India is home to an estimated 8 million small and medium businesses (SMB), only about 400,000 have a website. It is mainly because the business users often believe that getting online is too complex, costly and time-consuming and so they are not ready to build their online presence.

Google India, in partnership with ICICI Bank and HostGator, has launched a new program called India Get Online where they make it easy for you to setup a website for your business for free. This initiative is mainly designed to bridge the information gap that exists online due to the lack of presence of local Indian businesses on the Internet.

As part of the deal, you get a free .in web domain (provided it is available) and free web hosting for one year. The .in domain will registered to you while Hostgator will manage the website hosting though you can move the site to any other web host for free.

Also see: 10 Best Websites For Designing Your Logos Online For Free

Details of India Get Online program:

• 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. However there is a set of readymade web templates, pick one that matches your business profile, you can customize the text and pictures of the pages and your site is good to go.
• 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.
• Gives you your own .in domain
• Your website will be integrated with Google Apps so you also get access to other Google products like Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Docs and more.
• Other features include photos/logos, integration with social media platforms
• 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.

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This offer might look for spammers but Google India has made it mandatory for users to enter their Permanent Account Number (PAN) or Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN) at the time of registration since it unique.