You can think that when you make a quote for a website project, you have all the website tasks defined, but define well the project and the scope, is the first step than can assure a good start for the project and a happy client.    And to accomplish this, it is necessary a meeting with the client, be prepare to make the best questions, gather information, know the functional requirements, really understand what’s the clients needs.

There are some of us, that make a quote before gather all this information and I can assure you are going to work more hours than the calculated for the project.  Even a simple small website project need to be defined.

Sometimes to define a project you can use a web form with questions, called Client Survey.  Also you can collect existing materials from the client (like brochures), it’s important to understand the client’s current marketing material, who’s the audience, which are going to be the website goals, why they want to redesigning?

Also you can prepare a Communication Brief, in this document you are going to make a summary of the visual and conceptual goals, target audience, user experience goals, strategies, etc.

After all this, to make the quote you can create a Project Plan, with the requirements for the project, this plan contains the Budget, Schedule or Timesheets, the Communication Brief and any other document that set the scope of the project.