My brilliant idea for finding potential web design clients. What do you think?

[fabiano]

I have this idea to find potential web design clients: I want to find business owners who own low quality websites created by web building tools. I believe, those are businesses which can effort to get a nice website, but they do not have anybody to create it for them, so they quickly used some simple web building tools.


What do you guys think about that?


Is there any directory with lists of websites created by 1and1, wix or go daddy web builders?

 

[Conor]

I did that exact thing last year dude. It does work but it can make people pretty upset if you don't word your emails very carefully. Here are some things I've learnt:

Your emails WILL get classified as spam eventually. Use a host and domain you don't mind throwing away and replacing eventually.

Follow up on all work. People tend to "forget" about things very easily.

The method does work but make sure you're offering a better solution than what they currently have. A lot of "web designers" deliver crap and make the clients distrustful.

 

[MaestroDelWeb]

There are a million posts about this here and on other websites. You just have to find the company's footprint (meaning Wix, GoDaddy, etc...) and look for that in google or scrape your list based on footprints.

In general you will still find you have to contact a lot of companies. Companies that do this a lot of times are too cheap to pay for a decent webdesign, but there are some that will take you up on your offer.

 

[Banned member 185991]

 

[arnosv]

Something like this has already been shared here (that one was about yahoo websites, not sure though).

Most of the sites that are built with webtools have something in the footer like: "created with wix" <--- just a random example. Then do a search in Google with your keywords and that in your search string.

 

[royaldeer]

The idea is good. Check Area301.com , they have something called Oportunity, they index websites and detect their CMS, including website buliding tools.

 

[BHW-News]

There are a million posts about this here and on other websites. You just have to find the company's footprint (meaning Wix, GoDaddy, etc...) and look for that in google or scrape your list based on footprints.

In general you will still find you have to contact a lot of companies. Companies that do this a lot of times are too cheap to pay for a decent webdesign, but there are some that will take you up on your offer.

That's true for 90% of them but I have come across several companies that paid a "developer" a decent amount of money for a "premium" wix "site".

 

[royaldeer]

That's true for 90% of them but I have come across several companies that paid a "developer" a decent amount of money for a "premium" wix "site".

That sounds interesting, but is it a big enough market? I heard Squarespace is also developers' friendly.

 

[GwenGwen]

I have this idea to find potential web design clients: I want to find business owners who own low quality websites created by web building tools. I believe, those are businesses which can effort to get a nice website, but they do not have anybody to create it for them, so they quickly used some simple web building tools.

What do you guys think about that?

Is there any directory with lists of websites created by 1and1, wix or go daddy web builders?

This idea is good, but totally not worth your time. I mean, are you a web designer that is SO efficient and quick that you need to find hundreds of potential clients every week?

If you need to pitch 30 people at the same time, I guess your market is pretty bad... or you pitch horribly.

Just check out the websites of local businesses in your neighbourhood. Don't need to scrape the web with some sophisticated tools.

My two cents anyways.

 

[Conor]

This idea is good, but totally not worth your time. I mean, are you a web designer that is SO efficient and quick that you need to find hundreds of potential clients every week?

If you need to pitch 30 people at the same time, I guess your market is pretty bad... or you pitch horribly.

Just check out the websites of local businesses in your neighbourhood. Don't need to scrape the web with some sophisticated tools.

My two cents anyways.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Sorry if I've missed your point, but why would OP need to find hundreds of clients every week? Two good clients every week should be more than doable.

I agree that targeting local businesses, rather than scraping and sending a generic "Hello sir" type of email would result in a much better conversion rate though.

 

[selo]

I would look for some very shitty web design agencies in your city, look for their clients and try to offer a better service. Going for the kind of guys that are paying Wix or 1and1... it will probably be very cost-averse people.

 

[autonomica]

First you will need to sound as friendly as you can or even sometimes position yourself first as their customer and avoid being spam. Followup until you close the sales. However if you want a massive clients ordering your service at the same time, join the chamber of commerce or post a daily deal offer in your town.

 

[GwenGwen]

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. Sorry if I've missed your point, but why would OP need to find hundreds of clients every week? Two good clients every week should be more than doable.

Yeah sorry. My question was rhetorical. Obviously, nobody can build quality websites so fast that they need to find so many clients. Therefore, the OP's idea to find a lot of potential clients is a bit of a waste of time. Find a couple good ones. No need to scrape the web.

 

[Ambitious12]

When you gonna hire some web designer then you see they also will use site like Wix.

 

[GwenGwen]

As a client, I would NEVER pay for a designer building sites with Wix.

 

[lpfacun]

This is old and used method though.

 

[xgnux]

Google deindexed all wix websites. Perhaps a good time to email them now

 

[nnahlee]

you can still do this works all the time.

 

[ITGuild]

We tried this, not only for web dev and design, but also for SEO. We looked for crappy websites, starting from page 3 in google search, and took serious efforts to tell the owners of those websites how we could rank them to page one within few months and insure their business growth. But it seems, everyone is dissapointed in SEO, there are too many cheap low-quality offers. People now believe that SEO is just bullcrap.

 

[SejtanovRatnik]

If you will offer full service then this idea is ok. You can offer them new design for 100$ but they don't know they need hosting, and domain.

So if I ever try this method, I will try it with full service. Web design + hosting + domain for 110$.