I spent time earlier in the week talking to some local businesses about how they were faring in this period of recession. Some of the business owners responded with “we’re doing ok; but not as good as last year”, some said “business was good” and others responded with “business was not good at all and we are seeing fewer and fewer customer customers coming our way”.

I then spent some time trying to understand just where these business’ customers have gone. One of the interesting discussions that I had was with a local plumber who has seen a year-on-year reduction in the number of enquiries he is receiving for his services. He has traditionally advertised in the printed directories (Yellow Pages and Thomson Directory) and he has seen a steady decline in the effectiveness of this form of advertising. When asked if he did any online adverting he replied that he didn’t feel he needed to pay for online advertising as his business has its own website and he thought that was enough.

What he failed to realise was that having a website is of no use if nobody can actually find it. The guy I was talking to is a plumber and is skilled in installing boilers and fixing leaks, he doesn’t have any knowledge about how to put a website together and how to market it effectively; and who would expect him to know how to do this?

When I explained to him that the reason he is seeing such a marked decrease in customer enquiries is because the plumber in his area that has worked out how to market himself online is taking all his business away. That was the penny dropping moment.

Bill Gates himself said back in 2007 that “the Yellow Pages are doomed within 5 years“; people will search online to find what they are looking for and the business owners that do not adapt to and embrace the online world will follow the Yellow Pages into oblivion. It’s a harsh message, but a message that businesses will be foolhardy to ignore.

Everything I have written so far was the motivation for us to create LocallyCompared. We know that many, many businesses have a real problem understanding how to position themselves online and we want to build our business by helping them. For a business owner it is extremely easy and cost effective to build a detailed profile of their business on LocallyCompared. This profile of their business will be seen by the thousands of visitors that come to the LocallyCompared website each day as opposed to the handful of hits that the businesses own website (if they even have one) will get.

I spend a great deal of my time talking to local businesses and we always seem to get back to this topic; most businesses need to advertise and it is vital that the advertising budget is spent in a way to maximise the return on investment. The formula is simple; a business needs to spend as little as possible in order to reach out to the largest number of potential customers. We are determined to make LocallyCompared the most effective place for a business owner to promote their business online, and judging by the positive feedback we’ve got from our existing customers, business owners are agreeing with us!

Matt Grest

Follow me on twitter: MattGrest

You may not know that we run a number of specialist sites just for particular locations and business types.

This helps provide extra relevance to our new users, for example, take a Google search for ‘restaurants in leeds’  - we’re the number 3 result. We have lots of detail on local Restaurants in Leeds! Just what the user was looking for.

What about ‘Solicitors in Liverpool’ ? We’re the number 1 result! We have many more sites like this bringing new members of the LocallyCompared.com community every day, all who now have a better place to find a local business.

We are enabling the best customer experience for finding a local business, with the detailed information that we are building ourselves using clever technolgy, and with the information business owners are adding all the time.

Make sure you recommend LocallyCompared.com to your friends as the best place to find detailed information on local businesses, and if you know someone who owns a business, make sure you use our referral scheme to make some extra money for yourself this Xmas!

Our mission is to get more exposure for local businesses online, and assist the 46% of businesses who only advertise in the big yellow book with making the transition to get more enquiries through the Internet. We are the only site that builds fully detailed profiles for businesses up front! Providing new customers at low cost, and users with the best experience available when looking for a local business.

Please see www.locallycompared.com/referrals for more details.

Thanks,
Steve

The BBC has been running a ‘Changing UK’ series on the impact of modern living on our communities, and the latest article really struck a chord. Take a peek at Life in the UK ‘has become lonelier’.

There is a part of this issue that we thought significant enough to put into our About page (”LocallyCompared believes in strong, vibrant and accessible local businesses; and the value they bring to local communities.“), and I think it deserves a moment’s pause to share how it motivates us.

“Every region in the UK, broadly defined by a BBC local radio areas, has seen its communities become less rooted” is a view that has been sensed by many, but until now not deeply studied. We talk about it more generally as the problem associated with many people moving away from their trusted group of families and friends, often to find work. Similarly, there is a definite rising trend of ‘the singleton’: young men and women who are deciding to postpone settling down in favour of a more independent lifestyle - again most likely for work.

Perhaps more telling is that “the researchers conclude that the increase in anomie weakens the “social glue” of communities. The result, they suggest, is that neighbourhoods are likely to be less trusting and more fearful.“

Both of these ideas point to the same thing, it is harder to find local businesses that we can trust. Suppose you just moved to Leeds, and for whatever reason, you’re looking for an accountant. Or maybe you’ve been living in Manchester for a while and need a solicitor, but so far none of your friends deal with solicitors. Well, you’re out of luck. The traditional word of mouth recommendations are breaking, and traditional resources like the Yellow Pages have never tried to help you make an informed choice.

So what are we doing instead? Suppose you’re in Sheffield and you need a driving school, you might,

• Look in the Yellow Pages, and see what is available. Not knowing much about each company, you will likely go with BSM or some other national brand that you’ve seen before.
• Go online, and try to find out more about the companies and what people think of them. The Web is handy, because there is plenty of low-cost space for each business to tell us about what they do.

The first option highlights the real problem of weakening local communities: faceless national businesses are the ones who benefit. They feel like a safer choice - we feel we can trust them - because they can afford to advertise. The local business owner down our street, who needs our support, and who’s income goes straight back into our communities (rather than into the pockets of national companies), risks being left behind.

The second option is better, but still not problem free. Local companies - in fact as high as 8 out of 10 local tradesmen (plumbers, electricians, etc.) - do not build a presence online. So you will not necessarily find them. And the reviews from your neighbours are not perfect, as they could have differing opinions to your own, or be downright false. But on balance, the majority of people report the online reviews help them in their decision making.

Those two related points - the rise of the national brand and the need for local businesses to go online to compete - hopefully give a little insight into what drives us LocallyCompared.com. We are building 300,000 full profiles for local businesses over the next year, and encouring reviews and recommendations from our visitors. We want to support businesses who want to get better at promoting themselves online, and give everyone in the UK as much information as possible on their local businesses, with the simple goal of helping them make the most informed decisions.

If someone wants to choose a business rooted in their community and wants to understand what differentiates businesses around them then LocallyCompared.com is the place to start.

(You can follow LocallyCompared.com updates and discussion on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LocallyCompared)