About In Your Hood SG
Helping good local businesses get found
Some of the best small businesses in Singapore are surprisingly difficult to discover.
A home baker might take orders almost entirely through Instagram. A good nail artist may work from a home studio in Punggol. A tutor, pet sitter, florist or handyman might get most of their customers through referrals and neighbourhood chats. Unless somebody happens to recommend them at the right time, it is easy for these businesses to stay invisible outside their existing circles.
In Your Hood SG was created to make them easier to find.
We are building a neighbourhood-focused directory for home-based businesses, independent service providers and small local operators across Singapore. The idea is simple: give people one useful place to discover who is around them, understand what they offer and see what other people think before getting in touch.
A directory built around useful information
A business name and Instagram link are rarely enough to decide whether somebody is right for you.
Where information is available, our listings aim to include practical details such as what a business offers, the neighbourhoods it serves, indicative prices, ordering or booking information, collection and delivery options, availability and ways to contact the business.
For home-based businesses, we generally keep location information at neighbourhood level unless the owner has chosen to publish more specific collection details. Nobody should have to publish a residential address simply to be discoverable online.
We also show when listing information was last checked and provide a way for readers and business owners to flag details that may be outdated.
For people looking for someone local
You can browse In Your Hood SG by service category or neighbourhood, search for something specific, save businesses you may want to come back to and explore businesses serving your area.
If you already know a good local business, you can help other people discover it too.
Readers can nominate businesses that are missing from the directory, leave public reviews based on their experience and vote in Readers’ Picks for their favourite businesses in individual categories and neighbourhoods.
If you cannot find what you need, you can also post a request describing the service you are looking for so relevant local providers can respond.
For home-based businesses and independent providers
Basic listings on In Your Hood SG are free.
That is important to us because many of the businesses we want people to discover are very small. Some are run by one person from home. Others are freelancers, tutors, makers, beauty providers or independent tradespeople who may not have a large marketing budget or even a conventional website.
A business can submit a new listing or claim an existing profile. Claimed businesses can keep their information current, add photos, update availability and provide more useful details about their services.
The goal is to make having a genuinely useful presence in the directory accessible without requiring a listing fee.
How businesses get onto the directory
Listings can reach us in several ways.
A business owner may submit their own profile. A reader may nominate a business they think deserves to be discovered. Our team may also identify local businesses using publicly available business information and create a basic profile for them.
New submissions are reviewed before publication. We look for enough information to understand what the business offers, appropriate categories and service areas, usable contact information and obvious signs of spam or misleading content.
Some profiles may remain unclaimed until the owner confirms or expands the information.
When you see a Team reviewed label, it means our team has checked the listing information against our publishing guidelines. It does not mean we guarantee the quality of the business, its qualifications or the outcome of any service.
Those are different questions, which is why community feedback is shown separately.
Reviews and Readers’ Picks serve different purposes
There are two main ways the community can contribute.
Reviews are for sharing first-hand experiences. Useful reviews tell other readers what was booked or purchased, what the experience was like and whether the reviewer would use the business again.
Readers’ Picks are lighter-weight recommendations. Each category and neighbourhood has its own vote, allowing people to support a business they would recommend without having to write a full review.
Readers’ Pick results represent community participation on In Your Hood SG. They are not editorial awards or scientific surveys, and businesses cannot buy votes or favourable reviews.
Keeping the directory current
Small businesses change quickly.
Menus change. Prices move. Businesses relocate. Instagram accounts disappear. A home baker may stop accepting orders for a few months and reopen later.
A useful directory has to acknowledge that.
Where possible, listings include a last checked date. Readers can report outdated information, and owners can claim their profiles and submit updates.
We would rather leave an uncertain field blank than publish something we cannot reasonably verify.
Community recommendations matter
A large directory is not automatically a useful one.
We would rather build a directory where people can understand why a business is worth considering, see what others have experienced and discover businesses they might otherwise never have come across.
That is why community participation is part of the site rather than an afterthought.
If your neighbour knows an excellent home baker, nominate them.
If you had a good experience with a local tutor, leave a useful review.
If you keep returning to the same home nail artist, vote for them in Readers’ Picks.
Those small contributions make the directory more helpful for the next person who comes looking.
Our approach to independence
Listings do not receive a better community ranking simply because a business pays us.
Basic business listings are free, and Readers’ Pick votes and public reviews remain community-driven.
In Your Hood SG may carry clearly labelled advertising, sponsorships or other commercial partnerships as the site grows. Where commercial relationships exist, we will identify them clearly and keep them separate from community votes, reviews and our listing-review process.
Our editorial and directory policies explain this in more detail.
Help us build a better local directory
In Your Hood SG is still growing, and the directory becomes more useful every time somebody contributes good information.
You can:
- Browse the directory to discover businesses around Singapore.
- Nominate a business that deserves to be easier to find.
- List your business for free if you run a home-based business or independent service.
- Leave a review after using a listed business.
- Vote in Readers’ Picks for businesses you would recommend.
- Report outdated information when something no longer looks right.
The long-term aim is simple: make it easier for people in Singapore to discover good independent businesses, and make it easier for those businesses to be discovered.