The website content questionnaire that actually gets answered

Most website questionnaires don't get answered; they get opened, scrolled, and quietly closed. Usually because they're really a strategy workshop wearing a form's clothing — forty abstract questions ("What are your brand values?") that require a meeting to answer honestly.

A content questionnaire has one job: extract the raw material for the website's words while the project is still warm. Not strategy, not brand archaeology — material. Here's the one we use, free to copy, with notes on why each question earns its place.

How to use it: send it in the kickoff week, to one named person, with a real date attached. Tell them short answers are fine and bullet points are welcome — polish is your job, not theirs. Expect 45 minutes of their time; say so, because "this takes about 45 minutes" gets more completions than an open-ended ask.

Part 1 — The one-liner material (5 questions)

1. In one sentence: what do you do, and for whom? If they can't answer in one sentence, that's the first thing to fix — and this question surfaces it on day one rather than in week six.
2. What do customers actually buy from you? Often different from what the company thinks it sells. A security firm sells compliance sign-off; an accountant sells sleep.
3. Someone recommends you to a friend. What do they say, word for word? The single best source of homepage copy in existence. Real recommendation language beats any tagline workshop.
4. What are the three most common questions prospects ask before buying? These are your FAQ, your objection-handling sections, and probably three page ideas.
5. *Why do the customers who almost bought — but didn't — walk away? Names the objections the site must answer head-on.

Part 2 — Proof (6 questions)

6. Your three best projects, customers or results — and what made each one great.
7. Numbers you're proud of. Years trading, clients served, retention rate, response time — anything true and specific.
8. Existing testimonials or reviews, pasted raw. Where they live (Google, Trustpilot, buried in email) matters — get them collected now, not at launch week.
9. Logos you're allowed to show. "Allowed" is the operative word; find out now.
10. Accreditations, awards, memberships.
11. Who are we allowed to name as a reference or case study, and who must we never name?

Part 3 — People and story (4 questions)

12. Who should appear on the site, with their actual job (not just title)?
13. The founding story in five sentences or less. The limit is the trick — it forces the interesting version.
14. What do new customers say surprised them about working with you? Differentiators the company can't see from inside.
15. Anything the team is genuinely proud of that never makes it into marketing?

Part 4 — The practical inventory (6 questions)

16. Every product/service that needs its own page, in priority order.
17. For the top three: what does it cost, how long does it take, what does the customer get? Concrete beats vague on every service page ever written.
18. What existing copy is worth keeping? Link it. There's usually one good brochure paragraph worth salvaging.
19. What must legally appear? Regulatory lines, disclaimers, registered details — the copy nobody thinks about until launch day.
20. Photography: what exists, and what are we allowed to use?
21. Who signs off the words — one name, please? The most important question on the form. If the answer is a committee, you've just learned your real timeline.

Part 5 — Taste and fear (4 questions)

22. Three websites you wish were yours, and one thing you like about each.
23. A website in your industry you can't stand — and why. Negative taste is more reliable than positive taste.
24. Words or claims you never want to see on your site. Every company has a banned list; better to learn it before drafting.
25. What would make this project a failure in a year's time? Ends the form on the question that surfaces the real brief.

What to do with the answers

The questionnaire produces raw material, not copy. The workflow that turns one into the other:

1. Map answers to structure. Question 16 gives the page tree; questions 1–5 feed the homepage; proof scatters across everything. Build the sitemap and the sections of each page before writing.
2. Draft into sections, not documents. Write into the actual structure so every paragraph has an address — "homepage → proof section" — and a stage, not a location in a 40-page doc.
3. Send it back to the client as a website, not a file. Review on something that scrolls like the real site gets you decisions; review in a document gets you comma opinions.
4. Get sign-off per section, recorded. Question 21 gave you the one approver — make their approvals specific and permanent.

That downstream process is exactly what Blocky exists for — the questionnaire fills it with material, the structure gives every answer a home, and the sign-off sticks. But the questionnaire is yours either way: copy it, brand it, send it on day one.

Want the whole process, not just the form? Start with how to get website content out of clients.