The Best SG - Singapore Business Directory
The Best SG is a Singapore business directory: a single online place where people can browse and look up local businesses across categories like food and beverage, hotels and accommodation, shopping, fitness, activities, services and finance. Instead of hunting across scattered search results and review pages, a visitor can come to one site, pick a category, and work through curated listings of Singapore businesses.
A directory like this has two sides to keep happy, and they pull in different directions. On one side are everyday users who want to find a business they can trust quickly. They do not want a wall of undifferentiated listings; they want to narrow down by category, see clear summaries, and feel that the businesses shown have been checked rather than scraped at random. On the other side are the businesses that want to be listed and found. A salon, restaurant or service provider gets value from the directory only if it is genuinely discoverable to people who are already looking for what they offer, and only if listing themselves is simple. The product has to serve both at once: an easy browsing and search experience for the public, and a low-friction way for business owners to get on the platform and stand out. Get either side wrong and the directory stops being useful, because a directory is only as good as the listings inside it and how easily the right person can reach them.
How we helped
We designed and built the public website for The Best SG as a category-driven directory. The home page leads with a clear value statement and a prominent search bar so visitors can immediately look for a business, service or location. Below that, the site is organised into browsable categories - food and beverage, entertainment, services, finance, shopping, accommodation, fitness and activities - each opening into its own set of listings, so users can either search directly or explore by the kind of business they want. The site surfaces top and highly rated listings, includes a clear "List Your Business" path so owners can add themselves, and presents everything in a clean, mobile-friendly layout that works on a phone, which is how most people in Singapore will browse it. The result is one front door that handles both jobs: helping the public find businesses, and helping businesses get discovered.
What other businesses can take from this:
- A directory or marketplace serves two audiences at once - the people searching and the businesses being found. Design and test the experience for both, not just the side you talk to most.
- Lead with search and clear categories. When you have many listings, the fastest path to value is letting someone either type what they want or tap into the right category, rather than scrolling endlessly.
- Make it obvious and easy for the supply side to join. A visible, simple "list your business" path is what keeps the directory growing and fresh.
- Design mobile-first. For a local discovery site, most visits come from a phone, so the browsing and search experience has to feel right on a small screen first.
- Organise content around how customers think, not how your business is structured internally. Grouping by everyday categories people already understand lowers the effort of finding the right listing.
