There are moments when building Spiky Carrot teaches me something I wasn't expecting.
This was one of them.
A few weeks ago, I found myself looking through the search data for businesses across the platform. I wasn't researching SEO, trying to understand Google's latest update or looking for the next marketing trick. I was simply curious. I wanted to see how people were actually discovering our members and whether there was anything we could learn that might help more independent businesses become visible.
What I found wasn't what I expected.
People weren't only discovering businesses through the obvious searches. They weren't simply typing accountant, café or acupuncturist. Instead, they were finding businesses through much more detailed searches that reflected how people naturally describe what they're looking for.
That made me stop and think.
Perhaps the businesses that are easiest to discover aren't always the ones with the biggest marketing budgets or the most polished websites. Perhaps they're simply the businesses that are understood the best.
It Starts Long Before We Publish a Profile
One of the questions we're occasionally asked is why Spiky Carrot doesn't let members create their own business profiles.
The honest answer is because we don't believe a business can be summed up by completing a form.
It would certainly be quicker to hand someone a login, ask them to upload a logo, write a short description and press publish. That's how many platforms work, and for some businesses that approach is perfectly adequate.
But we've always believed something different.
Every business has a story that deserves to be told properly, and that story usually starts with a conversation rather than a keyboard.
When someone joins Spiky Carrot, we spend time getting to know them. We ask about the people they enjoy working with, the services they provide, the areas they cover, their experience and the little things that make them different. Often those conversations uncover details the business owner has never thought to mention because, to them, they're simply part of everyday life.
To a potential customer, those same details can be the reason they decide to get in touch.
Businesses Are Often More Interesting Than They Realise
I've lost count of the number of times someone has introduced themselves by saying, "I'm just an accountant," or, "I run a café."
Spend half an hour talking to them and you discover there's far more to the story.
They're the accountant who loves helping family-run businesses understand their finances.
They're the café where local dog walkers stop after a morning in the park.
They're the photographer who specialises in helping nervous couples feel relaxed in front of the camera.
Those aren't marketing slogans.
They're simply honest descriptions of the business.
The problem is that many business owners never think to describe themselves that way because, from their perspective, it's just what they do.
That's where an outside perspective becomes so valuable.
Sometimes it takes someone else to recognise the things that make your business genuinely different.
A Real Example From Our Own Patch
Recently, while looking through the analytics for Calma Healing Space, I noticed something that perfectly illustrated this.
People weren't only arriving after searching for acupuncture.
They were also finding the business through searches around holistic women's wellness, women's wellbeing, acupuncture in Cheadle and a range of similar phrases.
We hadn't sat down with a list of keywords and tried to optimise for every possible search.
We'd simply spent time understanding May's business.
We talked about the people she helps, the treatments she offers, the environment she's created and the approach she takes with every client. When it came to writing her profile, we weren't trying to tick SEO boxes. We were trying to represent her business honestly.
Looking back at the analytics, that richer description naturally created more opportunities for people to discover her.
I suspect the same thing is true for many independent businesses.
People Don't Search the Way They Used To
Think about the last time you searched for a business.
A few years ago you might have typed something like Accountant Sandbach or Coffee shop near me.
Today we're far more likely to search in the same way we'd ask another person.
"Can anyone recommend an accountant who understands small businesses?"
"Is there a dog-friendly café with outdoor seating nearby?"
"I'm looking for someone who specialises in holistic women's wellness."
Marketing people often refer to these as long-tail keywords, but I think the phrase makes them sound much more technical than they really are.
They're simply the different ways people describe the business they're hoping to find.
The interesting thing is that most businesses already contain hundreds of these opportunities.
Every service they provide.
Every specialist area they've developed.
Every type of customer they enjoy helping.
Every problem they solve.
Those details naturally become part of the story.
Why This Matters
The more I looked at our data, the more I realised that we aren't really creating business profiles.
We're building understanding.
Every profile, campaign, magazine feature and article adds another layer to the picture.
A profile explains who the business is.
A campaign focuses on a particular service.
A guest article shares knowledge and experience.
A feature in the Carrot Club digital magazine builds credibility.
Together they tell a much richer story than any single page ever could.
That's one of the reasons we've invested so much time in creating content around our members instead of simply listing them in a directory.
Directories tell you a business exists.
Stories help you understand why that business matters.
Looking Ahead
Technology will continue to change.
Search will evolve.
New ways of discovering businesses will appear, just as they always have.
But I don't think the fundamentals are changing.
People still want to find businesses they trust.
They still want recommendations that feel relevant to them.
They still choose businesses they understand.
Perhaps that's the biggest lesson I've taken from this.
Visibility isn't really about chasing algorithms or trying to outsmart search engines.
It's about taking the time to understand a business properly, telling its story honestly and making it easier for the right people to recognise that it's exactly what they've been looking for.
Maybe that's what Spiky Carrot has really been building all along.
Not another business directory.
A place where independent businesses are properly understood.
And once you understand a business, it's amazing how many different ways people can discover it.
