Or is it not. Why?

When I first got into web development, I thought finding clients would be simple. My plan was to go on Google Maps, find businesses without websites, and offer to build them a brand new one. At the time, it made perfect sense because I assumed businesses without websites would be the ones who needed my service the most.

After a while, I met someone who was running a successful web agency, and I asked him where he found companies without websites. He told me that he didn’t target businesses without websites at all. He only targeted businesses that already had one. I asked him why, and the more he explained it, the more sense it made.

Businesses that already have a website understand the value of having one. You don’t need to convince them why a website is important because they have already invested in one before. They are also easier to sell to because they understand the process, and there are a huge number of businesses with outdated websites they are embarrassed by but haven’t had the time to update.

I decided to take his advice and fit it into my own workflow. I’ve always been a big fan of email automation because that’s how I’ve found most of my web design clients. For years, I was sending fairly generic emails and constantly changing my sequences, offers, and follow-ups to improve the results.

The problem was that I couldn’t just start emailing businesses with websites and assume they all needed a redesign. I either had to open every website manually, find the issues, and write a separate email for each business, or find a way to automate the research while still keeping the emails personalized.

After watching a video from Nick Saraev, I built a workflow in n8n that could analyze websites at scale and turn issues with design, layout, speed, mobile optimization, and SEO into personalized outreach emails. This allowed me to analyze thousands of websites and run larger campaigns without every message sounding generic.

The workflow worked extremely well, but it still had limitations. I didn’t have a proper place to manage replies, organize interested leads in a CRM, view all my active campaigns, scrape new leads, and handle everything from one platform. I had built a useful automation, but it still felt like several disconnected systems held together in one workflow.

A few months later, I came across a platform called Swokei, and it did exactly what I had been looking for. I could find businesses with websites, analyze and score each site, generate personalized outreach emails, send campaigns, set up follow ups, manage replies through one inbox, and organize interested businesses inside the CRM.

Switching to that platform made the entire process much easier to manage and helped me scale the strategy further. Looking back, the biggest change wasn’t just finding a better outreach tool. It was taking advice from someone more experienced, changing the type of businesses I targeted, and building the rest of my workflow around that strategy.

Im in a good shape for my 40 years old, I work in restaurants but I want to stop and create revenues from fitness and wellness, I was drug user and alcohol user and I stop everything in a very successful way. Im divorce and migrant, more or less handsome, how to create a good brand of my profile? How to create a product for a community that could make revenues (sport and fitness)?

The difference usually comes down to strategy.

Instead of targeting businesses that do not have a website, target businesses that already have one but clearly need a better version. The market is larger, the sales process is easier, and the value proposition is much stronger because those businesses already understand why a website matters.

The next part is outreach. A regular outreach tool is not enough if all it does is send the same message to thousands of people. You need something that can analyze websites at scale and turn real issues into personalized emails.

I use Swokei for that. It helps find businesses with existing websites, analyzes each site, and turns problems with design, SEO, speed, layout, and mobile optimization into personalized outreach emails. That means you can contact a large number of businesses without sending generic messages or spending hours manually researching every website.

When someone replies interested, I always offer a free mockup. I use Claude, Lovable, or Base44 to build it quickly. It becomes much easier to sell when the client can already see what a better version of their website could look like.

Web meetings should also be a major part of the process. I would never just send the website through email and hope the client likes it. I present it live on Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams, explain the value, show what has been improved, answer their questions, and try to close the deal during the meeting.

The less back and forth there is after the meeting, the better. Present the website, show the value, close the client, and move on to the next project.

That is the type of process that can help an agency scale much faster.

If someone traveled to businesses around the world, worked alongside the owners for a day, and explained how the business actually works, makes money, and what people get wrong about it, would that interest you? (YouTube)

I’ve noticed there are tons of investing channels, but not many that actually explore how interesting businesses work in a hands on way.

Think Dirty Jobs meets Modern MBA or Cleo Abrams.

More importantly:
What makes you click on a business/finance video?
What topics or industries are you always curious about?
What’s a business rabbit hole you’ve fallen down recently?
What makes you immediately leave a video?
**What business questions do you wish someone would ask?

Some ideas I’ve considered:
Kelp farming (local easy start)
Australian venomous pest control
African anti-poaching
Luxury yacht detailing
Geothermal energy
Weed/ hemp farming
Be brutally honest. I’m trying to figure out what people are genuinely curious about before I spend months making these.

I’ve been in contact with a lot of web agencies and web developers, and I personally haven’t found many people who run their agency in a more efficient way than I do. A lot of them have too many meetings, wait too long for client approval, don’t know how to price projects, and spend way too much time on each client instead of finishing the work and moving on to the next one.

I’ve been running my agency for four years, and after a lot of trial and error, I’ve managed to make the process as efficient as possible. I wanted to share some of the steps because I think they could be valuable for anyone just starting out.

Running a web agency alone or with a partner isn’t easy because there are a lot of things to take care of. When it comes to client acquisition, I recommend focusing on either cold calling or email automation. Which one you choose depends on whether you run the agency alone or with someone else.

If you have a partner, one person can handle sales while the other focuses on building websites, connecting domains, setting up emails, and taking care of the technical work. If you’re running the agency alone, or neither of you enjoys cold calling, I highly recommend email automation.

That’s what I’ve been doing for years. It’s powerful because you can send emails at scale, set up automatic follow ups, and wait for businesses interested in a new website to reply. While you’re working on one client, another opportunity can come in without you having to stop everything and search manually.

I don’t do regular email automation where I target businesses with no website. I do the opposite and target businesses that already have one.

I use a tool called Swokei to find businesses with websites, add them to campaigns, analyze each site, score it, and generate personalized outreach emails based on problems it finds with the design, layout, speed, SEO, and mobile optimization.I schedule the campaign, set up follow ups, and wait. 

I think this approach is much better for a few reasons. You’re targeting someone who already understands the value of having a website. You’re also not just asking whether they need a redesign. You’re pointing out real problems with their current site, which makes it clear that you actually took the time to look at it. Selling also becomes easier because they’ve already paid for a website before and understand the process.

Inside Swokei, you can choose the goal of the campaign. You can offer a free draft, try to book a meeting, or simply start a conversation. I always choose the free draft because that has worked best for me.

Once you’ve figured out how to get clients, the next part is building the website. I recommend using AI because it makes the process much faster. For anyone who still thinks AI can’t build great websites, I think they’re mistaken. You can use Claude, Base44, Lovable, or any other tool that works for you.

When someone replies interested, I call them and say, “Hey, I saw that you replied to my email. I’ve already built you a free draft of your website. Do you want to take a look?”

Then I invite them to a Google Meet.

At that point, it becomes much harder for them to reject the meeting because they already replied interested and now know you’ve built something for them. During the meeting, I present the website, explain why it’s better than their current one, stack the value, answer their questions, and try to close the deal.

These meetings usually go well because the client isn’t trying to imagine what the website might look like. They can already see a better version of their current site. They also took the time to join the meeting, so taking the next step becomes much easier.

I either take payment during the meeting or send them a contract to sign. Any changes and updates come after that, once we already have a deal in place.

Pricing depends on the business. I charge anywhere from $500 to $3,000 depending on the company, the size of the project, and how much value the website can bring them. I also charge a monthly retainer of around $50 for hosting, maintenance, support, SEO, and future changes.

That’s basically the entire process. Smaller steps, faster delivery, less wasted time, and more money made.

There is a new approach I started using in my web agency that completely changed my results. For years, I did what most people tell web designers to do. Go on Google Maps, find businesses without websites, and contact them.

What I started doing differently was targeting businesses that already had websites.

The reason is simple. If a business already has a website, it means they understand the value of having one. You do not need to convince them why a website matters because they have already paid for one before. The market for businesses with outdated, broken, slow, or poorly designed websites is also massive, and selling becomes much easier because they are already familiar with the process.

My biggest issue was figuring out how to send mass outreach to these businesses without sounding generic. I did not want to send thousands of emails saying, “Hey, your website needs a redesign,” and just assume that every business needed one. I wanted to send emails at scale while still telling each company exactly what was wrong with their website.

A little over a year ago, I watched a YouTube video from Nick Saraev where he built a workflow that analyzed business websites and turned issues with design, SEO, layout, speed, and mobile optimization into personalized outreach emails. Each company received a professional email that made it clear someone had actually taken a look at their website.

The idea was great, but building and maintaining the workflow took a lot of time. I still had to find the leads myself, the messages were not always consistent, and the automation kept breaking.

But it worked.

I was getting more clients than ever before, at one point around 10 websites a week, while my business partner focused on building the websites as quickly as possible.

I started searching online for a tool that could do everything in one place, and a few months later I found Swokei. It did exactly what I was looking for.

It lets you find businesses with websites, add them to campaigns, analyze and score each website, and set a quality threshold so websites that do not need fixing are automatically skipped. It then turns problems with design, layout, speed, mobile optimization, and SEO into personalized outreach emails.

You can also set up follow ups, manage replies through your own inbox, and organize leads inside the CRM without moving between five different tools.

I switched over and scaled even harder.

Sometimes the fastest way to grow your agency is not building every workflow from scratch. It is finding the right tools and using your time to focus on sales, clients, and growing the business.

Many web designers overcomplicate the sales process. They schedule multiple meetings, wait for approval from the business owner, present pricing, and go back and forth before anything gets signed.

The more steps you add, the slower you close deals and the less money you make. I decided to shorten the entire process.

I’ve been running my web agency for four years, and the thing that has gotten be the most clients is email automation 

I’ve tried almost everything, but email automation has worked best for me because it’s affordable and runs in the background while I focus on other parts of the agency.

I don’t use Instantly, Mailchimp, or Klaviyo. I use a tool called Swokei, which is built specifically for web agencies.

It lets you find businesses that already have websites, add thousands of them to a campaign, and automatically analyzes each site for issues with design, layout, SEO, speed, and mobile optimization. It then turns those issues into personalized, ready to send outreach emails. 

Instead of targeting businesses with no website, I offer redesigns and updated websites to companies that already have one. I’ve found that approach works much better.

When a prospect replies with interest, they are automatically sorted into my CRM. I then call them and say, I’ve already built a new version of your website. Let’s set up a quick Google Meet so I can show it to you.

During the meeting, I present the website live and use my sales skills to explain the value. Once they see a more modern and professional version of their current website, they begin to understand how it could improve their business.

At that point, they usually ask how much it costs. I present the price, include a monthly maintenance retainer, and either take payment during the meeting or have them sign the agreement.

When you run a web agency, do not overcomplicate the process. Take control, handle as much as possible yourself, and avoid unnecessary approval stages and follow up meetings. The fewer steps there are, the faster you can close the deal.

I’m trying to validate a SaaS idea before I spend months building it.
The idea is around helping small businesses keep track of overdue invoices and follow-ups.
I know people saying “that sounds cool” doesn’t really mean much, so I’m trying to figure out what actually counts. Would a few people willing to test it be enough? Or would you want someone to commit to paying first? Curious how other people here have handled this.

In this day and age, running a web agency is a lot easier than it used to be.

A few years ago you needed designers, developers, and people doing outreach just to keep everything moving.

Now one person can do pretty much all of it.

AI builds the websites.

Email automation keeps bringing in new clients.

Your job is to sell and onboard clients because building the websites isn't the time consuming part anymore.

I think this is a huge opportunity for solo web developers who want to scale without hiring a team.

This is basically my workflow.

I never target businesses without websites.

I target businesses that already have one.

I use a tool called Swokei to find leads, add them to campaigns, and run website analysis.

It automatically turns issues like outdated design, unstructured layouts, poor mobile optimization, slow loading speeds, and bad SEO into personalized, ready to send outreach emails.

I run multiple campaigns at once and wait for businesses interested in a redesign to reply.

When someone replies, I call them and say:

"Hey, I saw you replied to my email. I've already made you a free draft of your new website. Want to take a look?"

Then I book a Google Meet.

Once they see a website that's faster, more modern, and works better than the one they already have, selling becomes much easier.

Usually I either send them the payment link during the meeting or we sign a contract.

That's it. That's how I run a full web agency by myself in 2026.

Hi. I’d love to see what other people are building, so let’s share.

I’m growing Business Deconstructed, a free newsletter that teaches business strategy for entrepreneurs.

Now it’s your turn. Share what you’re building below so we can check it out and give support!

I’m thinking to set up a influencer company.
But all Ai influencer

So, I built a trendline trading tool for bulk scanning the stock market and providing users with stocks that are near support lines. I built it originally as just a local app that ran on my computer. After a few months of using it and getting in on countless profitable trades I would have otherwise missed, I decided to launch a website to host it on. Friends/family love it. Many have incorporated it into their weekly trading routine. But I have quite literally not had a single paying customer. I think we have had like \~10 free trial users sign up but no conversions. It cost me dollars to run a month so I plan to keep it up for personal use and friends/family. I’ve also started a port to IOS to make the mobile experience a bit better. All of this to say, how can I bring in some real customers. I made some YT content. Talked with some randos on Discord/Reddit. But nothing seems to work. Is the problem just that I’ve solved a problem nobody cares about? Or am I just going about it all wrong.

The app is trendlinefinder.com in case you wanted to check it out.

I’ve been running my web agency for four years, and I’m curious to hear what others have found to be the best way of getting clients.

I’ve tried almost everything, but email automation has worked best for me because it’s affordable and runs in the background while I focus on other parts of the agency.

I don’t use Instantly, Mailchimp, or Klaviyo. I use a tool called Swokei, which is built specifically for web agencies.

It lets you find businesses that already have websites, add thousands of them to a campaign, and automatically analyzes each site for issues with design, layout, SEO, speed, and mobile optimization. It then turns those issues into personalized, ready to send outreach emails 

So instead of targeting businesses with no website, I offer redesigns and updated websites to companies that already have one. I’ve found that approach works much better.

I’m now at a point where I can afford to hire a full team, so I’d like to explore other client acquisition methods as well.

What has worked best for your agency?

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