COVID-19 has closed a quarter of UK businesses and nearly half of US Black owned businesses
As the country plunges into another lockdown, small to medium businesses will again struggle to survive on the high street and at home. In April 2020, a report released by Statistica highlighted that 24.3% of businesses “have temporarily closed or paused” due to COVID-19.
93% of online experiences begin with an online search engine BUT over 91% of web pages are not actually listed. Meaning virtually 0 people find them through search-relevant websites like Google.
This is further limiting the success of small to medium businesses and enhancing the impact COVID has on SME’s – especially Black businesses, with over 40% of those in the US being closed due to COVID-19. Viaduct Generation, a mission led SEO agency, analysed the top 1,000 online businesses and found that only 2 of them were Black owned. While today, the 8th of January 2021 is the first #ethnicitypaygap awareness day highlighting the fact that there is a £3.2 billion ethnicity pay gap in the UK according to the Office for National Statistics.
To combat this, three, decade long friends have joined forces with the world largest Enterprise SEO technology and their knowledge of the online world to help businesses perform well online while physical doors are closed.
Viaduct Generation, a start-up SEO agency in London, are offering an A.I. powered solution to this issue for Black, POC and Progressive businesses who are small-medium in size. They have exclusively partnered with Searchmetrics, the world’s largest SEO company, to make this enterprise-level technology affordable. In a bid to begin “diversifying digital” spaces, they are offering free website reviews for the SME market.
Born in 2020 from the fires of social unrest, after the murder of George Floyd, this mission-led company was created by three decade-long friends; Cain McCallam, Fabio Embalo and Duray Pretorius. The diverse trio, who met at West London’s Brentside High School sixth form college, are walking headstrong into this venture because, “at the end of the day, this business is just a face behind the social purpose we are trying to achieve – social equity.” Co-Founder and CTO, Fabio, went on to state that “Black businesses are not utilising the transformational power of SEO and are forfeiting online visibility, market share and commercial growth.”
The company has recently won Oxford Brookes University’s People’s Choice awards at ‘Fuel’, the university’s annual pitch competition for start-up businesses. The team were judged to have given the best and most comprehensive presentation amongst a host of other Oxford Brookes University businesses; who battled it out after 8 weeks of training in Marketing, Business model, Forecasts and finances, IP and Legal. Rebecca Heppolette – the main organiser told Viaduct Generation, “your team is incredibly strong, and your concept is great. SEO is not going away and it is a quick business to scale. The judges were also very interested in the podcast idea.”
As well as servicing small-medium sized businesses with powerful and cost-effective tech, they are also set to make noise with their upcoming podcast. The Wise Build Bridges podcast will share perspectives from creatives and entrepreneurs of colour; while exploring cultural topics and sharing valuable digital insights.
With their combined skill set in SEO, Creative Marketing and Business Development, Viaduct Generation have pulled resources together, with the help of their professional network, to offer SMEs unbelievable and needed value. They have launched with their new website viaductgen.com, and are now looking to reach and support a range of businesses with SEO.
“Really and truly this business has social purpose at the core. We wanted to help the community, but we didn’t have the credibility, capital or contacts to truly make an impact. We assessed what we could make happen with our combined networks and Viaduct Generation was born.” — Viaduct Generation
Follow Viaduct Generation’s journey as they push to #DiversifyDigital spaces or contact them for further information via the details below.
Website: https://viaductgen.com/
Instagram: viaductgen/
Email: info@viaductgen.world
Phone: 074 2828 4691