Every business has a website, so "businesses with websites" isn't a lead list. What you want is the much smaller group whose website has a problem you can fix, owned by someone you can reach. This post explains how we decide which sites belong in that group, and how you can use the same thinking even if you never use Dozif.
Start with problems the owner can see
The best opening line in a cold email points at something the owner can check in ten seconds. "Your website could convert better" is a guess. "Your footer still says © 2021" is a fact. So the signals we care about most are the ones that are visible, specific and easy to fix.
Here's how Dozif weighs them in its opportunity score, which runs from 0 to 100:
| Signal | Points | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Not mobile-friendly | 20 | Most visitors are on phones. This is the clearest reason to rebuild. |
| Outdated © year | 20 | A footer two or more years old means nobody is looking after the site. |
| Slow (over 3 seconds) | 15 | People leave slow pages, and the owner can feel it on their own phone. |
| Webflow free-plan badge | 15 | A business still on a free plan hasn't invested in its site yet. |
| No working HTTPS | 15 | Browsers show "Not secure". Easy to explain, easy to fix. |
| No meta description | 10 | Google has to guess what the page is about. |
| Broken links | 10 | Small, but it looks careless. |
| No social preview | 5 | Links shared on LinkedIn or Slack show up blank. |
| No analytics | 5 | They can't see what their site is doing for them. |
| On its own domain | 10 | A real business, not a test or hobby project. |
A site can collect points from several of these. In our database right now, 537 sites score 60 or higher, and 3,021 score at least 40.
Then check you can reach them
A perfect lead with no contact details is just a website. Before you spend time on a site, check that it publishes a way to reach the business. Of all the sites Dozif can search, 7,796 publish an email address, and 7,745 have one whose domain we've confirmed accepts mail.
Contact pages and phone numbers count too. Some of the best replies come from a short message through a contact form.
Match the lead to what you sell
A high score doesn't make a site a good lead for you. A few questions narrow it down:
- Do you know the platform? If you're a Shopify developer, a slow Shopify store is a perfect fit. A slow WordPress blog is someone else's client.
- Do you know the industry? You'll write a much better email to a dentist if you've built sites for dentists before. Pick a niche and stick with it for a while.
- Can you fix the problem quickly? An outdated footer or a missing meta description is a small first job. A site that isn't mobile-friendly is a bigger project. Both are fine, as long as your offer matches.
Signals that look useful but aren't
Some things seem like opportunities but rarely lead anywhere:
- Sites still on a platform subdomain (like
name.webflow.io). Often unfinished or abandoned projects. - Parked pages and "coming soon" pages. There's no business behind them yet. Dozif leaves these out.
- Huge companies. Their website problems are real, but they have an in-house team and a long buying process.
Putting it together
A good lead is a real business, on a platform you know, in an industry you understand, with a visible problem you can fix, and a way to reach the owner. Each of those cuts the list down, and that's the point. You'll get more replies from thirty well-chosen sites than from three hundred random ones.
