Getting Irish Business Online - free websites for businesses in Ireland.

Google, Blacknight Internet Solutions, An Post and the County & City Enterprise Boards have all come together to launch a new campaign offering a free website and .ie domain, as well as tips and advice to help your business be found online. The idea behind the scheme? Well, it's in the name isn't it - to get Irish businesses online!

At a time when Ireland is promoting itself as a digital hub to the rest of the world, it's an embarassing statistic that 40% of Irish businesses do not have an online presence. In Ireland we seem reluctant, for one reason or another, to establish ourselves online. With more than 75% or people in Ireland using the internet as their primary source of research for businesses, products and services, we can no longer afford to miss out on this medium for advertising and presenting our businesses to potential customers.

In 1999, Homer Simpson said "The internet? Is that thing still around?". It's now 2011 and yes, the internet is still around and it's not going any where. It's become an integral part of how people buy, sell and research products and services.

There is now little or no excuse for businesses in Ireland to not have a website. Why? Because now you can get one for FREE! Getting Irish Business Online (GIBO) gives you the ability to create your own website for free. Register your domain name for free, and get free hosting from Blacknight for 1 year. Choose from a variety of stylish templates, fill in your company information and the information you want to display on your website and click submit! That's it. Hey presto, you've got yourself a free website.

Using the tips section of the website you'll learn how to make your site more visible on the web, track your websites perfomance using Google Analytics, and avail of €100 worth of Google Adwords.

The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, was at the launch of this initiative and rightly emphasised the importance of Irish businesses in establishing themselves some sort of online presence. We can no longer lag behind our global counterparts when it comes to technology, especially not when we're trying to establish ourselves as a leader in technology around the world.

If Wolfhound Software provide website design services, why would they promote this initiative?

The answer to this question is on our About Us page: "Our primary aim is to provide businesses with cost effective technology solutions that actually have an impact on their business. We do not view potential customers as sales leads - instead we will talk with you, analyse your requirements and provide you with options on how you may improve your business processes and productivity through the intelligent deployment of technology.

In other words we won't try to sell you a solution unless we believe it will improve the way you do business. This also means that if we believe the correct solution for your business needs lies outside our areas of expertise we'll tell you and where possible provide a reliable reference for you to get that expertise."

There is more to a website than what this initiative offers. That's not to belittle this initiative in any way. In fact we applaud Blacknight and Google et al for this initiative. It's the perfect starter package for businesses to get themselves online, and we strongly believe that if you don't have a website then get one!

If you're looking to create a unique online brand, designed to your own businesses specifications, then why not contact us today for a free quotation?

We believe that this initiative will help to give businesses a greater appreciation of the web and how a website can help their business, and that is something that we fully support. If you or your company decide to sign up to this initiative, but further down the line would like to establish your own unique brand and expand what you gain from this initiative, then get in touch with us - we would be more than happy to help out.

See what Enda had to say: