Google Partners with Local Businesses for Workshops

Google’s Get Your Business Online (GYBO) team – in conjunction with local partners like New Plains MediaMedia, the Omaha Chamber of Commerce and others – is on a mission to make it fast, easy and free for local businesses to tackle the online basics. And with four out of five people using search engines to find local info like business hours and directions, it’s more important than ever for your business to be online.

Register today for our first joint workshop, May 4, 2-5 p.m. at the Weitz Community Engagement Center. The Chamber has built a program that goes beyond GYBO to help businesses of all sizes assess or determine their overall digital strategy.

In an effort to help businesses control of their Google My Business page and to insure the most accurate information for consumers, Google has visited all 50 states to help businesses get online. But even with Google’s outreach efforts, only 37% of businesses have claimed a local business listing on a search engine – and that’s a lot of missing information.

Google asks for help

Google is now partnering with local businesses, city officials and people who care about local business – like New Plains Media – to help spread the word about the importance of getting local business information on Google Search and Google Maps.

Why is Google using its resources to do this? Because like New Plains Media, Google believes that local businesses are vital to America’s economic future. In fact, small businesses make up half of the U.S. economy and create two-thirds of all new jobs.

GYBO is easy to do – and it’s FREE!

To get started, businesses just need to claim or create their Google My Business page and then to verify their business. Working with New Plains MediaMedia makes verification instant and easy. To help local businesses do this, Google created a new initiative called “Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map,” wherein Google teams up with local leaders to create a program for 30,000 U.S. cities –all with the singular focus of getting local business info online and on the map.

Google is equipping local partners with free trainings and customized city materials to run workshops of their own. New Plains Media – in partnership with Google – has already held several free workshops, and have many more planned for 2016.

Hope to see everyone on May 4! Stay tuned for more to come!