|
Google
and several Florida
business development agencies have
entered an interesting partnership
aimed at getting more of the Sunshine
State's businesses online. In
their promotion of the plan I was
surprised to learn that 68% of
small businesses in Florida do not have
a |
|
|
website!
That is insane, especially when
statistics show that 97%
of consumers look online for
local products and services (with this
kind of disconnect, it's no wonder the
mortality rate for small business start
ups is so high)! On the other hand it
shows how much potential growth
remains in the SMB segment (small to
medium sized businesses) for online
service providers, including registrars,
domain sellers, hosting companies, web
designers, etc. |
Google
and its Florida partners have even scheduled
live seminars around the state to show
business owners, in person, how to get their
enterprises online. They will be held in Miami
April 3rd and 4th, 2012 and in Tampa
on April 5th (details
are here).
|
|
It
looks like a sweet deal, at least for
the first year - after that it's no
longer free, but it's still cheap,
especially when you consider how indispensable
an online presence is today. The deal
includes a free domain, free hosting for
a year, use of an idiot proof automatic
domain builder from Intuit for
generating the website plus free online
tools and training.
After
the first year if the business wants to
continue using the domain, site, hosting
service and resources it is $6.99
a month ($4.99 a |
"Online
Shopping image" from
Bigstock |
|
month
for hosting and $2 a month for the
domain name. If the business already
owns a domain name they want to use,
they can do that and pay only for the
hosting). |
There's
not a lot of profit there for Google, but it is
probably a safe bet that their primary goal is,
once they have these businesses online, getting
them to buy advertising for their sites
on Google. As for you, as a domain seller, it's
hard to compete with free - but once these SMBs
finally get online and become better educated
about how much a good domain can boost their
business, some are bound to look for better
names on the aftermarket. (Thanks to John
Picchietti for the tip on this program.)
|
