Sometimes you see a press release that's just company puff. Other times you find something you weren't expecting - like the revelation that 46% of the UK's smallest businesses don't have a website, according to 1&1 Internet.
The initial reaction is to start making excuses. If they're very small then maybe they can't spare the time to develop one; I thought that for a moment until recalling that I am myself a one-person business, a freelance journalist, and although it's based on a pre-packaged design my own website at least exists.
There are of course micro businesses that don't need a website. 15 years or so when websites first began my window cleaner asked me whether he should get one; we quickly concluded that he'd be better off spending his time and money on leaflets for local potential customers than putting a website together that might attract interest from areas he had no intention of serving.
There are other examples, though, when it's crazy not to have something online. Two nights ago my wife and I decided to eat Chinese. We have a favourite restaurant so we Googled it and found...no menu. We found another and were able to choose our food online, order it and have it delivered. I'll leave you to guess who got the business that day.
Members of this forum will be well aware that websites don't have to be particularly complex and they don't always have to be transactional, it's really going to depend on what's appropriate to the business. The fact that so many businesses in the UK are missing out is indeed a surprise.
