KNOWLEDGE BASE

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know about using SiteBeacon to find and convert leads.

GETTING STARTED

Getting Started

SiteBeacon is a lead generation platform designed specifically for web designers, developers, and digital agencies. It helps you find local businesses that need your services by analyzing their online presence - whether they lack a website, have an outdated one, or have issues with their Google Business Profile.
  1. Sign up for a free account (you get 10 free credits)
  2. Go to the Search page and type your city or postal code — anywhere in the world — then pick it from the suggestions and add a business type (e.g., "plumbers")
  3. Choose your search mode (Website, Reputation, or GBP)
  4. Click Search and browse your results
  5. Save promising leads and generate personalized outreach emails with AI

Credits are used for searches and AI features. One search = 2 credits. AI lead analysis (with outreach email) = 1 credit per lead. Regenerating an email or getting a variant angle = 1 credit. Follow-up sequence = 3 credits. Competitor analysis = 3 credits. Website audit = 2 credits. Find Contact Info = 1 credit when it finds an email on the lead's website, or 2 credits when it runs the social hunt (no-website leads, and website leads with no findable email). AI visibility check = 3 credits per business type + city, and re-running it is free for 30 days. AI template rewrite = 5 credits, charged only when it produces usable rewrites. Failed actions are refunded automatically.

See the complete credit price list — including everything that's free. New users receive 10 free credits, and you can purchase additional credits as one-time packs (never expire) or subscribe for monthly credits.

Yes! SiteBeacon supports team collaboration. You can create a team, invite members, and share credits and leads across your organization. Team owners can transfer credits to the team pool, and all members can access saved leads.
Yes — SiteBeacon works just about anywhere. It runs on live Google Maps data, and the search box accepts any city or postal code: start typing "Madrid", "SW1A 1AA", or "78701", pick your market from the suggestions, and SiteBeacon returns local leads for it. Your recent markets are remembered for one-click reuse. Coverage matches Google Maps — 200+ countries — with the exception of the few places where Google is blocked (such as mainland China).
SEARCH MODES EXPLAINED

Search Modes Explained

Website Lead Search finds businesses that either have no website or are using a third-party platform (like Wix, Squarespace, or a Facebook page as their main web presence).

Perfect for: Web designers and developers looking for clients who need a professional website.

What you'll find:

  • NO SITE LISTED - No website on their Google Business Profile. Becomes NO WEBSITE ✓ once Find Contact Info has searched for one Google is missing and come up empty.
  • THIRD PARTY - Businesses using Wix, Squarespace, Facebook, etc.

Example pitch: "I noticed your plumbing business doesn't have a website yet. Studies show 97% of consumers search online before choosing a local service..."

Reputation Lead Search finds businesses with low Google ratings (you set the maximum rating threshold). These businesses often need help with their online reputation and may benefit from review management services.

Perfect for: Reputation management specialists, digital marketers, and agencies offering review generation services.

How it works:

  • Set a maximum rating (e.g., 3.5 stars)
  • Find businesses struggling with negative reviews
  • Offer solutions to improve their online reputation

Example pitch: "I noticed your restaurant has a 3.2-star rating on Google. I help businesses like yours generate more positive reviews and respond professionally to feedback..."

GBP Lead Search finds businesses with incomplete or problematic Google Business Profiles. These are often missing photos, hours, descriptions, or have other optimization issues.

Perfect for: Local SEO specialists, digital marketers, and agencies offering GBP optimization services.

Common issues detected:

  • Missing business hours
  • No photos or low-quality images
  • Incomplete business description
  • Missing phone number or website link
  • Few or no reviews

Example pitch: "I noticed your Google Business Profile is missing business hours and photos. Businesses with complete profiles get 7x more clicks..."

Choose based on the services you offer:

Your ServiceBest Mode
Web design/developmentWebsite Leads
Review managementReputation Leads
Local SEOGBP Leads
Full-service agencyAll three!
LEAD MANAGEMENT

Lead Management

Click the "Save Lead" button on any search result. Saved leads appear on your Leads page where you can organize, track status, add notes, and export them.

The score (1–100) and letter grade rate the sales opportunity for you — how good a prospect the business is for your services — not the quality of the business itself. A higher score means more fixable gaps you can pitch:

  • A (80-100) - Hottest opportunity
  • B (65-79) - Good opportunity, worth pursuing
  • C (50-64) - Moderate opportunity
  • D (35-49) - Lower priority
  • F (1-34) - Cold lead

The biggest factor is website status: no website is the strongest signal (+35), because it's the clearest thing an agency can sell. That's why a business with no website often scores an A — it looks backwards only if you read the grade as "how good is this business." A low Google rating and an incomplete Google Business Profile also raise the score; having their own website lowers it.

The "Save to CRM" buttons (on the competitor analysis, email sequence, and website audit you generate) save that lead — and the content you generated — to your Leads page, which is SiteBeacon's built-in CRM. It saves under whichever account or team you have selected at the top of the search page. From the Leads page you can track each lead's status, add notes, edit and send the emails, and export to CSV. Saving to the CRM does not send any emails on its own.
The star rating is the business's Google review rating (their average across Google reviews), shown with the review count next to it. It comes from their Google Business Profile and is completely independent of whether they have a website — so a business with no website can still have a strong (or weak) Google rating. It's a separate signal from the website status badge and the lead score.
These badges describe the business's web presence. "No Site Listed" means their Google Business Profile has no website on it — the biggest opportunity for a web-design pitch. It becomes "No Website ✓" once Find Contact Info has searched beyond Google and found nothing, so the confident version of the claim is one you have actually checked. "Third-Party" means they only exist on someone else's platform (Facebook, Yelp, a directory, an ordering page) rather than a site of their own — a fit for a custom website. "Has Website" means they run their own site, which is a lower web-design opportunity but still a fit for SEO, reputation, or Google Business Profile work.
Because the badge reports what Google reports, and Google only knows what the owner told it. The website field on a Google Business Profile is filled in by the business, and a lot of owners never do it — their site exists but it only shows up in a Facebook or Instagram bio, on a directory listing, or on a printed card. That is why the badge says "No Site Listed" rather than "No Website": listed is a fact about Google, and it is the only fact a search can establish on its own. It is also worth pitching either way. A business whose website is missing from its own Google listing is invisible in the place most customers look, and telling them so is a free two-minute fix that opens a lot of doors. To settle it, run Find Contact Info: it searches directories and social profiles for a site Google is missing, reroutes the lead to the "your website is missing from your Google listing" angle if it finds one, and upgrades the badge to "No Website ✓" if it does not. SiteBeacon will not let you send a "you have no website" message until that check has run.
Each saved lead has a status field (New Lead, Contacted, Responded, Meeting Scheduled, Proposal Sent, Closed - Won, Closed - Lost). Update the status as you progress through your sales process, and add notes to each lead. For channel-by-channel outreach — Messenger, Instagram, phone, email — each lead card tracks sent / replied / suppressed, queues follow-up touches (a nudge around day 4 and a final note around day 11), and permanently suppresses anyone who says "no thanks" so they are never contacted again.
Yes! On the Leads page, click the "Export CSV" button to download all your saved leads in a spreadsheet format. This is useful for importing into your CRM or for backup purposes.
AI FEATURES

AI Features

Click "Generate Email" on any search result (1 credit), and our AI will analyze the business and create a personalized outreach email. For more options, regenerate any email or ask for a "Variant" with a different angle (1 credit each), or use "Follow-Up Sequence" (3 credits) for a complete multi-email campaign with timing recommendations.
Click "Analyze Competitors" (3 credits) on any search result to get an AI-powered analysis of nearby competing businesses. This helps you craft pitches that highlight how the prospect can stand out from their competition.
For businesses that have a website, click "Website Audit" (2 credits) to get a comprehensive analysis with performance, SEO, accessibility, and best practices scores. The AI generates a professional audit report with critical issues, improvement opportunities, and a ready-to-use sales pitch.
Select multiple leads and run Batch Analysis (1 credit per lead) to generate summaries, priority rankings, and outreach emails for all of them at once. Great for building targeted campaigns quickly.

Yes — API access is included on Pro and above (Pro or Business plans, plus Lifetime Pro/Agency). Create a personal API key under Account → API keys, then either call the REST API directly or connect our open-source MCP server to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or any MCP-capable agent with one command. Agents can run the whole workflow: worldwide lead search, AI analysis with outreach drafts, Find Contact (email scrape + the identity-verified social hunt), AI-visibility checks, website audits, and full CRM read/write. Credits are charged at exactly the same rates as the web app, with the same refund rules — and Facebook/Instagram sends always stay human-executed.

Setup guide, endpoint reference, and rate limits: developer docs.

Yes! Each email is uniquely generated based on the specific business, their industry, location, website status, and other factors. No two emails are the same.
OUTREACH & CONTACT FINDING

Outreach & Contact Finding

One time first: put your name, company, pricing, and a proof link in Account settings so messages speak as you. Then: (1) Run a search. (2) Click Find Contact Info on a lead — it saves the lead to your CRM automatically, finds how to reach them, and writes your first-touch message right on the card. (3) Click View their page or Open Messenger and glance at their bio — if you spot a website there, hit "+ add site" next to the No Website badge and the message rewrites itself; if you spot an email, hit "+ add email". (4) Click Copy message, paste it into the chat, and send. (5) Mark it Sent — a follow-up nudge queues for about day 4 and a final note around day 11, surfacing in your Leads reminders. Mark Replied when they answer (stops the follow-ups), or No thanks to permanently suppress them.
One click that answers "how do I reach this business?" For leads with a website, it scans the site for a contact email (1 credit, charged only when one is found); if no email turns up, it falls back to hunting their Facebook page and Instagram (2 credits). For leads with no website (or only a third-party page), it goes straight to the social hunt — identity-matched against the phone and address on their Google listing, so a same-named shop in another state never fools you — plus a search for any real website their Google listing is missing. Either way it saves the lead to your CRM automatically, so anything you paid to discover is never lost, and writes your first-touch message right on the lead card with one-click buttons to open the chat.
Often, yes. Facebook About panels can't be read directly by automated tools, but Find Contact Info checks Google's search snippets of the Facebook page and business directories that mirror Facebook profile data. And when only a human eye can catch it, the lead card asks you to glance at the page before messaging — if you spot a website in their bio, click "+ add site" next to the No Website badge and the pitch automatically flips from "you have no website" to "your website is missing from your Google listing," which is a free two-minute fix that makes for a great door-opener. Spot an email on their page? "+ add email" saves it to the lead and unlocks the email path.
A page on someone else's platform (a Facebook page, a Booksy or Vagaro booking page, and so on) is not a website they own, so SiteBeacon treats them as having no real site and routes them to the build pitch automatically — the message names the third-party page honestly rather than pretending it does not exist. The free "add your website to your Google Business Profile" tip is reserved for a real, unlinked website of their own. When they do have a real unlinked site and it is weak, click "Pitch a rebuild" on the message: it runs Google's PageSpeed (free) and switches honestly — cites the real numbers if the site is genuinely slow or poorly built (an audit angle), or pivots to a modernization angle (a modern site built for search-engine and AI optimization) if the site is actually fine, never claiming it is broken. You can also switch any lead's message to a different channel — email, Messenger, Instagram, phone script, or walk-in — right on the card with the "Send via" buttons. A note on scores: a performance reading of 0 with no load-time metric means Google's test could not measure the site, not that it truly scores zero, so SiteBeacon treats that as "not measurable" rather than citing a false 0.
Everything happens on the lead card, right where you found the lead. After Find Contact Info runs, the card shows a message matched to the best channel — email, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, a 30-second phone script, or a walk-in note — with a copy button and one-click links to open the chat. Phone and walk-in scripts come with a separate "for you" notes section (who to ask for, what to do on a yes or a no) that is never included when you copy the message. Each lead is routed to an honest angle: weak website (audit pitch), verified no-website (build pitch), website missing from their Google listing (free-fix tip), or Skip for healthy sites that aren't worth a cold pitch. Mark leads sent or replied on the card, and follow-up touches queue automatically (a nudge around day 4, a final note around day 11). Templates are fully editable in your Account settings so messages speak in your agency's voice, with your pricing and your proof links.
Yes. In Account settings, "Rewrite all templates with AI" rewrites every template (across all channels and touches) in a single pass, in a voice you pick — choose a preset (Casual, Professional, Punchy, or Warm) and/or describe your own ("friendly local contractor, mention our 20 years in business"). It costs 5 credits and is charged only when it produces usable rewrites. You review every rewrite side by side with the original before anything saves, and apply just the ones you like. The safety rails are automatic: each rewrite must keep all your template variables (so the gated, always-honest lines like the AI-visibility claim can never be dropped), and it is rejected if it breaks a copy rule (no em dashes, never "free homepage"). Anything that fails simply keeps its original wording. You can still edit any single template by hand too.
Because automated messaging on Meta platforms isn't possible without violating their terms — their API can't initiate page-to-business messages, and account automation risks getting your profile banned. SiteBeacon does everything up to the send: it finds the verified page, writes the draft, opens the Messenger thread with one click (via an m.me deep link), and puts the message on your clipboard. You press send. That one human step also protects you — you'll glance at their page first, which is exactly when you'd catch anything our tools can't see.
It asks an AI assistant (with live web search, in a clean context) the question a real customer would ask — "what are the best [business type] shops in [city]?" — and records which of your leads are and aren't in the answer. One check (3 credits) covers every lead in that business type and city, and re-running it within 30 days is free. It exists so your outreach claim is always true: leads the AI skipped get the "AI doesn't know you exist" angle, and leads the AI mentioned get the "AI recommends you but has no website to send people to" angle — never the wrong one.
The AI visibility check asks AI with live web search turned ON — it measures whether AI can find a lead right now. The AI Recognition Report (10 credits, per business) turns web search OFF and asks five models (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok) what they actually KNOW about that business from training. It scores four things — does AI recognize you, does it recommend you unprompted, are its facts right, and who it names instead — and includes a "Get Known" fix-it plan with paste-ready schema.org, an llms.txt file, and FAQ content. Together they tell the full story: AI has never heard of you (training) and can't find you when it searches (live). Try the free version on your own business at /does-ai-know-you.
A scorecard is a one-page, branded report for a single lead, hosted at a private SiteBeacon link you can text, email, DM, or print. For leads with a website it shows Google's own PageSpeed scores plus the AI-visibility verdict; for leads without one it shows what their city actually sees when searching for them. Scorecards are unlisted and hidden from search engines — only people you send the link to can view them — and they carry your agency's name and offer, not ours.
Skip means the business has a healthy, fast, well-optimized website — there's no honest problem for a cold pitch to solve, and pitching them anyway burns your sender reputation. SiteBeacon deliberately never drafts cold outreach for Skip leads. Spend your credits and your day on the leads with a real, verifiable gap.
BILLING & SUBSCRIPTIONS

Billing & Subscriptions

We accept all major credit and debit cards through Stripe, our secure payment processor. This includes Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover.
Yes, you can cancel your subscription at any time from your Account page. You'll retain access to your remaining credits until the end of your billing period.
Subscription credits reset each billing cycle to your plan's monthly allocation. One-time credit pack purchases never expire and are always added to your balance.
Team owners can transfer their personal credits to the team pool. Team members can then use team credits for searches. This allows for centralized billing and credit management.

Yes — give 25, get 100. Share your personal referral link (find it on your Refer & Earn page or in Account settings). A friend who signs up through your link gets 25 bonus credits to start, and you earn 100 credits when they make their first purchase — any plan, credit pack, or Lifetime Deal.

There is no cap on how many people you can refer or how much you can earn. A referred friend can apply a link within 30 days of signing up.

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Tips for Success

  • Personalize each email - reference specific details about their business
  • Lead with value - explain the benefit, not just features
  • Include a clear call-to-action
  • Follow up 2-3 times (many deals close on follow-ups)
  • Consider calling businesses without email addresses
Local service businesses tend to have the highest need: plumbers, electricians, HVAC, landscapers, contractors, auto repair, restaurants, salons, dentists, and law firms. These businesses rely heavily on local customers finding them online.
Quality over quantity! Focus on A and B-rated leads first. A targeted list of 10-20 high-quality leads is more valuable than 100 low-quality ones. Use the filtering options on the Leads page to prioritize your outreach.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

Still have questions?

We're here to help! Reach out to our support team.

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