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Google India today announced its plan to get 50,000 small medium businesses in Gujarat online by end of 2014. The initiative is part of Google’s national campaign titled ‘India, get your business online’ which offers free websites and hosting to small medium business in India.
The campaign is aimed at bringing down the barrier that prevents small medium businesses to get on the Internet. Giving a head start to this project, Google also unveiled the details of a special project wherein Google India & HostGator went to popular traditional markets in Ahmadabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot and built websites for 5,000 small businesses making them accessible to the world.
In addition to creating the websites, Google India also created Google maps listings and Google+ business pages for these businesses. All these 5,000 businesses can also use 24X7 customer support to manage their websites and get free online advertising credit that can be used on Google search to promote their business online.
Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director, Google India, said, “Our research has shown that SMEs who use Internet, see revenue growth of 51% and raise in profits by 49%. Gujarat already represents 10% of the total Internet population in the country and houses many export oriented businesses, by being present on the Internet, they can make the world their market and continue to boost the economy of the country.”
Amongst the businesses that were covered in the project, Google India team built websites for traditional businesses operating out of local markets in Ahmedabad like the Manek Chowk, Teen Darwaza, Kabootar Khanna, Lathi Bazaar. In Surat the project covered Millenium market, Radha Krishnan market (textile market), In Rajkot - Soni bazaar and Sant Kabir road famous for jewellery stories, and in Vadodara - Lehri Pura Darwaja a market that focuses on traditional artifacts.
In addition to this initiative, Google will host several workshops through its 200 Google partners in Gujarat, who will provide local support to SMEs and help them to get online and grow their business through online marketing.
Google India and HostGator have come together to create ‘India Get Your Business Online’, a nation-wide initiative to help SMEs to get online with a website for free. The initiative is about taking away the barriers that stop small businesses from getting online - by making it quick, easy and free to set up a website. Indiagetonline.in is a website creation tool that lets bussinesses set up and maintain the website easily and in less than 15 minutes. Businesses get free .in domain for one year, a professional website and a free IVR service by knowlarity.
As part of this initiative, Google has already developed and published 250,000 websites for small and medium business in India spread across 8,200 cities and towns.
