Google is offering free website for Indian SMBs

Google India today announced a unique program called “India Get Your Business Online” for small medium businesses (SMBs) in India. The program offers free websites, domain & hosting services to small medium businesses in India. According to Google there are 8 million small medium businesses in India but only 5% of them have the online presence. This program will bridge that gap and brings the local businesses to online.

The program is designed with local partners and provides tools and resources to establish a website. Hosting is provided by HostGator, the web hosting is free for one year. Google aims to get 500,000 businesses online in the next three years through this program. Businesses will also get a .IN domain name free for the first year. Indian small business owners can logon to www.indiagetonline.in to signup for the free website program.

This is what Indian businesses will get from this offer

• Free: It’s free to set up your website. The domain is free for 1 year, and it’s free to maintain your website for 12 months.
• Quick: The website tool takes 15 minutes from sitting down to being found online
• Easy: You don’t need to be a tech whiz to get started. All you need to start is your address, phone number, TAN/CIN or PAN to verify you as a business
• The website is simple because customers are looking for simple information online
• Gives you your own .in domain
• Other features include photos/logos, integration with social media platforms
• You get a Google Apps account – free personalised email ids
• If you want to make your website work harder, you’ll have access to steady stream of free tips and tools from the Getting Indian Business Online team and a free coupon of worth Rs. 2500 INR advertising trial from Google AdWords to help promote your site.
• After the first year, SMBs can choose to pay a monthly pay-as-you-go to maintain their website using hostgator.
• At the end of the first year, they’ll have to pay a nominal charge if they wish to renew their domain name. They can cancel their website at any time.

This program is supported by Federation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), popularly known as FISME.