How to find businesses without a website in Brisbane

South east Queensland is a good place to be a web designer who sells to small businesses, because it has a lot of small businesses and a lot of them have never got around to a website. The trades that came up with the housing boom from Logan down to the Gold Coast and up through Moreton Bay, the cafes that opened in the last few years, the mobile mechanics and dog groomers and mowing rounds: many of them are on Google Maps with a phone number and reviews and nothing to click.

This article is about finding them, and about what to do once you have.

Where to look in Brisbane

Brisbane's spread works in your favour. The businesses least likely to have a website are the ones in the growth areas, run by one person with a ute and a mobile. Start there:

• Logan and the south. Logan Central, Beenleigh, Browns Plains, Marsden, Springwood, Loganholme. Dense with trades: plumbers, electricians, concreters, fencing, landscaping, rubbish removal. Many one-person operations, many with a Facebook page and no site.
• Ipswich and the west. Ipswich, Springfield, Ripley, Goodna. Growing fast, lots of new builds, lots of new trades.
• Moreton Bay and the north. Caboolture, Morayfield, North Lakes, Redcliffe, Strathpine. Older established businesses on the coast side, newer ones inland.
• The Redlands and bayside. Cleveland, Capalaba, Victoria Point. Long-standing local trades and shops, strong word of mouth.
• The Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast are technically separate but the same method works. Southport, Nerang, Coomera, Maroochydore, Caloundra. Tourism businesses are more likely to have a site; trades are not.

The inner suburbs (Paddington, New Farm, West End) are heavier on cafes and boutiques and heavier on competition from other designers. Scan them for hospitality and beauty, but do not start there.

Doing it by hand

Open Google Maps, search "plumber Logan Central", open each listing, check for a website button, note the phone and the review count. It works and it is slow, roughly a minute a listing. It is fine for a first afternoon. It is not a habit.

Doing it with the Places API

Google makes the same listings available to a script through the Places API. You send it "plumber in Logan Central QLD", it sends back up to 60 businesses with the fields you ask for, including the website field. A short script keeps the ones where that field is empty or points at Facebook, drops anything closed or without a phone, and sorts the rest.

The sort is the point. A plumber with a mobile number, 45 reviews and a 4.8 rating and no website is a better first call than a landline with two reviews. The script gives each business a score for exactly those things and puts the best at the top, so the first ten rows are your morning.

Cost: Google gives every account 1,000 free requests a month at the tier that includes the website and phone fields, and a scan is two or three requests. That is about 330 scans a month before you pay anything, and about 16 cents a scan after. Nobody rings 330 suburbs' worth of plumbers in a month.

If you do not want to set up a script, the free tool on this site runs the same search. Suburb and trade in, top ten with no website out, full list and CSV for an email.

What to do with the list

Ring. Queensland trades start early; 6:45 to 7:30 in the morning is when they answer, or 3:30 to 5 in the afternoon. Cafes after the lunch rush.

Say who you are and what you do in one sentence. Say the thing you noticed, specifically: "you have 45 reviews and no website, and the two plumbers above you in the Logan search both have one". Say the price and how long it takes. Ask if you can text them a link to a site you built for a similar trade. Then stop talking.

If they say yes, send one text or email that day with the link, your name, your business and your number, and a plain way to opt out. Australia's Spam Act applies to commercial email and SMS: consent, identification, unsubscribe. A yes on the phone is consent. An address on a Google listing is not a safe substitute, and one message is the limit. If you hear nothing back, that is the answer.

Queensland notes

• Add QLD. "Springfield", "Richmond", "Redland Bay" and plenty of others exist in other states.
• Service areas are wide. A Beenleigh plumber may work from Logan to the Gold Coast. The suburb in the listing is where they said they were, not where they work. The reviews usually say.
• Mowing, pressure cleaning, pool care. Queensland has a lot of these, they are almost all sole traders on a mobile, and they almost never have a website. Cheap sites, quick wins, and they refer each other.
• Storm and insurance work. Roofers, roof plumbers and restoration trades pick up work after every big storm and tend to have reviews in bursts. Good leads, busy people; ring in the off season.

Try it now

Start somewhere you know.

Find plumbers in Logan Central with no website

Or type any suburb into the free tool. The first ten are free, the full list and CSV are yours for an email address, and the A$49 guide shows you how to run it yourself on your own free Google key, with the scoring rules and the call script explained.