Why we’re building it
We live here too. Plenty of good businesses around us never show up when you search: the plumber your neighbor swears by, the guide who knows the lake, the person refinishing furniture in their garage. Most of us find them by word of mouth, in a Facebook group, or not at all.
We want one place to find local businesses, including the ones we didn’t know about before. From plumbers and hairdressers to fishing guides, furniture shops, makers and home businesses, good work happens all around us. When it’s easy to find, the business gets more work, you get help from a neighbor, and more of what we spend stays close to home. That benefits everyone here.
How a page gets made
Ask us to build your page.
Tell us your business name, what you do and where you work. You don’t need a website.
Check it before it goes live.
We put the page together and send you a private preview. It appears in the directory only after you approve it.
Run it yourself when you’re ready.
We can look after the page at first. If you want to manage it, ask us. We confirm you represent the business before we share access.
A listing isn’t a review or an endorsement. It means the business agreed to be listed. Corrections and takedowns go through the manage request.
What it costs to run
Very little. Here is all of it.
- The domain name, abilenelocals.com
- About $12 a year
- Hosting on Cloudflare
- $0 within free allowances
- Building and looking after the site
- Our own time
- A business page and listing
- Free
The domain and the hosting are separate. About $12 a year keeps the name abilenelocals.com. We host through Cloudflare and designed the directory around its free hosting allowances.
Cloudflare’s free allowances have usage limits. We give our own time to build and look after the site, and that’s what lets us offer free business pages and free listings, with no commission on the work you do.
Source: Cloudflare’s billing notes for static files on Workers
Who’s behind it
AbileneLocals is made by Matthew Valdez and LoneForge, a small tech company here in Abilene. Questions, corrections, or a business we should know about? Write to hello@loneforge.ai.