff.
Skipping the test lines. Without them, you only find out the brief is vague when the first drafts come back wrong.
Inventing proof. If the site has no client numbers or awards, the brief says "none listed". Writers, human or AI, should not fill the gap.
Over-running the hour. The goal is v0.1. The client's feedback on the first drafts is the fastest way to v1.0.

Using the brief at kickoff

Bring the brief to the kickoff call and walk the client through sections 3, 7 and 13. Ask: "Does this sound like you?" Clients are far better at reacting to a written description than at describing their own voice from scratch. Mark their corrections directly on the brief and bump the version to v0.2.

From there, the brief becomes the source document for every draft. Paste it into your AI drafting tool's brand settings, share it with freelancers, and attach it to the first content calendar. If you want a quick sanity check before the call, the free website demo on Impret takes a client URL and returns three sample drafts; comparing those against your test lines is a fast way to spot gaps in your own read of the voice.

Next step

Paste your new client's URL into the free website demo and compare the three drafts it returns against your brief's test lines.