How to find local businesses that need a new website

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Pick one neighbourhood and a few kinds of business
List every business in the area
Check each website the same way
Score and sort the list
Write a short pitch that names what you found
Follow up, and keep notes
Mind the rules
Doing it with RadiusPilot
Sources

The businesses that need a new website aren’t hidden. They’re on the streets around you: the clinic with no way to book, the plumber whose site shows “Not secure”. The work is finding them in order, and pitching them with a fact instead of “I build websites”.

Here is a method you can start this week, by hand or with RadiusPilot, in any city.

Pick one neighbourhood and a few kinds of business

Start small on purpose. One neighbourhood you can walk and two or three kinds of business give you a list you can finish, and let you compare a dentist’s site with other dentists’ sites.

Choose businesses whose customers look them up before they call or visit: clinics, salons, restaurants, gyms and trades like plumbers or roofers. Pick kinds you know or can show work for: a site you built for one clinic helps you pitch the next.

List every business in the area

Use more than one source: each misses businesses the others have.

Walk the street
Note each storefront’s name and kind of business, and any phone number, hours or web address on the door. Walking catches new businesses and the ones directories missed.
Check local directories
Your chamber of commerce, the business improvement area (a BIA, or an SDC in Québec) and professional associations may publish member directories.
Search public map listings
Search the map apps your customers use, for each kind of business in the area, and note what each listing shows.
Keep one sheet
One row per business: name, kind, address, phone, website, and where and when you found each detail. That record shows later where an email address came from.

Check each website the same way

Run the same five checks on every business, in the same order, so you can compare the results.

Does it have a website at all?

No website is the biggest gap, and the easiest to explain. A Facebook or Instagram page standing in for one is a smaller gap. A domain that doesn’t load, or has expired, counts as none.

Does it use HTTPS?

The address should start with https://. Chrome has marked every plain http page “Not secure” since Chrome 68, in July 2018. Since Chrome 154, released in September 2026, it also prompts people by default when they connect to a site over an insecure http connection.

Google’s page experience checklist asks whether pages are served securely, but Google also says it seeks to show the most relevant content even when page experience is sub-par. Sell HTTPS as trust, not as rankings.

Does it load quickly on a phone?

Google sums up how a page feels to visitors in three Core Web Vitals. In plain words:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how long the biggest image or block of text on screen takes to appear. Good is within 2.5 seconds.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly the page reacts to a tap, a click or a key press. Good is 200 milliseconds or less.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how much the layout jumps around unexpectedly, like a button that moves as you tap it. Good is 0.1 or less.

Google judges each at the 75th percentile of page loads, on phones and computers separately: a page passes when at least three loads in four meet each target.

Paste the address into PageSpeed Insights. It shows two things:

A lab test: Lighthouse loads the page on a simulated mid-tier phone over a mobile network. Its performance score is good at 90 or above, needs improvement from 50 to 89, and is poor below 50.
Real visits: Chrome users’ Core Web Vitals over the previous 28 days. With too few visits on record, you get the whole site’s figures, or none.

The two can disagree. Quote real visits when there are some; otherwise quote the lab test and say it’s a lab test. Then try the site on your own phone: can you read it without zooming and find the phone number?

Can a customer book or order online?

Count the taps from the homepage to booking an appointment, ordering or asking for a quote. Phone only is a real gap for a salon or a clinic, less so for a roofer who prefers to talk first.

Are the listing details complete?

Look the business up as a customer would, in a map app or a search engine. Are the hours, phone number and website there, and do they match the site?

Google’s help for business owners says complete and accurate information makes a business more likely to show up in local results. It’s a small fix, and a good first job.

Score and sort the list

Give each gap points, add them up and sort from highest to lowest. One simple scale:

Gap	Points
No website, or one that doesn’t load	5
No HTTPS, or a certificate that isn’t valid	2
LCP over 2.5 seconds, or a lab score under 50	2
No online booking where customers expect it	1
Each missing listing detail: hours, phone or website	1

No website takes the 5 plus its listing gaps; the other rows apply only to businesses with a site. Then adjust by hand:

Move chains and franchises down: head office may decide on the website.
Break ties by distance: the closer, the easier to meet.
Skip businesses that look closed, and anyone who asked not to be contacted.

Keep the top ten or twenty for this week.

Write a short pitch that names what you found

Lead with one concrete fact the owner can check on their own phone in a minute. One fact per email: a list reads like an audit they didn’t ask for. Facts like these:

Chrome shows “Not secure” next to your address.
On a phone, your homepage misses Google’s 2.5-second target for its main content, in Google’s own test.
The phone number is the only way to book.
Your listing has no opening hours.

Build the email around it:

Who you are, and where
Your name, your business, and that you work nearby.
The fact, and how to check it
What you found, and how they can see it: “Open your site in Chrome and look at the address bar.”
Why it matters
What a customer sees or can’t do, with no invented figures about lost sales.
One small next step
A ten-minute call, a one-page summary of what you checked, or a draft homepage.

Use a subject that names the fact, like “Your website shows ‘Not secure’ in Chrome”. Send it from your own mailbox to the address the business publishes, never to a guessed one like firstname.lastname@: the consent below doesn’t cover it.

Follow up, and keep notes

Plan the follow-ups before the first email, and stop the moment they answer, yes or no. A simple rhythm:

First, the email with your one fact.
Three days later, a short call, or a visit if you’re nearby.
On day 7, a follow-up with a second fact, or the summary you offered.
On day 14, a polite last note.

Keep notes on every business: what you sent and when, the fact you used, their answer, the next step, and where you found their email address. Put anyone who asks you to stop on an opt-out list, for good.

Your notes also show what works. Count replies per email sent, by kind of business and by the fact you led with, then drop the facts that don’t get answers.

Mind the rules

In Canada, commercial email falls under the anti-spam law, CASL, and you need consent. For a first email to a business, that usually means implied consent from an address it published.

The Government of Canada’s guidance says that works when the address was conspicuously published, without a statement refusing unsolicited commercial messages, and when your message is relevant to the person’s business, role, functions or duties. Every email must also include:

Your business name, and the name of anyone you’re sending for
A current mailing address, plus a phone number, an email address or a website, valid for at least 60 days after you send
An unsubscribe that works, with every request handled within 10 business days, at no cost

If asked, you should be ready to prove consent: that’s what the source and date on your sheet are for. The email rules guide covers what RadiusPilot adds to every email, and the rules in the United States.

Doing it with RadiusPilot

RadiusPilot runs the same method, on Windows or in your browser.

Scan a neighbourhood
Click New scan, type a place, set a radius of up to 5 km and pick from 18 kinds of business. On Starter, your first real scan is a preview. See your first scan.
Check the websites
In the Windows app, the scan then checks up to 300 homepages: HTTPS and its certificate, a mobile layout, booking links, the copyright year, the load time and more. See the website checks.
Sort by opportunity
Each business gets a score from 0 to 100, with reasons such as no website, no HTTPS or missing opening hours. Businesses › Best opportunities ranks them. See the opportunity score.
Measure what you’ll quote
Site speed runs Google’s PageSpeed test and Email health reads mail records, sending nothing. Run audit, in a business’s profile, runs every check together, grades the site from A to F and lists pitch lines built only from what it found.
Pitch and follow up
Automations › Sequences has a Cold intro template that follows the rhythm above. Due steps wait for you in Today, and a reply stops the sequence. Each profile keeps your Notes and a Timeline of emails, calls and stage changes.
Stay within the rules
Every email gets your postal address and an unsubscribe line, opted-out addresses are blocked, and a daily limit counts people. In the Windows app, Published contacts saves the role address you choose from a business’s own site, with the page and the date.

Try the live demo, or the web app, which scores from the listings alone and can’t send from your mailbox. The Windows app is a download: a test version that hasn’t run on a real Windows computer yet.

Sources

Checked against these pages on November 1, 2026.

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