Gallatin Public Affairs, which has offices here and in Seattle, Portland, Boise, and Helena, has picked up a nice little piece of business that also could prove to be good news for many Spokane-area small businesses.

Gallatin has been hired by Google, the Internet services giant, to help launch a free website service for small businesses in Washington state. The initiative is titled, "Washington Get Your Business Online."

"Our job is to generate publicity for it," says Jeffrey Bell, managing partner for Gallatin's Spokane office.

The firm's contract with Google, its first with that global giant, is of "a modest size at this point," Bell says, but he adds, "Hopefully it will continue." It came about from professional ties that Gallatin President Dan Lavey, a partner in the firm's Portland office, had developed with Google's corporate communications director, he says.

Greater Spokane Incorporated, the economic development agency here, is one of a number of business organizations statewide that also are involved in promoting the new Google service to their members.

Research shows that more than 55 percent of small businesses in the state don't have a website or an online presence, yet more than 97 percent of consumers shop online, Bell says, which means many of those businesses are missing out on potential sales to customers.

Google's new service is intended to address that gap, he says. Through it, Washington businesses—for the next year—can go to www.washingtongetonline.com to set up a free website as well as find free tools, training, and other resources to help them succeed online. Google is partnering with Intuit to offer the service, which includes easy-to-build website instructions, a customized domain name, and web-hosting for a year.

After that year, the business pays $4.99 a month to maintain the website, or $7.99 a month if features are added. Google no doubt is hoping the initiative will help it generate additional long-term online revenue. Still, Bell asserts it's a "very inexpensive way" for small businesses to begin building an online presence.

Spokane Mayor David Condon and GSI President and CEO Rich Hadley both spoke favorably about the service in a Google press release issued last week, and small-business owner Trisha Watson—an early adopter here—says she's impressed by it.

Watson is a licensed esthetician who owns the Eyebrow Design Studio, at 22 W. Main. She says she decided to take advantage of the Google offer after receiving a call about it from a GSI representative, and set up her website at www.trishawatson.com last week.

"The actual building of the website I did entirely on my own. It was very clean and easy," Watson says, adding, "You can publish the domain immediately. You click the "publish" button, and you're online."

Of the way in which the do-it-yourself service is set up, she says, "I like it because it allows you to give just as much information as you need. That's what people are looking for. They don't want a bunch of mumbo jumbo. It's a very straight and to the point website. I would love to have had that early on when I first started 3 1/2 years ago."

She says she plans to cancel a separate website she set up earlier under the name of her studio and for which she pays about $30 a month. Of the need to be online, she says, "I've learned that a business without a website is like a house without a door." It provides a convenient entryway, she says, for prospective customers to learn about her and her services.

It will be interesting to see how many other small businesses here embrace that philosophy and use the Google service, and also what impact—if any—that competition will have on website developers here.