How to Make a List of Businesses That Need Websites
Published on October 17, 2024by Botster
If you’re a freelance web developer who has attempted lead generation tactics as taught online, you’ll know that finding local businesses that need websites isn’t a very easy task.
As a matter of fact, it can be very discouraging especially if your process takes time and yields little results. This is why you need a system that requires little effort but gives you leads consistently.
So in this comprehensive lead gen article, I will show you how to find companies that need websites using several easy-to-use automation tools that can help you export leads in bulk within minutes.
From this step-by-step guide you’ll learn:
- What kind of business needs website development services the most?
- How to find several local businesses that need a business website
- How to make a long list of business in need of website development
If you prefer to watch videos rather than read, here is a video based on this article:
By the end of this article, you will have all the knowledge and tools you need to make a database of web development leads like this:
All through this guide, I will use these bots to extract warehouse service businesses located in Boston as an example. This will help put things in perspective and make learning easier.
Without further ado, let’s see all about how to find which small business needs a website.
What businesses need websites the most?
Although most businesses benefit significantly from having a website, the ones that need it the most are those that heavily rely on visibility, customer engagement, and building trust to grow and thrive. So when looking for businesses who need websites the most, you can target:
1. Small Local Businesses
- Restaurants and Cafés: Providing online menus, reservations, and customer reviews can help restaurants attract new clients and also keep old ones.
- Service Providers (Plumbers, Electricians, Warehousers etc.): Service providers benefit immensely from having websites by leveraging SEO, listing services online, and offering easy booking options.
- Retail Stores: Showcasing products online can drive foot traffic even if they don't offer e-commerce, helping retail stores grow and increase turnover.
2. E-commerce and Retail
- Online Stores: Businesses that sell physical products online need a website to offer their products to a wider audience.
3. Professional Services
- Law Firms, Accounting Firms: Websites help these businesses build credibility and let them provide detailed service information, professional bios, and convenient contact forms.
- Consultants and Freelancers: These professionals can showcase their portfolios and client testimonials to attract clients and demonstrate expertise.
Now that we have our targets defined, let’s see how to find a business that needs website development services - and not just one but many of them!
How to find businesses that need websites
When searching for leads for your web development service, you may be tempted to find them manually. A method that is not only tedious but also now obsolete and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
When it comes to finding various entities of business that need websites, I always recommend using automation bots because they can help you do things that normally take hours in just a couple of minutes! ⏱️
So quickly, let me show the two best lead generation tools that can help you find companies that need a website.
Tool 1 for finding several local businesses that need websites
The first automation bot I’d like to show you in this article is the Google Local Business Finder because it is designed specifically for finding local businesses, and you can easily launch it to find which businesses need websites around you.
The Google Local Business Finder will scan Google Local based on a keyword you provide and extract businesses attached to that keyword as well as their contact info in bulk. The best part is that it will export the results into a spreadsheet for easy download.
To access the Google Local Business Finder and start finding local businesses that need websites in bulk, you must first create a free Botster account:
Registration is fast and easy, and your credit card details are not even required.
Once you’ve done that and your email is verified, you can start finding which business needs website development services in bulk.
Launching the Google Local Business Finder takes just a few steps and less than one minute. Simply follow these steps:
- Open the Google Local Business Finder’s page by clicking on “Start Bot”:
- Give the job a name and set a project folder if you wish:
- Enter your search query (multiple entries allowed but each one must be on a new line):
- Specify your target location (mine will be Boston):
- Set your notification preferences and make sure you tick “Attach results to the notification email”:
- Finally, click on “Start this bot” to launch the Google Local Business Finder into action:
That’s it! You’re done! Easy as eating pancakes!
Right now, the Google Local Business Finder is working its muscles off to compile your list of businesses needing a website. In just a minute or two, the file will be available for you to download.
Video guide
If you’d prefer to see a video guide of how the Google Local Business Finder works, here’s a quick video for you:
Results
Once the bot shows “Completed,” it means you can now download your list of companies who need websites. Viewing the XLS file should look very close to this in Excel:
As you can see, some of the cells in the “Domain” column are empty, meaning that these companies have no websites. They are your hot leads! ♨️
Tips
- First, I’ll recommend sorting the results by the column titled “Domain” and removing the companies that have one already.
- Second, use the extracted phone numbers to contact the companies that have no websites and offer your services.
- Finally, read my comprehensive guide on how to find new business listings where this bot is used for finding new businesses on a regular basis because new businesses are also likely to need websites.
And that’s all about how to find local businesses that need a website. Quickly, let me show you the second tool. It will help you find even more leads!
Tool 2 for making a long list of companies that need websites
Another place you must certainly check when looking for which business needs a website is Google Maps.
While they have a lot of similarities, there are still some differences between Google Maps and Google Local, and many times, you'll get some results here that are not listed on Google Local.
I won't go deep into what things make one of them unique. My focus is on which small businesses need websites that we can find here, and the tool to help us is the Google Maps Scraper.
The Google Maps Scraper is a tool that helps automate the process of extracting companies and businesses on Google Maps along with their details, especially if your focus is on a city.
The best thing about this automated tool is that it also fetches contact info such as address, website (if the company has one), and phone number among several others.
Here's how to find companies that need websites using the Google Maps Scraper:
- Open the Google Maps Scaper’s start page and name your job like we did above.
- Enter your search keywords:
- Select how many results are to be exported:
- Enter a location:
- Start the bot!
And that’s it! That’s how to scrape entities of both big and small business that need websites.
Now, just wait a few moments for the Google Maps Scraper to grab the businesses so you can download them to your computer.
Video guide
You can also watch a quick video of how to set up the Google Maps Scraper here:
Results
Viewing the results of this bot in Excel should give you this:
See how many companies have no websites? This is your chance!
Tips
- Again, I’ll recommend sorting the results by the column titled “Website” and removing the companies that have one already.
- Second, use the extracted phone numbers to contact the companies that have no websites and offer your services.
- Finally, you may be interested to read my guide on how to find companies that need digital marketing where this bot is used for extracting leads for a digital marketing agency.
Bonus: Finding which businesses need a website by radius
There's another alternative Google Maps tool you can use to find companies needing websites, and that's the Google Maps by Radius Finder.
The Google Maps by Radius Finder works in an identical way with the Google Maps Scraper. The only difference between them is the radius constraint which restricts the results from the Google Maps by Radius Finder to a radius you specify. This is particularly useful if you wish to find which business need website within a target neighborhood.
Say you're only looking to work with businesses within a driving distance of your home or office, this is the tool for you!
Using the Google Maps by Radius Finder to find companies that need website for business is pretty easy:
- Open the Google Maps by Radius Finder’s start page.
- Paste your search keywords (e.g. warehouse).
- Set the radius (in meters, e.g. 5000).
- Enter the starting point location (e.g. the physical address of your office)
- Start the bot!
Watch a quick video guide on how to launch the Google Maps by Radius Finder:
And that’s it for the Google Maps by Radius Finder!
FAQ about how to find businesses that need a website
How to search for SMALL businesses that need websites?
What classifies as a small business may vary from industry to industry, and since you can’t find them using the key phrase “small business,” you’re left with one option:
- Find businesses with little to no fame for your outreach
If a business is less known, you can easily classify it as a small one. Running with this idea, you can easily find small businesses that need a website using both the Google Local Business Finder and the Google Maps Scraper by extracting less popular businesses from the results file and prioritizing them in your outreach.
To find entities of small business that need a website on the list, simply look for the column titled “Votes” or “Votes count” and sort A-Z. The companies with the smallest vote counts will be listed first, and their vote count will tell you how popular they are in one glance.
In the screenshot below, I’ve highlighted the companies that have few votes (i.e. count as small businesses) and feature no websites:
Can I find small business OWNERS that need a website to contact them directly?
To find owners of small businesses needing websites, I'll suggest using the LinkedIn Email Miner, another automation bot that’s equally as fast as the two I showed you above. The only difference is that the LinkedIn Email Miner is designed only to find leads on LinkedIn and extract their publicly visible contact details.
Launching the LinkedIn Email Miner takes just a few steps:
- Open the bot’s start page and enter a search phrase, e.g. “warehouse owner” or “warehouse supervisor”
- Enter a location (e.g. Boston)
- Paste a list of email masks (e.g. @gmail.com, @hotmail.com, etc.)
- Start the bot!
And that’s it. Watch a quick video guide on how to launch the LinkedIn Email Miner if you like:
The LinkedIn Email Miner will quickly gather small business owners who may need to create website for business. The results should look like this:
Does every NEW business need a website and if so, how to find them?
In some niches or industries, every business needs a website — new or not. For instance, warehouses and logistics businesses rely heavily on having a website as it is essential for their online presence.
To constantly get notified whenever a new business appears on Google, simply set the bot to run automatically and also set it to “deliver new items only”.
- Using the Google Local Business Finder for example, after entering all details, tick “Run this bot periodically”:
- Set the periodicity with which the process should execute:
- Finally, tick “Deliver new items only” and now, the bot will automatically notify you whenever a new business joins the list:
Free trial for the automation tools capable of finding businesses in need of websites
Now that I’ve shown you what businesses need a website the most and the tools that can help you find them, the rest is in your hands.
Without a doubt, these automation tools I described above can work wonders for your business by quickening your process for finding local businesses that need websites. However, they won’t work unless you set them up.
To get you started right away, I recommend you leverage the 7-day free trial offered on Botster. All you have to do is open a free Botster account to get started!
If you’re bothered about how much it would cost you to access these tools, you can put that off your mind. The free trial gives you full access to all the bots on the platform even without asking for your credit card details.
And even after the free trial, the bots above cost so little you'd barely know you spent a dime. It's like buying a cup of coffee, yet their benefits are enormous.
So don't delay any longer. Register on Botster and start finding small businesses that need a website today!
Read more of our blogs
