The poor-website filter: how web designers find their next clients

Product Updates7 AUG 2026 · 6 MIN READ · UPDATED 19 SEPT 2026

Around 1 in 3 UK small-business websites fails basic checks. The poor-website filter finds those firms, graded from the live HTML, each with a verified email. Here is how web designers work the list.

Watch: Nearly a third of small-business websites fail basic checks

Around 1 in 3 UK small-business websites fails basic checks. No mobile layout. No HTTPS. One page. A copyright footer stuck years in the past. Behind each of those sites is a trading business that is losing work to competitors who look credible online. The poor-website filter finds them: it grades every verified company website from the live HTML, and lets you keep only the firms whose site is letting them down.

What the filter checks

We fetch each verified company website and read the HTML itself. Not a screenshot. Not a guess:

Mobile layout. Does the page adapt on a phone, or is it a fixed desktop grid?
HTTPS. Does the site load securely, or warn every visitor away?
Page count. A real site, or one orphaned page?
Copyright staleness. A footer that stopped in 2019 tells you when somebody last cared.
Legacy builders. Fingerprints of platforms that stopped being maintained years ago.

Each site comes back modern, dated or poor, and the grades refresh monthly. Tell your agent you only want companies with a poor site, and that is all it brings you, on top of your trades and your area.

Start free

Now find the companies that are in it.

Tell us who you sell to. We find them, with a real email. 25 free leads, no card.

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No card · 25 free leads · Full enrichment on every one

Why this beats a no-website list

The old dream was a list of companies with no website at all. We used to sell that flag, and we retired it, because a firm with no web presence has published no email address. There is nothing to verify and nobody to write to. The full story is in how to find companies with no website.

The poor-website firm is different in the one way that matters. The site exists, so the verified email exists. Every lead the filter returns comes with the director's name, the verified website and a verified business email as standard. One lead is one lead, and a company we cannot verify is held back and never charged.

There is a second advantage: the opening line. "You have no website" is a pitch every list-buyer has already sent. "Your site does not work on a phone" is a specific, checkable fact about their business. One reads as spam. The other reads as attention.

The agent that works the list

The strongest setup for a web designer is an agent that works the list every morning without help:

Setup: a two-minute chat. You name your trades and sectors and your region, and say you only want firms with a poor site. The assistant shows real sample companies before anything is charged.
Overnight: the agent finds the named person (usually the director), opens the company's website and tests the email address. Whatever fails is dropped, and you are never sent the same company twice.
The Feed: each morning a handful of leads arrive with the first email already drafted around the specific problem. You approve, redraft or skip. Approved emails go from your own mailbox, starting at 5 a day and climbing from there.
Follow-ups and replies: two short follow-ups go out after the first email, on Day 4 and Day 9 unless you change them. A reply stops everything to that company and lands with you, with an answer drafted for you to send.

Your AI lead-gen employee sets all of that up from the chat. It reads your own site, asks a couple of questions, and writes your pitch: the two lines of each email that are in your own words. Nothing sends until you approve it, unless you switch Autopilot on yourself.

What to write

Keep the first touch factual and kind. The owner may have built that site themselves:

Name the observation: "your site does not adapt on a phone, and most local searches happen on phones".
Offer one concrete thing: a mockup, a 15-minute chat, a one-page rebuild price.
Stop. Two short paragraphs beat a fee menu every time.

Worked scripts, with subject lines, are in the 2026 poor-website guide, and the full weekly agency routine is in the web design agency playbook.

See your patch first

The setup chat shows real sample companies from your trades and your area before anything is charged. Start free with 25 leads, tell your agent you only want poor sites, and meet the firms in your area that are one honest email away from being your next client.

The Leadistry Team

Leadistry maintains a live database of 5 million UK companies, enriched from the Companies House public record with verified websites, business emails and social profiles. We write about the craft of finding and reaching the right businesses, first.

See how Leadistry works →

Leadistry finds UK business leads directly from the Companies House public record. You describe who you sell to in a short conversation, in your own words, and the AI sets up what to watch for: there are no filters or search syntax to learn. Every lead arrives complete, with the registered company record, the director's name, a working website and a business email tested against their own mail server. One lead is one lead: anything else we find, such as a LinkedIn profile or their socials, comes with it at no extra cost. If we cannot complete a lead, you never see it and you are not charged for it.

A search can run once, or agents can keep watching the public record for you. New incorporations, upcoming accounts deadlines and other filing signals arrive in your morning feed on the day they reach the record. Each lead is drafted individually: the opening line is written about that company and the specific reason it turned up, so no two emails are the same, and your own words carry the offer itself. Everything stays a draft until you approve it, sending is paced from your own mailbox to protect your sender reputation, and replies land in your own inbox and stop the rest of the sequence.

Company data comes from Companies House under the Open Government Licence. Websites and emails are found on each company's own site and checked against the filing, field by field, so every claim traces to a source. Nothing is bought from brokers, and no email address is guessed from a pattern. Plans start at £29 a month for 900 leads, the free trial includes 25 leads and 25 emails you can send from your own mailbox with no card, and any company or person can ask to be removed at any time.