What’s in, what’s out.

Though we seldom update Yooter with status updates, there are some thing worth mentioning regarding new trends in the industry. First Google went hyperlocal over the past few years, you can blame your iPhone and your Android for that. The intergated GPS system made the search for pizza move from whomever had the most backlinks for the term pizza, to the pizza shop around the corner.. even if it’s a nearly blank page with the word “pizza” on it.. as long as it’s listed in Google Maps.

Another change is the way people search the internet. For example 10 years ago it was a desktop and keyboard. Now it’s voice talking to Siri or Google on your mobile. This is a profound change in how we interact with the internet.

The search changed, literally even the type of query changed. It went from a Google search for “weather” which had weather.com (or something similar) as #1 and you clicked though to the site, entered your zip and got the weather.

Now talking into the Google App or Siri for “what’s the weather tonight” and it spits out 72 degrees and clear.

It’s not just the Weather however, it’s everything. To be fair, it’s more helpful for the end user, but every single small business pretty much just got taken out on a national level (though you will rank on a hyper local level).

The region a small business could rank for now encompasses roughly the same distance you could stand on your rooftop and see. Hopefully you’re in a big town.

There’s now services out there that rent out tiny locations just to fool Google Maps. So a small company could have a “physical location” in another metro. For some online only small businesses it’s not for greed, it’s just to survive as their hyper local market won’t support selling alpaca socks or tree wraps.

Enjoy the new reality.