Small businesses still don’t “get” the web

I’m really surprised, and a little disappointed, by news of a recent survey from Microsoft. It suggests that only half of the 4.3 million businesses in the UK with fewer than 10 staff have a website. The figure is reduced to 28% when sole traders are included, according to a poll by Jupiter Research.

Yes, we really are in the year 2008. That’s almost ten years since the start of the first dot.com bubble. The majority of British adults are now online, most with broadband connections. Tens of thousands of people have the skills and ready access to software to create websites. ISPs are falling over themselves to make the website creation process quick and simple. It is cheaper to build and host a website than it is to get an advert in Yellow Pages.

Small businesses around the world, particularly in the service sector, have found that having a website enables them to reach customers more effectively and compete against larger, better established operators.

So what on earth is stopping small businesses from creating an online presence?