There few people left who can't see that the internet has become THE indespensable marketing tool for your business, no matter how small or large you are.

People have realised that the web is no longer about tech-savvy individuals coming up with clever ideas, but a bread and butter marketing opportunity. Just as email, SMS and Instant Messaging have replaced the post and supplemented the telephone, websites, social media, paid advertising and e-mail marketing have replaced the newspaper ad as the preferred way to pull in more customers. They have also began to understand that the web is as much a place for brand awareness and reputation building as it is for customer acquisition. Increasingly they are trusting the web to store and handle their data as more and more cloud services become available.

Even so, many businesses find that they struggle to make an impact and face a lot of barriers to getting the best out of their online access. Just some of the problems smaller businesses list are the lack of proper high-speed broadband access, lack of good IT advice (smaller businesses cannot often afford a full-time IT manager to advise on which technologies they should choose) and a general lack of understanding of how to create the best impression online.