How to Find Businesses That Need a Website: 12 Signals to Watch
How to find businesses that need a website: 12 signals, local and B2B, with where to see each, from Google Maps listings to job posts and Form D filings.
TL;DR: Split the search in two. Local businesses with no site, or a broken one, turn up by hand: search Google Maps for a trade and a town, open each listing and check its Website link, then work local directories and new business registrations. B2B companies due for a redesign show it in public: a web designer job post, a rebrand post, a new head of marketing, a funding round, a launch. The 12 signals below cover how to find businesses that need a website in both halves, and where to see each one.
Finding the business is step one. Turning the list into signed work runs through the channels in how to get web design clients.
12 signals a business needs a website, and where to see them
Signals 1 to 5 point to local businesses with no site or a failing one. Signals 6 to 12 point to B2B companies about to rebuild.
| # | Signal | What it means | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No Website button on the Maps listing | The owner never added a site to their Business Profile | Google Maps |
| 2 | The website link opens a social page or a directory page | A free page stands in for a site | The listing's Website link |
| 3 | The link is dead, parked or expired | The site lapsed and nobody noticed | Click the link |
| 4 | "Not secure" warning, broken mobile layout, slow pages | The site exists but works against them | Chrome, your phone, PageSpeed Insights |
| 5 | A newly registered business or a new location | A new business needs a site before or soon after it opens | City open data, chamber of commerce, local news |
| 6 | A job post for a web designer, Webflow developer or website manager | The site is a priority this quarter | Job boards, the company's careers page |
| 7 | A job post that names a CMS change or a migration | A platform move is planned | The job post text |
| 8 | A post about a redesign, a rebrand or "the new site" | The project is scoped or underway | Public posts by founders and marketers |
| 9 | A new head of marketing or CMO | New leaders often review the site early | Press releases, team pages, announcement posts |
| 10 | A funding round | New money and pressure to look the part | Press releases, funding news, SEC Form D filings |
| 11 | A new product line or a new market | New pages, new languages, new positioning | Product announcements, regional job posts |
| 12 | A merger, an acquisition or a name change | The site must change, often on a deadline | Press releases, company announcements |
How to find businesses that need a website: the two halves
The method depends on the half. Local businesses with no site, or a broken one, are found by hand, one listing at a time. B2B companies due for a redesign show it in public, in job posts, posts and news.
The two halves differ in more than method. Local prospects are plentiful, the owner decides alone, and budgets come out of the owner's pocket. B2B prospects are fewer, the head of marketing owns the site, and the budget sits in a marketing plan. If you sell to both, write two offers and two first messages.
Pancake, our product, watches the second half for web design agencies; the last section covers how, and where it stops.
How to find local businesses that don't have a website
Search Google Maps for one trade in one town, open every listing, and log the ones with no Website button or a link that goes nowhere useful.
- Pick one trade and one town. Search Maps for "[trade] in [town]", for example "physical therapy Boise". One trade per session keeps your notes comparable.
- Open each listing. No Website button means the owner never added a site to their Business Profile.
- Click the links that exist. A social page, a directory page, a parked domain or an error page all count as no site.
- Note the review count. An owner with 150 reviews and no site has customers and cash flow. An owner with three reviews from 2021 may have neither.
- Widen with directories. Chamber of commerce member lists, trade association directories and Yelp categories surface businesses that Maps ranks low.
- Catch new businesses. Many cities publish business registrations as open data. San Francisco's Registered Business Locations dataset lists each registered business with a Business Start Date column, so you can filter for businesses that started this month.
Log the name, the phone number, what is wrong and a screenshot. Then call or walk in. A local owner is easier to reach at the counter than in an inbox.
How to check a website in five minutes
Five checks tell you whether a site works against its owner, and each one hands you a line for your first message.
- The address bar. Chrome shows "Not secure" when a site doesn't use a private connection, and Chrome Help says the owner fixes it with HTTPS.
- Your phone. Open the site on a phone. Tap the phone number and the booking button.
- Speed. Run the homepage through PageSpeed Insights, which reports on mobile and desktop.
- Links. Click the main menu, the contact page and the footer links.
- Freshness. Read the copyright year in the footer, the date of the last blog post, and the team page.
Write down what you saw, with a screenshot. "Your booking button opens a blank page on iPhone" starts a conversation. "Your site looks dated" ends one.
Signs a company needs a website redesign
A B2B company needs a redesign when its site falls behind the company: new people, new money, new products, a new name. Each of those changes shows up in public before the project goes out to studios.
- Hiring for the site. Search job boards and careers pages for "web designer", "Webflow developer", "website manager" and "web developer". A company hiring for a web role has a budget and a deadline. Some will build in-house; pitch the rebuild while they hire, or support for the new hire.
- A CMS named in job posts. A line such as "experience migrating from WordPress to Webflow" reveals the move before anyone posts about it. Job posts are where you see the tools a company plans to use.
- Redesign and rebrand posts. Search public posts for "website redesign", "new website", "rebrand" and "site migration" on the platforms your buyers use. Founders and marketers post updates such as "we're rebuilding the site", and some ask peers which studio to hire.
- A new marketing leader. Watch press releases and announcement posts. A new head of marketing tends to review the site and the messaging in the first months.
- Funding. Press releases and funding news cover the rounds companies announce. For rounds raised in the US under Regulation D, Form D filings are public on EDGAR and due within 15 days after the first sale of securities. More on selling to recently funded companies.
- Launches and new markets. A new product line needs pages; a new country needs a language. Read product announcements and job posts for regional roles.
- Mergers and name changes. These come with a date, and the site has to be ready by it.
What doesn't count as a signal
Four things look like signals and aren't: the CMS alone, your taste, a site rebuilt last year, and a business too small to pay.
- The CMS alone. Running WordPress doesn't mean a company wants to leave it. A planned move shows up in job posts and posts, not in the page source.
- Your taste. "It looks dated" is your opinion. Find a problem the owner would agree with: a form that fails, a page that takes eight seconds on mobile, a product the site doesn't mention.
- A recent rebuild. Check the footer, the press page and old job posts. A company that relaunched in the spring won't rebuild in the fall.
- No budget. A side business with three reviews and no staff is a poor first project, however bad its site.
Once a business passes, write to it about the signal you saw. The web design cold outreach templates include first messages for a job post, a redesign post, a funding round and a broken page.
Spotting redesign signals with Pancake (the B2B half only)
Only the B2B half fits Pancake, the product we build. It reads your site to build a GTM Brain, then runs Plays: audiences you describe in one sentence, searched on the schedule you pick. Three signals from the table fit it: posts about a redesign or a rebrand (8), companies hiring for web roles (6), and the CMS named in their job posts (7).
A Play could read: "Find founders and marketing leads at US B2B companies with 20 to 200 staff posting about a website redesign or a rebrand." Each lead comes with one line on why it fits. The first message asks one question about the signal, as a DM under your name: "Saw your post about the rebrand. Is the website changing with it, or staying as it is for now?"
The limits matter for this topic. Pancake can't find businesses that have no website, and it can't tell which CMS a site runs on by looking at the site: it reads the tools named in job posts. A local shop with no job posts and no public posts stays a Maps-and-phone job. From $99 a month per workspace with 60,000 credits, about 120 to 600 leads a month as an estimate. The 7-day trial includes 30,000 credits and needs a card. See Pancake for web design agencies and pricing.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I find local businesses that don't have a website?
- Search Google Maps for one trade in one town, open each listing, and note the ones with no Website button or a link that goes to a social page, a directory page or an error. Check the review count to spot businesses that are busy. Then widen the list with chamber of commerce and trade association directories, and your city's open data on new business registrations.
- What are the signs a company needs a website redesign?
- The strongest signs come from inside the company: a job post for a web designer or website manager, a post about a rebrand or a new site, a new head of marketing, a funding round, a new product line, a merger or a name change. Site problems such as a browser's Not secure warning or slow mobile pages are evidence for your message, not proof they will buy.
- How can I tell what CMS a website uses?
- Look at the page source for clues such as a WordPress generator tag, or use a browser extension such as Wappalyzer, which identifies CMSs and other site technologies. That tells you what the site runs today. Where a company plans to move shows up elsewhere: in job posts that name a platform, or in posts about a migration.
- Is it worth selling websites to businesses that don't have one?
- Sometimes. A business with no site but many recent reviews has customers and cash flow, and a site can bring it more of both. One with a handful of old reviews and no site may have no budget at all. Qualify on activity and the owner's plans before you pitch, and scope the first project so a small owner can say yes.
- How do I find companies that need websites in B2B?
- Watch for public changes: companies hiring web designers or Webflow developers, job posts that name a CMS migration, founders posting about a rebrand, new marketing leaders, funding rounds and launches. Search job boards, careers pages, public posts and press releases once a week, and write within days of the signal while the reason is fresh.