October 03, 2016

Manchin Attends Seminar To Help West Virginia Businesses Get Online

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) delivered remarks at a seminar in Wheeling, hosted by Google and the Discover the Real West Virginia Foundation (DRWVF). The seminar is part of Google’s Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map program, which focuses on helping small businesses use online tools to expand their business. Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map is a program that empowers communities to support their local businesses and encourage them to get online where the majority of people are going to find goods and services.

“I’m proud to participate in this important seminar that will help provide our small business owners, non-profits and local agencies with the tools they need to get online and increase awareness of their organizations,” Senator Manchin said. “This partnership between Google and the Discover the Real West Virginia Foundation will spur economic development and will help share the good things that the Mountain State is doing to get and keep our people working.”

Small businesses need to be online because their customers are: 4 in 5 consumers use search engines to find information about local businesses, but less than half of US small businesses have a website (45%) and only 37% have claimed or updated their business information on a search engine. Complete business information helps generate economic value to individual communities. In small communities, this could be worth up to +$300K a year.

Google is partnering with StartLogic to provide its popular website offerings for free including an easy-to-build website, a customized domain name, and web-hosting for one year.  Participating Northern Panhandle businesses can go to GYBO.com to get a free website as well as free tools, training and resources to help their business succeed online.

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