Being Hyperlocal Brings Real Business to Local Shops

“I can’t win online,” is a statement I often hear from my smaller website clients. Whether they are mom & pop shops, restaurants, or a local organization, so often the giant-size of the Internet scares smaller enterprises. In the last few years a word, “Hyperlocal” has been created to describe regional interests found on local websites. And for the first time in years, I can’t say strongly enough that is possible:  “Small business can win online.”

For more than a decade (before the advent of Google) I have been helping small business understand what they can do with their business’s online presence. It started with a small brochure-like website. Over time, many things have been added: bulletin boards, directories, search engines, Google, blogs, RSS, Web 2.0, Facebook, Twitter, Video, etc. In the end, small website business owners now have online access to all of the same media outlets and tools as big business. With a little push, small businesses can compete, and even dominate their niche.

What is Hyperlocal?
Hyperlocal refers to simple, online tools that can focus on the content of a website (which has to do with very tight geographics). The New York Times defined Hyperlocal as “creating so-called hyperlocal news sites that let people zoom in on what is happening closest to them, often without involving traditional journalists.”  Wikipedia defines Hyperlocal as, “oriented around a well defined, community scale area with primary focus being directed towards the concerns of its residents.”

What hyperlocal really means is that small business can now be relevant to their specific geographic area, vastly increasing their impact.

Examples of Great Hyperlocal Services:

NetWaiter – Provides online ordering and marketing solutions to restaurants.  As a marketing tool, NetWaiter enables restaurant customers to conveniently order takeout and delivery, directly from their favorite restaurants.  Seeing growth potential, NetWaiter took their service one step further and partnered with local companies like RedlandsWeb.com to combine restaurants within a local guide, an example being www.RedlandsTakeout.com. Jared Shimoff, Sr. Director of NetWaiter says, “We realized providing restaurants with more localized outlets would help them promote their menu.”

InlandEmpire.US – Inland Southern California business news and PR outlet.
Unknown to most Americans, the Inland Empire is the thirteenth largest economy, and has some of the best weather and activities in the country. Publisher Jon Burgess noted that  “we had a great local experience with a website, about Redlands, that we built. And, as we looked at the market and geography, we saw an opening for an Inland Empire business site, that filled a niche by providing good content.”

Google Local – or Google Maps
Google is really the original hyperlocal. Years ago, Google became the most authoritative search engine by providing the best search results. They saw that being the best at a macro level wasn’t going to be enough, so they looked closer at the local level. Unknown to most people, if you search in Google for something like “plumber” or “webmaster” you’ll get a local, not national result. Also, you’ll see maps with local pin-points showing you where the closest to you really is.

About Jon Burgess, M.B.A.
Jon Burgess is a Internet marketing expert with a focus on relationship management, and how you build relationships online. He has won design awards and understands SEO, and has authored articles on “How Does Google Work?”  He is Vice President of RedFusion Media, a web developing and online marketing firm in Redlands, and is currently serving as Vice President of the American Advertising Federation, Inland Empire.