Central Virginia SBDC expanding website program

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - What started as building websites for only 12 businesses in Charlottesville and Albemarle County is now expanding to close to 100 websites all throughout central Virginia.

“Includes City of Charlottesville, counties of Albemarle, Green, Orange, Louisa Fluvanna, Nelson, Rappahannock, Madison and Culpeper,” Central Virginia Small Business Development Center Director Rebecca Haydock said.

Haydock says funding from the GO Virginia grant is allowing for this program to expand, with the same goal of taking businesses to the next step.

“There are numerous businesses that are contacting us that need help with their websites, and they need help beyond just marketing which is what we typically help with,” Haydock said. “They need help actually getting those websites built and up and running.”

Since the coronavirus pandemic has driven most sales online, it is important these businesses have the tools to enter the virtual sales world.

“This program was designed to help those that will really benefit from it,” Haydock said. “Give them a nice, solid website from which they can do business and they can attract the customers.”

Any for-profit business in central Virginia is eligible for this program, but even if your business already has a website the SBDC is still able to help you.

“We expect that we’re going to train well over another 150 business owners, on how to manage their existing websites,” Haydock said.

From start to finish, it’s only weeks before business in this program have their newly built site up and running.

“Our goal is that these websites are built within two weeks of someone starting in the program,” Haydock said. “It may take as much as three or four, but we’d really like to try to shorten that timeframe and more quickly to get as many websites out as quickly as possible.”

Click here for a link to the application.