Small Business IT mistake 8: Get more from the Internet

When businesses get online they have little more than an email address. Sadly this is how it remains for many businesses. That's a shame because the net has a huge range of benefits for the small business.

Nearly fifteen years ago the New Yorker had a cartoon saying on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.

For a smaller business, the Internet gives you the opportunity to project yourself as a much bigger organisation and allows you to reach a much bigger audience and markets.

The absolute must do for every business is to get a business domain registered. This is cheap and makes your business look professional. Using the email address supplied by your ISP screams cheap, cheap, cheap.

The next step is to organise hosting a website. Good hosting services cost between ten and fifty dollars a month depending upon the features such as multiple email addresses, mailing list services and all manner of tools to help you add features to your online presence.

To setup that online presence you need to start with a website. You can do it yourself but there are plenty of good website designers that can put together an attractive and functional website for a few hundred dollars.

The Internet doesn't just stop with websites. Other applications include hosted software services where you pay a monthly fee to use a software program, this can save a lot of money in capital costs and allows you and your staff to do their work while at home or on the road.

Accessing your information remotely is probably one of the biggest attractions of the Internet for small business. With the fixed IP addresses we discussed in the last post you can log into your office while anywhere in the world. This is a serious productivity gain for the small business owner.

The Internet has huge opportunities for the small business owner and I'm only just scratching the surface of what can be done. Once again, it's worthwhile consulting a professional who can look at your business needs to see what the net can do for you.


The next step is to organise hosting a website. Good hosting services cost between ten and fifty dollars a month depending upon the features such as multiple email addresses, mailing list services and all manner of tools to help you add features to your online presence.

To setup that online presence you need to start with a website. You can do it yourself but there are plenty of good website designers that can put together an attractive and functional website for a few hundred dollars.

The Internet doesn't just stop with websites. Other applications include hosted software services where you pay a monthly fee to use a software program, this can save a lot of money in capital costs and allows you and your staff to do their work while at home or on the road.

Accessing your information remotely is probably one of the biggest attractions of the Internet for small business. With the fixed IP addresses we discussed in the last chapter you can log into your office while anywhere in the world. This is a serious productivity gain for the small business owner.

The Internet has huge opportunities for the small business owner and I'm only just scratching the surface of what can be done. Once again, it's worthwhile consulting a professional who can look at your business needs to see what the net can do for you.