Again, I am seriously not being judgmental, I am curious.
I've been doing Facebook ads for 9 years. My team and I are a white label agency so we do the media buying for creative shops, designers, content marketers, etc. So I didn't land any client. I partnered with the folks that did. I got the partnership by putting out a ton of content on Youtube (Over 20 hours worth), through doing a 30 episode deep podcast on running an advertising agency, and being super helpful in a number of Facebook groups, Linkedin groups, etc. for years.
Tl;DR Content Marketing + Networking
It's very direct and no nonsense
I'll get in touch with you. Let's see if we can do some work together
Putting out relevant content and networking is where it's at, too. Even if your website actually was bad, you'd probably be fine.
I used to get a lot of work for web design without a website. I had a resume with good references and urls leading to good work samples. That's the stuff that counts. There was no shortage of jokes about not having a website though, and everyone thought they were the first person to tell me 'the cobbler's children go barefoot', haha.