By Mark Johnson
The Town of Zionsville has received major recognition from Google. Zionsville was recently awarded the 2013 Google ecity Award. Each year, Google chooses one city from each state as the recipient of this award.
The cities are chosen based on Google’s measurement of its own economic impact in every state. Google then makes a decision by reviewing the amount of economic value that is provided by Google Search and AdWords, Google AdSense and Google Grants in 2012.
While Town Council President Jeff Papa is proud of the city, the award comes as no surprise.
“Obviously, it’s good. It’s very prestigious,” he said. “However, I’m not surprised given the level of education we have here, given the strength of our local business community, and given degree of excellence of our local businesses.”
Zionsville IT Director Joe Rust also has high praise for the Zionsville business community.
“It’s really a testament to the local businesses and what they do online,” he said. “Zionsville has been involved with many e-commerce businesses that are very active. With this award, Zionsville has really placed itself at the top of online business. It’s really a measurement of how hard businesses work and how they present themselves online.”
Rust also noted the boost that local businesses could receive from such recognition.
“I think this could bring further high-tech businesses to Zionsville and Indiana,” he said. “This will bring additional businesses to our area both online and in person. From an IT perspective, it shows what an online presence can do for business and the community. It’s good for the city and great for technology.”
Papa sees this as an opportunity for Zionsville to shine and for other residents and businesses to see what the town has to offer.
“Hopefully, this will spark some interest in some other businesses opening up shop here,” he said. “We hope they will check out the other great businesses we have here, the outstanding school system we have, our very-low crime rate, and our cultural events. They’ll see that we have a really unique community.”
