How to find businesses without websites: 6 ways that work

The 6 ways, from fastest to slowest

Each method below gives you names and phone numbers of local businesses with no website. The first scales to whole towns in minutes; the others are slower but give you warmer conversations. Most designers combine the first with one or two of the others.

1. Search one trade in one city with a business search tool and filter on “No website”.
2. Look up a trade in a maps app on your phone and note the profiles with no website button.
3. Walk your main street, retail parks and business parks with a notebook.
4. Go where owners meet: business associations, chambers of commerce, trade fairs and markets.
5. Spot businesses that only have a social page, and new openings in the local news.
6. Ask your clients and the suppliers who serve small businesses for introductions.

1. Search a trade and a city, then filter on “No website”

This is the only method that covers a whole town at once. On LeadsIt you type a business type and a city, for example plumbers in Phoenix or hair salons in Leeds. LeadsIt finds those businesses in public business information, visits each business’s own website when there is one, and flags every business that has none. Each result shows the phone number the business publishes, its address, rating and review count.

Filter the list on “No website”, sort by review count, and you have a call list in the order you should work it. One credit is one city search; a whole region is 13 credits and covers its largest cities. Your first search is included with a new account, no card needed.

Work one trade at a time. A list of 40 salons with no website is easier to call than a mix of 40 trades, because your pitch, examples and questions stay the same from one call to the next.

2. Look up a trade in a maps app on your phone

Type “roofer” or “nail salon” into a maps app, open each business profile and note the ones with no website button. It costs nothing but your time, and you see the reviews, photos and opening hours at the same moment.

The limits are real: the app shows a handful of results near where you are standing, mixes in ads and chains, and has no filter for “no website”, so you open profiles one by one and copy details by hand. It works to test a niche on a quiet afternoon, not to build a list of a few hundred businesses.

3. Walk your main street and business parks

Many businesses with no website are visible from the pavement: the café with a handwritten menu, the tailor with a phone number on the window, the garage in the business park with a hand-painted sign. Walk a street or an estate, write down every business name, then check each one on your phone.

Walking has a second benefit: you can go in. A short, polite visit at a quiet hour, with a business card and an example of a site you built for the same trade, is often warmer than any call. Keep it to two minutes and ask when you can call back.

4. Go where owners meet

Local business associations, chambers of commerce, business improvement districts, trade fairs, farmers’ markets and craft fairs all gather owners who run small businesses. Member lists of local associations often show which members have no website, and a stand at a market tells you what the business sells and how it takes orders.

Do not pitch from the stage. Talk shop, ask how customers find them, and follow up a few days later with something specific. Joining your local chamber or association also makes you “the web person” the other members are referred to.

5. Spot social-only businesses and new openings

Some businesses post every day on a social page but have no site: no way to show prices, take bookings or be found for their trade and town. Search local hashtags and neighbourhood groups for trades such as bakers, hairdressers, dog groomers or caterers, and check whether the profile links to a website.

New businesses are the other group. Local news, “now open” posts, planning notices and new shop signs tell you who just opened. A business in its first months has few reviews, a launch budget and no web supplier yet, so timing works in your favour.

6. Ask your clients and suppliers

Your happy clients know other owners: the business next door, their own suppliers, the people in their trade group. Ask each one, after the site goes live, who else should have a site.

Suppliers who serve small businesses meet your prospects every week: accountants and bookkeepers, printers and sign makers, photographers, payment terminal sellers, local insurance brokers. Offer to send work their way too. Introductions from them start with trust that a cold call does not have.

How to check a business before you call

A business without a website is not automatically a good prospect. Spend one minute on each one before you dial, and drop the ones that fail.

• Is it still open? Look at the opening hours and the date of the latest reviews. No review in a year often means a closed or sleeping business.
• Does it have customers? A business with 30 reviews and no site has income and something to lose; one with 2 reviews may not be ready to spend.
• Is a phone number published? About 9 in 10 businesses found on LeadsIt publish one. Without a phone or an address, you cannot reach the owner.
• Is it independent? A branch of a chain usually depends on a head office site you cannot sell to.
• Is the website really missing? Check its social page and do a quick search on the name: some sites exist but were never added to their profile.
• What would a site change? A quote form for a trade, booking for a salon, a menu and ordering for a restaurant. Note it: it is your first sentence on the call.

What to avoid

• Bought lists of “businesses without websites”: they go stale fast, many businesses on them have closed or built a site since, and you cannot see why each one is there.
• Chains, franchises and branches whose website belongs to the head office.
• Businesses that had a site recently and let it lapse after a bad experience: possible, but slow; leave them for later.
• Calling every trade in every town at once. One trade and a few towns you can actually visit will give you more conversations.
• Emailing first. Businesses without a website rarely publish an email, so the phone or a visit is the way in.

What to do with your list next

Once you have 30 to 50 checked businesses in one trade, prepare one example homepage for that trade, call in the quiet hours (early morning for trades, mid-afternoon for restaurants), and log every answer so you call back at the right time. Most yeses come on the second or third contact, not the first.

For offers, price points and the words to use on the phone, read the guide on selling websites to local businesses. For the list itself, the businesses-without-websites page shows how a search looks and what each result contains.

Where LeadsIt fits

LeadsIt does method 1 for you: type a trade and a city, filter on “No website”, sort by reviews, and work the list in the built-in CRM. Your first city search is included with a new account, no card needed; then packs start at $6.90, with no subscription, and credits never expire.

Frequently asked questions