What it is
The groundwork before any design. Your goals, your audience and your competitors, understood properly.
How it's done
Workshops, stakeholder interviews and a competitive review, aimed at decisions rather than a fat document.
What you can expect
A clear brief everyone agrees on, so the project has a direction and a way to judge it.
Why you need it
A website without a strategy is just decoration with a domain. Strategy gives it a job to do.
Where it fits
It is the first step of a website project, and it shapes architecture, design and content.