Okay, so today I’m gonna walk you through my experience messing around with data on local businesses in Bothell. Nothing too fancy, just sharing what I did and what I learned.
First off, I started by grabbing some data. Found a few different sources – a list from the city website, some info from Yelp, and even some random business directories I stumbled upon online. It was a bit of a mess, honestly, with different formats and missing info all over the place.
Then came the fun part – cleaning it all up. I basically just opened everything up in a spreadsheet (Google Sheets, because it’s easy) and started going through it line by line. Removed duplicates, standardized the address formats, and tried to fill in missing phone numbers and categories where I could. It was super tedious, but gotta do what you gotta do, right?
Next, I wanted to see what kind of businesses were actually in Bothell. I created a pivot table in Google Sheets and grouped the businesses by category. Turns out, there are a LOT of restaurants and coffee shops (no surprise there). Also noticed a decent number of service-based businesses like hair salons and auto repair shops. Good to know!
After that, I tried geocoding the addresses to plot them on a map. I used a free online geocoding service for this. It wasn’t perfect – a few addresses didn’t match properly, so I had to manually correct them. Once I had the coordinates, I used Google My Maps to create a custom map showing all the businesses. It was cool to see the distribution of businesses across the city.
I also tried to find some interesting trends. Like, are certain types of businesses clustered in specific areas? Does the average Yelp rating vary depending on the category? Just simple stuff to get a feel for the data. Nothing earth-shattering, but still interesting to play around with.
Here’s a quick rundown of the tools I used:
- Google Sheets (for data cleaning and analysis)
- Free online geocoding service (can’t remember the exact one, there are tons out there)
- Google My Maps (for visualizing the data on a map)
Honestly, it was a pretty basic project, but it was a good way to get a better sense of the local business landscape in Bothell. Plus, I learned a few new tricks with Google Sheets along the way.
Key Takeaways:
- Data cleaning is a pain, but it’s essential.
- Free tools can get you surprisingly far.
- Even simple data analysis can reveal interesting insights.
That’s about it! Hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any questions or if you’ve done something similar. Always up for learning new stuff!
