The local guideto where you live.

Discover the businesses, people, offers and events that make your community local.

Find your guide

Each guide covers a handful of towns and stays there. The shop you walk past, the people who run it, and what is on down the road this weekend.

Pick your place

Each guide covers its own set of towns. Type yours to find the guide that has it.

California

Georgia

Utah

What is inside every guide

Businesses
The shops, restaurants, trades and services in your towns, with how to reach them.
Stories
The people behind those businesses, and what is changing on your streets.
Offers
Deals from the businesses near you.
Events
What is on this week, checked against the organizer's own page.

What a job costs, and who to trust with it

Guides to local prices and licences. Every figure shows who published it and when.

Own a local business?

Listings live inside each guide, next to the other businesses in your town. Find the guide for your area and add yours there. See the three plans.

Find your area

The long version

What Local Business America is, why it exists, how local search really works, and how to get the most out of a guide, whether you live in one of these towns or run a business in one.

What this is

Local Business America is a network of local guides. Each guide belongs to one area and covers a handful of neighboring towns. It lists the businesses there, tells the stories behind them, and keeps a running list of offers and things to do.

This page is the front door. The guides are where everything lives, and each one has its own address.

It is run by ES Studios.

Why we built it

Search for a plumber or somewhere to eat and you mostly land on the same few national sites, with ads stacked on top. They list every business in the country, so none of them knows your town.

We wanted the opposite. A guide small enough to be finished. One that covers a few towns, gets them right, and has room for the family bakery as well as the big chain. Small is the point. It is the only way a guide stays accurate.

Where the guides are

The 27 guides cover areas in California, Georgia and Utah. Each guide lists its own towns. More areas will be added one at a time.

A local guide next to a national site

Both have their place. They are built for different jobs.

TopicA national siteA local guide
CoversEvery town in the countryA handful of neighboring towns
Written forAnyone, anywhereThe people who live there
EventsRarelyA weekend list, checked at the source
Stories about local peopleRarely

A week with a local guide

If you live there, this is roughly how it earns its place. Four ordinary days, as an example.

  1. Monday

    The dishwasher starts leaking.

    Look up plumbers in your own town and see who is close, how to reach them and what their customers say.

  2. Thursday

    The weekend is still empty.

    Open the weekend list and find out what is on within a short drive.

  3. Saturday

    You try somewhere new.

    A cafe two streets away has an offer running. You would never have known.

  4. Sunday

    You read about a neighbor.

    The story of the family who took over the old hardware store, and why they kept the name.

What a good listing is made of

If you run a business, your listing sits beside the others in your town, in front of people who already live nearby. Six things make it work.

Example layout, not a real business

Your business name

Your category · Your town

  • Street address, town, state, ZIP
  • Your one phone number
  • Today's opening hours
  • What your customers say

  1. Name and category

    Your name exactly as it is on your sign, and the one category that best says what you do.

  2. Address

    Written the same way it appears on your website and your Google profile. Same suite number, same abbreviations.

  3. Phone

    One number, everywhere.

  4. Hours

    Current, including the holidays. Wrong hours cost more trust than no hours.

  5. Photos

    Recent, and of the real place, the real work or the real food.

  6. Reviews

    Ask for them. Reply to them, the good ones and the bad ones.

How local search decides who shows up

Google says its local results come down to three things. One of them you cannot change. The other two you can.

  1. 1

    Relevance

    How well your business matches what was searched for.

    Fill in your details fully and pick the right category, so there is no doubt about what you do.

  2. 2

    Distance

    How far you are from the person searching, or from the place they named.

    You cannot change it. Make sure your address is right, so you are counted where you really are.

  3. 3

    Prominence

    How well known your business is. Google draws on reviews, links and mentions across the web.

    Earn reviews, reply to them, and get mentioned by other local sites.

None of it is a trick, and no listing anywhere can promise you a ranking. It is ordinary upkeep that most businesses never get round to.

Source: Google, "Tips to improve your local ranking on Google"

The ten-point check

Ten things worth five minutes each. Tick the ones that are already true for your business.

0 / 10

Tick what is already true. Your ticks are saved on this device.

Five myths about local search

Things owners get told, and what is actually the case.

  • You can pay Google to rank higher in the map results.

    No. Ads are sold separately and labelled as ads. Paying for them does not move your free listing.

  • Adding keywords to your business name helps.

    It breaks Google's own guidelines, and a profile that does it can be suspended. Use your real name.

  • Reviews only matter to customers.

    Google says the number of reviews and the score both count toward how prominent a business is.

  • Once the profile is set up, you are done.

    Hours change, photos age and questions go unanswered. A profile nobody tends slowly goes wrong.

  • Being listed somewhere guarantees a ranking.

    Nothing guarantees one. A good listing is one honest signal among many.

If you run a club, a charity, a market or a league

A town is more than its shops. Each guide keeps a weekend list drawn from city calendars, venues and local organizers. A heritage fair. A fun run. A Saturday market.

Three things make an event easy to pick up: a public page of its own, the date and time written out in plain text, and a street address. Details that live only inside a photo of a flyer are easy to miss.

Keep your own page right. That is the page a guide checks.

The rules every guide follows

  1. No invented events, quotes or prices.
  2. Event details are checked against the organizer's own page.
  3. A quiet week gets a short list. Nothing is padded.
  4. A guide stays inside its own towns.

Local search, in plain English

Google Business Profile
The free listing Google shows in Maps and beside search results. You manage it yourself.
Map pack
The box of local results with a map, near the top of a search. Usually three businesses.
NAP
Name, address, phone. The three details that have to match everywhere.
Citation
Any mention of your name, address and phone on another website.
Prominence
How well known Google thinks a business is.
Service area
For a business that travels to its customers: the area it serves, in place of a shopfront address.
Claiming a listing
Proving you own the business, so you can edit its details.

Common questions

What is Local Business America?
Local Business America is a network of local guides and business directories in the United States. Each guide covers one area and a handful of neighboring towns, and lists the businesses, stories, offers and events there.
Is Local Business America a free business directory?
Yes. Every guide is free to read with no account, every business in a guide has a free listing, and claiming your listing is free.
Which areas does Local Business America cover?
27 local guides cover areas in 3 states. California has 18 guides. Georgia has 6 guides. Utah has 3 guides. Find each area and its towns in the guide list. New areas are added one at a time.
How do I add or claim my business?
Open the guide for your area and choose Claim your listing. If your business is not there yet, choose List your business. Claiming is free, and a person checks each claim.
What does a listing on Local Business America cost?
There are three plans. Free costs nothing. Essentials is $19 a month. Premium is $39 a month. You can pay month to month, or save by paying for the year, and you can cancel any time. You pick a plan after you claim your listing.
What do I get with a free listing?
Opening hours, a map and a link to your website. Claiming the listing is free too, and it takes the advert off your page.
What does the Essentials plan add?
Essentials adds a photo gallery, an enquiry form so visitors can message you, and your Google reviews shown on the listing. It is $19 a month.
What does the Premium plan add?
Premium adds everything in Essentials, a boost to the top of your category, and a do-follow link to your website. It also removes other businesses from your listing page. It is $39 a month.
Can I cancel a paid listing plan?
Yes. You can cancel any time. Your business keeps its free listing.
Does a listing help my business show up in Google and AI search?
It helps. A listing is a citation: your name, address and phone on another website. When those details match everywhere, search engines and AI assistants can trust them. No directory can promise a ranking.
How is Local Business America different from Yelp or the Yellow Pages?
Those are national sites. Each Local Business America guide belongs to one area, so it carries local stories, offers and an events calendar next to the business listings, and every business starts with a free listing.
My town is not covered. What now?
Guides are added area by area. Look at the guide nearest to you, and check back here for new ones.
Is Local Business America one website or several?
Several. This site is the front door, and each guide has its own address.
Who runs Local Business America?
ES Studios, at ericscottstudios.com.

Every town deserves a guide that actually knows it.

Find yours