Local Businesses Are Invisible Online. We Decided to Do Something About It.

The idea started with a frustration, not a technical problem.

Local businesses - good ones, businesses that have been part of their communities for years - are almost impossible to find online unless you already know they exist. Their events don't show up anywhere useful. Their stories don't get told. The council what's-on page is three months out of date. The Facebook group has 400 members and an algorithm that buries half of what gets posted. National aggregators don't bother with towns like Felixstowe or Scarborough or Whitby.

The businesses are there. The customers are there. The connection just isn't happening.



I thought: we work with local businesses across Yorkshire and East Anglia. We use Decodefy to help them tell their stories properly. What if we built something that did that at scale - a proper local media network, editorial content, real journalism about real businesses, events surfaced and written up so people could actually find them? Something genuinely useful for the whole community. Not just a directory. A resource.

I called James.

"If we can scrape local events automatically," I said, "we can build something around that. Events pull people in. Once they're in, we tell them about the businesses."

James, to his credit, didn't say it was complicated. He said: right, let's go.

What Happened Next

James built the scraper first - three data sources running simultaneously. Google Events, Facebook Events, and an AI research pass that digs through tourism sites, council pages, and local aggregators all at once. Results merged, duplicates stripped, database managed automatically. It knows what it's already found. It knows what's passed. Nobody has to babysit it.

Then we built the editorial pipeline. Every event gets a properly written article - not filler, not obviously machine-written. The kind of thing you'd read and assume someone had actually sat down and written it. Q&A block, full SEO package, the lot.

Then a site to publish on. Then a newsletter. Then a public submission form so organisers could add their own events directly. Then an accuracy check that fires to the organiser before anything goes live - unique link, approve or correct, no login required. Then a video script generator for social content.

And then - because this was always where it was heading - a multi-site architecture. One codebase, one admin panel, unlimited branded town publications. The Felixstowe Barnacle. The Scarborough Crab. Best in Yorkshire. Each one its own site, its own voice, its own audience.

Adding a new town is a configuration job, not a development project.

The idea is about a month old. The site has been live for a few days. Google has already indexed it.



That's the one-two. Jon spots the opportunity. James builds the machine. felixstowebarnacle.co.uk is what comes out the other end. Go and have a look.

Why Felixstowe First

Most of our clients are in Yorkshire. So starting in Suffolk needs a bit of explanation.

We prove things before we roll them out. Felixstowe is home territory for part of the team, and it's exactly the kind of town national platforms ignore - active community, real events happening every week, almost none of it findable unless you know where to look. If the Barnacle can serve a place like that properly, it can work anywhere.



Once it's solid here, it comes to Yorkshire. That's where it matters most for our clients.

What Flowemedia Clients Get

The mission is to help all local businesses in the areas we work - surface their events, tell their stories, make them findable. Every business in the network benefits from that.

Flowemedia clients get priority.

Right now that means featured event placement - your events don't queue with everything else, they get prioritised and featured prominently. More visible, on a site that's already being found.

The business directory is in build - local businesses searchable by category, cross-linked from relevant events. Flowemedia clients get premium placement as standard. We're still working out exactly what the add-on tiers look like, and we'd genuinely welcome input on what would actually be useful. That conversation is worth having.



The module we're most excited about is Voices - proper editorial features about local businesses, interview-style, told as journalism rather than directory copy. Text as standard, video where it works. A PR agency would charge a few hundred pounds for a piece like that. For Flowemedia clients it's part of being in the network. It's being built now. We want to get it right before we launch it, but it's close.

The Bigger Point

Most business owners we speak to have a list. Ideas that would genuinely help - a tool, a platform, a directory, a content system. Things that stay on the list because the gap between good idea and working solution feels like months and tens of thousands of pounds.

The Barnacle went from a conversation to a functioning local media network - editorial content, newsletter, multi-site architecture, client benefits programme - in about a month. Side project. Two people.



If something on your list keeps coming back, it's probably worth a conversation.

About Jon Young

Jon Young is co-founder of Decodefy AI and Flowemedia, working with expert UK businesses across Yorkshire and East Anglia. Twenty years watching brilliant local businesses lose out to companies with bigger marketing budgets - and building tools to close that gap. The Barnacle Project is the latest one. If something on your list keeps coming back, get in touch.