Why is is that many small businesses - and I am talking about your one-man bands and non-techie B2C trades here - still don’t have consistent branding when it comes to online?

I still see companies with their www.companyname address printed on the side of their van, and then their e-mail address is below it - an AOL address or the like. I can imagine the reason is the complicated system of email and web hosting when it’s not tied to an ISP. I am (to a fashion) a techie and I sometimes struggle understanding email hosting and SMTP servers, etc.

That said, getting a cohesive presence of name can and should be implemented by all small businesses to offer a more cohesive (and more memorable) experience for a customer.

I have found some good web and email hosting for small business at a company called Cut. They aren’t big, but the service is personal, cost-effective, and problems are very minimal. It’s good value for money.

Using companies like this, rather than the impersonal large companies, I have managed to pursuade more and more small businesses to get the email address that ties in with the web address.